Indy Lights FIA Homologation Papers

We've got a guy that wants to homologate his 1997 Lola T97/20 in FS for SCCA competition. While we're all confident this design was FIA certified and is perfectly fine for what we do, neither the SCCA office nor the owner has any such paperwork to support the FIA homologation. Lola is out of business and we can't get a response from anyone with the FIA. In the interest of crossing I's and dotting T's we're seeking your help:

Does anyone have FIA paperwork on a similar car? If not, do you have suggestions on how we might go about obtaining same?

And yes, we fully understand this is technically the responsibility of the car owner but we're trying to exhibit exemplary customer service here... :)

May Help

http://www.apexspeed.com/forums/showthread.php?t=55946

I would think HAAS would have some info as well!

Am not sure if Haas would have the history of those cars as that was the Swift era of Haas.

Roger Bailey would know the history.

http://www.grand-am.com/tabid/141/ar...e-Officer.aspx

The lights Lola T97 was a F3000 in other markets. The real issue is the tub and its safety. You might be able to find the papers for the chassis in another application.

I engineered these cars for many years and I have had a few drivers bump walls very hard in this car. This is one tough chassis. At Milwaukee, a good driver could almost make turn 1-2 flat. The current Lights car is not nearly as fast in the corners as the old Lola.

I would think the safety record of these cars in Lights should be sufficient.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by S Lathrop

The lights Lola T97 was a F3000 in other markets.

---

Far be it for me to question you, Steve, you know way more about such things than I do, but are you sure the T97/20 tub was an F3000 as well? I run a 1991 F3000 (T91/50) in vintage often side by side with T97 Lights and it is far smaller than they are. Sure my car is 6 years earlier but I have compared my 1991 F3000 with other later F3000 and they are all of similar size. The Lights are "limos" by comparison! Just don't want your comments to mislead the guy asking the question. There may well be design similarities but would that help homologation? Derek

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dereklola

Far be it for me to question you, Steve, you know way more about such things than I do, but are you sure the T97/20 tub was an F3000 as well? I run a 1991 F3000 (T91/50) in vintage often side by side with T97 Lights and it is far smaller than they are. Sure my car is 6 years earlier but I have compared my 1991 F3000 with other later F3000 and they are all of similar size. The Lights are "limos" by comparison! Just don't want your comments to mislead the guy asking the question. There may well be design similarities but would that help homologation? Derek

---

The T91 and the T97 shared a ton of parts. The tubs were completely different. I can not believe that Lola made that car only for CART. It just would not have been economical to do 30 tubs. But I do not know for certain.

Because Indy Lights cars were made only for an American racing series, and FIA has no real presence in America, I really doubt that they were certified to any FIA standards. If SCCA's intent is for FS to be an open wheel catch-all class, they need to change the rules to allow non-FIA tub cars.

Neal is probably correct.

But the CART rules at the time were in force and they had a stronger standard that FIA because of oval track racing and the very high speeds. The car should have a CART registration sticker on the tub some place.

These were very good cars. The car I engineered at PacWest has 30,000 racing and test miles on it when I started the last season with them.

There are a ton of these cars running in the vintage groups. Someone will have a copy of the USAC/IndyCar safety paperwork somewhere. It might even have an official IndyCar chassis tag which should satisfy all but the most obtuse lawyers.

Butch:

Get ahold of Roger Bailey - he's by far your best source of info on these cars. Haas would have been the importer at the time (as far as I know, their Lola importing deal included the Lites car as well), but who knows if anyone is left up there that knows anything about the cars.

Unfortunately, with the demise of CART, it is almost definite that the only info available on these cars is in Rogers memory.

RP

Thanks for the thought; I have a message in to Roger.

The T97 was built to withstand superspeedway racing (Michigan, Fontana etc.) because Lights was venturing in that direction and the previous Lights car (T93?) was not built with that kind of racing in mind, although it did do a couple of high-speed oval races too. I know proper paperwork is proper paperwork, but this thing has to be more than adequate for anything it would be doing today. Great looking car too. Seen one or two at historic meets. This guy's onto something; would be a force in FS.

we have multiple in the DC region but for the life of me I cant remember the drivers names. It was in the DC region the Lites cars were first run after Frank Sanchez got the cars thru the SCCA process.

Rodger Bailey is the 1 person you need to get a answer from.

As a former crew chief, then race engineer in the Lights series from 96-2000, I don't remember any kind of paper work for these cars at all. Just Aero info pack which I still have one of.

The T97 was built for Cart Indy lights. The cars pre 97 were F3000.
We as a team built 5 new out of the crate T97s . I never saw any homologation papers. Maybe the went directly to team owners ?

