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When automobile fanatics get collectively in teams, it’s inevitable that the bench racing hypotheticals will begin flying. If Betty White was driving a Viper, do you suppose you might beat her in a race driving your Toyota Celica? Would Michael Schumacher in his prime beat Fangio in the event that they had been each driving the identical automobile? How far again would it’s a must to go on your race automobile to be quick sufficient to qualify for the Indy 500? That final one has been my favourite bench race question for over a decade, and it all the time will get my thoughts working.
A good friend’s father as soon as instructed me he had a C2-generation Corvette “with an experimental Can Am motor” that turned a lap at Indy “quick sufficient for pole” that 12 months. It’s complete bullshit, and undoubtedly not potential, as a result of Indy roadsters had been fairly rattling quick by the mid-Sixties, and Corvettes, uh, weren’t. However might a C8 Corvette qualify for the 1966 Indy 500? Yeah, I wager it might.
With advances in aerodynamics, tires, and reliability, trendy street automobiles are sooner than ever earlier than, and even sooner than essentially the most bonkers racing specials of yesteryear. I’ll in all probability find yourself doing extra of those sooner or later, however figured I might begin with a reasonably easy one. If you happen to purchased one in all Mazda’s $60,000 MX-5 Cup race automobiles, based mostly on the usual Miata drivetrain and bodywork, what’s essentially the most trendy Indianapolis 500 Mile Race that you might win outright? And what number of years later would you be kicked out on bump day?
Let’s do some math!
To begin with, let’s decide what an MX-5 Cup automobile can do. These automobiles really raced at Indianapolis in 2017, however the sequence used the street course, so the information from that race isn’t notably helpful. To determine our MX-5 Cup’s high pace, let’s look to the current race at Daytona Worldwide Speedway. Beneath is an onboard video from Gresham Wagner’s race one victory. The automobile’s information recorder exhibits a most pace of 146-ish miles per hour for the MX-5 Cup, however that’s operating in a pack within the draft, so let’s say our max pace for solo qualifying at Indy can be round 140 miles per hour.
Given the power to set the automobile up accurately for the 4 left-hand turns on the brickyard, the precise tires to final a full stint at pace, and we’ll enable a bit of little bit of downforce if vital, I wouldn’t doubt that an MX-5 Cup might go flat out at Indy for the complete lap, so we’ll say our theoretical common qualifying pace over three flying laps can be precisely 140.0 miles per hour.
The final 12 months that our theoretical MX-5 Cup would qualify for pole on the Indy 500 is 1955, matching polesitter Jerry Hoyt’s 140.045 pole. Okay, so we’re on pole, however do we’ve a shot at profitable?
Again then Indy roadsters wanted to pit for gasoline 3 times within the 500 mile race, that means they might go 125 miles, roughly, on a full tank. An MX-5’s gasoline tank is 11.9 gallons, that means we’d have to realize not less than 10.5 miles per gallon at V-max. It isn’t essentially RPM that determines gasoline consumption, a lot as it’s load, and a Miata goes to be beneath critical load at 140 miles per hour. It’s rated at 30 MPG mixed, so I believe it might probably go 125 miles on a tank.
Even nonetheless, we’ll be conservative and say the MX-5 wants a further cease over an Indy Roadster to finish the five hundred. 4 stops in 500 miles. In these days Indy pit stops noticed the automobile stationary for round 25 seconds every cease, which might be a bit longer than a well-oiled machine operating a gasoline dump and tire change on the Miata. I’m going to say that the MX-5 might brake from pace faster than the Roadster, and speed up again to V-max faster than the long-gear Roadsters might, so total time misplaced within the pits goes to be about equal for the Miata and the opponents at Indy. It washes out, pit stops received’t be the factor that kills our Miata’s win.
Bob Sweikert (above) received the 1955 Indy 500 in his pink Zink particular with a mean pace of 128.209 miles per hour. Given 4 stops at 20 seconds every, plus sooner acceleration and braking, we’ll spend about 120 seconds of the race not operating flat out. Stick it in high gear and put your foot to the ground, you’ll be caught at 140.0 miles per hour for 100 mile stints. And if you happen to catch a draft, you would possibly even run sooner than that. I believe we’re in with a shot to win the 1955 Indy 500 from pole place in a 2024 Mazda MX-5 Cup automobile.
Our ending time, after pit stops, assuming nothing went improper, can be three hours, 36 minutes, and 12 seconds. Sweikert’s profitable time in 1955 was three hours, 53 minutes, and 24 seconds. We received by 17 minutes!
So with a qualifying pace of 140 miles per hour, and a race common pace of 138.76 miles per hour, we will look to historical past to find out a number of issues.
The final Indy 500 we might qualify on pole for was 1955.
The final Indy 500 we might win based mostly on our common time to complete was 1959.
Although we would come out on high in a 1960 photograph end in opposition to Jim Rathmann’s Ken-Paul Particular, which averaged 138.767 miles per hour within the race, we wouldn’t have run a quick sufficient qualifying lap to make it into the large present. The slowest qualifier in 1960 was Jim McWithey’s Epperly-Offenhauser, which ran a 140.37 MPH in qualifying, and retired on lap 60 with brake failure.
Clearly that is all in enjoyable, and there are 100 thousand completely different variables that must go precisely our means to ensure that this to occur. However, if you happen to ever get the chance to journey to 1959, and you may carry a 2024 Mazda MX-5 Cup with you, attempt to win the Indy 500. You simply would possibly.
Now I’m curious if a brand new Porsche GT3 Cup might beat the 1970 Porsche 917 to win Le Mans… That’s a query for another time.
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