Delta Wing Racer to debut at Le Mans
The exciting experimental DeltaWing racing car that will debut at next year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans continues to attract leading motorsports partners who are looking to showcase new and innovative technology.South Carolina-based Performance Friction Brakes is the latest key partner to join the DeltaWing program – joining the likes of tire partner Michelin and transmission specialists, EMCO Gears.Like many components in the new DeltaWing design, Performance Friction has developed a specific package for the car’s 2012 debut. With the front wheels of the car featuring only four-inch wide tires, the brakes for the front of the car required a unique packaging solution.“Certainly the DeltaWing concept has shaken up the conventional thinking within the racing community,” said Darrick Dong, Director of Motorsports, Performance Friction Brakes.“PFC has approached the challenge as to how best to balance the DeltaWing’s braking capacity and created quite a bucket list of achievable goals. We are excited to have come up with a quite unique and innovative carbon brake system. “PFC’s brake configuration is very advanced and forward thinking, utilizing shape optimized monobloc calipers featuring a patented pad retraction that was awarded the 2011 Most Innovative New Motorsport Product Of the Year Award at the Race Tech World Motorsport Symposium. “Coupled with the PFC zero drag brake calipers, PFC’s carbon discs and pads are of a continuous strand fiber matrix. This technology is far advanced when compared to the demilitarized carbon products being used by many today. Like the DeltaWing, the PFC brake system has the potential of being a real game changer.”The DeltaWing consortium has been awarded the 56th entry for next year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans. The new car brings together the talents of DeltaWing designer Ben Bowlby, 2-time ALMS championship-winning race team, Highcroft Racing; US racing legend Dan Gurney and his All American Racer’s organization who will build the car and American Le Mans Series founder and key partner, Don Panoz.“We are very fortunate to work with key partners like Performance Friction Brakes,” said Bowlby.“Like EMCO Gears, PFC are based in the US and that has been very handy for us as we finalized the package and they began manufacture of the components. We didn’t partner with PFC just because they are in the same country though, we have joined forces because their products presented a unique solution for the car’s braking.“Unlike many traditional sportscars, we couldn’t just take parts off the shelf that were being used by teams up and down pit lane.“The front of the DeltaWing is extremely compact so we had to be very creative with the packaging of the design to ensure adequate performance over 24 hrs while keeping the component weights to a minimum. The car is unique in that 60 per cent of the braking occurs at the rear wheels, but that doesn’t mean we could ignore the front.“We are thrilled to add Performance Friction Brakes to EMCO Gears and Michelin and we are looking forward to announcing more key partners very soon.”