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.”

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