Silly Season - Yes or No....

[Race5]

Re: Silly Season - Yes or No....

So why you all dissin The Galloping Ghost? Cant we spread some love here? The planes fast! As cool looking as any of the others, rather mysterious, I say that because who has seen it at full tilt boogie? Its also flown by a great pilot with alot of race time. I paced the wings of GG, strega and Voodoo. They are pretty much the same (very un-scientific I know). I would have used a tape measure but I didnt think the teams would like me doing that.

So I ask.......Where is the love folks?

The wings on the ghost are quite a bit shorter than Strega / Voodoo. The boiler hasn't been tested at Gold race power settings so they don't even know if she has enough water capacity to run the whole race. Judging by their start up and shut down procedures last year I think they were concerned about that as well. The fuselage and cowl are no where near as slick and refined as Strega. I'm not sure the lack of the scoop will negate that. Their engine program is being done by Shanholtzer who does not build Allison rod Merlins. I'm not saying his motors are "bad", but it is well proven that a non Allison rod Merlin will not live at the same power settings as what Strega and Voodoo have. I think the absolute best they can hope for is 450-470 mph over a full race distance. That's going to put them fourth - fifth in the gold in a best case scenario.

[kiwiracefan]

Re: Silly Season - Yes or No....

I was reading somewhere (forgive me i cant remember where) that the ghost wasnt looking to compete powerwise with the furies, strega/voodoo but going to clean up the airframe and make it as slick as possible to get the speed to compete for gold.
The L.A.R. team have been around long enough that im sure they have it worked out, im sure there are lots of little (and not so little) mind games going on, and as has been previously posted here, nobody but the LAR team know the full potential of the ghost.... lets wait for september...

[bulldawg66]

Re: Silly Season - Yes or No....

lets wait for september...

NO, NO, NO! I don't wanna wait 'til September!

Don't make me!

I'm gonna hold my breath until.....

Dammit, I passed out, woke up, and it still isn't September! Why can't time go as fast as the Unlimiteds????

Tom

[T. Adams]

Re: Silly Season - Yes or No....

Well the Ghost had go fast tape on it last year, so I would not exactly call that a cleaned up airframe. There is no tape on Voodoo and Strega. It's gonna take a whole lot of 500 mph tape to get around those two.

[Arctic Cat]

Re: Silly Season - Yes or No....

I've said this in the past and will say it again, to be a consistent and fast top team, one must have the complete package. Airframe, engine and complete support systems at 100% for the whole week. We saw this with Dago Red for a period and now we see it with Strega. At this point in time, GG has not shown that it has this. I had to laugh at his "I'll pay tiger ten grand" comment. It's a big number to the average Joe, but wouldn't cover the logistic of such a race, let alone the risk of major failure. I'm sure Tiger had a good chuckle when he heard that! I hope it all works out and they have great program and success, but until they actually put some numbers up against some other gold level racers......