Is the 1991 Lola Champ Car Full Carbon?

[bennybigb]

Hello Everyone,

I know that CART allowed Full Carbon cars for the 1991 Season. Do any of you know if the 1991 Lola was a full Carbon Car? If not, when did Lola change their Champ Car/Indy Car Chassis to Full Carbon?

Just curious, so I thought I would ask the pros.

Thanks guys!

[Neil_Roberts]

The upper half of the tub was carbon, and the lower half was aluminum, per regulations through '91.

For '92, the regs were changed to allow the floor to be carbon, but some of the sides of the lower half still had to be aluminum. That was a bizarre half-step.

The high temp on race day in '92 was 58°F. I remember that clearly, because I was working the telemetry and pit stop scheduling for John Andretti. The cold tires and cold carbon brakes resulted in numerous crashes on restarts. That resulted in numerous foot and leg injuries. So, the tub regs changed in a big way for '93. The tub had to include an additional bulkhead 12" forward of the master cylinder bulkhead, it was all carbon, the material specs were regulated to a specific grade of T800 carbon with a minimum toughness spec for the resin, and the inner, outer, and core thicknesses were mandated. Also, the nose fasteners were required to be at least some number of 5/16 flat head cap screws. All of that produced a massively safer Indycar.

[bennybigb]

Thank you very much for this information Neil! I knew the cars had longer noses in 93, but I wasn't sure how the full carbon chassis played into that.