Cars were teched every race weekend. They never got a tech decal. But Cart did keep their own records for tech inspection. They did not have any log books either.

As Steve mentioned these tubs were built to a higher standard for safety on the ovals. This car will pass any SCCA safety test they have.

So !st Try Rodger Bailey Then maybe Haas as he was the importer. Try IndyCar maybe old tech records will help, if still available.

If you need any set-up info I can help you with that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lenny T.

Rodger ........ This car will pass any SCCA safety test they have......

---

Trouble being considered here is, it's pretty tough for a guy to take his unique carbon fiber race car and subject it to an FIA crash test as the SCCA wants to see for this type car. That project should have been done during development.

I guess I'm surprised Indy Racing accepted the chassis without the usual crash testing.

The sad part of this thread is that the Lola T97 is a very good car with an outstanding safety record. The idea that SCCA can not find a way to get this car to the track speaks more about SCCA than it does about the car.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by S Lathrop

The sad part of this thread is that the Lola T97 is a very good car with an outstanding safety record. The idea that SCCA can not find a way to get this car to the track speaks more about SCCA than it does about the car.

---

Understood. One result of all this is there's a discussion currently getting started about the whole homologation process and what it's intend to accomplish.

As I mentioned, all is not lost , there are already 2 or 3 racing in FS in the DC region with paperwork from the DC region. Frank Sanchez went thru the process 1st, cars sold to Ralph Manaker and a partner who sold them to the guys I simply cannot remember their names. Cars run out of Ted Ellers race shop. If one of the SCCA types wants to message me I will pass on the phone numbers that I have if it help move things along.

I remember the cars in the DC Region, and believe they were given logbooks BEFORE the SCCA requireent for FIA homologation. The FIA homologation requirement effectively kills off guys who would like to design/build their own formula car. I would love to see it removed!

Larry Oliver

The part that I don't understand is that you can build a tube frame GT car and there is no need for homologation, but build a tube frame Formula car and there is.
What's the difference?
The whole homologation process needs a re-think and has for many years.

Why?

Because it is pretty easy to build a competent tube frame car, and very easy for any half-way knowledgeable tech person or fabricator to tell if there are flaws in it.

Homologation on formula cars is most likely because of the small volume relative to the driver. BUT, homologation isn't about the overall frame design and construction - just specific aspects of the safety cage.

A composite tub, on the other hand, is massively easy to screw up and have a death trap on your hands.

I used to have a Lola 93/20. I thought that they had gotten the green light to run in Fs many moons go. Call Ray Snowden.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Larry

The FIA homologation requirement effectively kills off guys who would like to design/build their own formula car. I would love to see it removed!

---

There was some guy at the F/SR runoffs meeting who stood up and said that the crash test requirement should be removed and the SCCA should take FEA data on homebuilt composite chassis. It blew my mind that someone would even suggest it.

there is a reason that the FIA requires the cars to be crash tested. F1 teams still fail these tests, so I hope that my lack of faith in some guy sitting at home with Solidworks is understandable.

Frank got his cars thru SCCA process circa 2005 the F3 crash standards for carbon tubs existed long before then. Curiously no one has messaged me for the phone number of the shop where the cars are so I guess the problem has worked itself out.

I can only speak to the Lola 9320 but that thing stout.

So is the 97 Jimmy.

As I was coming off the CRB in 2002 we were approached about a home-made carbon tub - not sure of the class. We adopted the F3 standard to get a level of liability protection. The Indy Lights was way heavier than the FIA F3/F3000 tests so it fell in a gray area as no one at CART ever had any paperwork - it was accepted as their series car and changed as circumstances required for safety (like the FA intrusion panels on the 008s). This now puts the Indy Lights cars in an area where only their competition history shows their strength.
We also had a guy try to homologate an F1 turbo car for FS in California at the same time and the thought was that there should be an upper limit for regional formula S cars - it actually came from the region that really did not want the car accepted to run with the Formula car group (inc FV!).
Shortly after my time the CRB chose not to homologate ex Indy Lights cars and I believe that the homologation was revoked. Now they have a new request for the T9720 Indy Lights and the same question should be asked - since an Indy Car is safer, should it be allowed to run regional FS?

What does an Indy Lights car weigh and what would their top speed be at some place like Road Atlanta?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Wren

What does an Indy Lights car weigh and what would their top speed be at some place like Road Atlanta?

---

1450 lbs. without driver.

When I ran Road Atlanta in 2001, I geared the car for 156 mph. At Michigan in 1999, I geared for 192 mph.