NHRA News: Team Amato's radical new body is turning heads, even in its infancy (7/7/2003)

Team Amato's radical new body is turning heads, even in its infancy

By Rob Geiger, NHRA.com
7/7/2003

"I knew if we found a way to stabilize the body without adding weight, the car would be quicker."
– Wayne Dupuy

Several years ago, the most successful driver in the history of the Top Fuel class, Joe Amato, took a long look at the dragster he was piloting and determined that as cars got quicker they continued to lose energy and inertia down-track. He knew if he could figure out a way to keep the car glued to the track they'd be considerably quicker and faster. Within weeks, his brainstorm turned into the massive rear wings seen on modern day dragsters, which instantly changed the face of the sport.

Almost two decades later, Amato is at it again as the five-time champ-turned-car-owner willingly gave crew chief Wayne Dupuy the green light to pursue his own radical idea to strike the perfect balance between downforce, drag, and maximum performance with a state-of-the-art, one-piece, aerodynamic body.

Without a major sponsor in place this season, Amato and Dupuy must test their project at national events rather than during prolonged test sessions and multiple hours in a wind tunnel, as they'd prefer. But with three races of data under their belts, the group does feel like they're beginning to scratch the surface of what this hybrid body can do.

Currently, with driver Darrell Russell a lofty third in the POWERade championship points, the team is starting to see the light, and so far, they certainly like what they see. With plenty of room to grow – the body will have several add-on pieces in Denver – the future of this team, and more than likely the entire Top Fuel class, looks capable of much bigger things in the very near future.

The brainstorm forms
Born and raised in the sport of NHRA Championship Drag Racing, the 39-year-old Dupuy, who is the son of retired NHRA Director of Competition Lynwood Dupuy, has been successfully tuning nitro-powered cars since the mid-1980s. As a crew chief, Dupuy has turned wrenches on both Funny Cars and Top Fuel dragsters, even taking the time to license in both vehicles so he could better understand what his drivers were trying to tell him about their runs.

A wider top and Funny Car-style channelling down the side helps Dupuy (left) keep Russell glued to the track.
RacersEdge Photography

On reflection, the tireless Cajun (his name is pronounced Dew-pwee) admits his boyhood affection for Funny Cars played a big role in his new creation, which several rivals have dubbed "the skinny Funny Car" due to the shape of the body. To Dupuy, the design came naturally.

"I started thinking about this when we went out to celebrate our win in Topeka last year," Dupuy said. "We were at a restaurant and the race was on TV. As the day went along the ESPN guys were tracking us with that super slo-mo camera and I noticed the body panels were really flapping around and caving in when the car got up to speed.

"I'm an old Funny Car guy and we went through the same thing with those cars. It was just a little more noticeable to detect on a Funny Car body, plus the drivers could see the windshields bowing in towards them and they'd tell me about it later.

"I deduced that the old panels on the Top Fuel car, by caving in a little, had to be hurting rather than helping our speed. I knew we could make a better system and I knew if we found a way to stabilize the body without adding weight, the car would be quicker."

Creating something new
The following day during their long drive back to the team's headquarters in Exeter, Pa., Dupuy started burning up the phone lines with calls to Amato and noted car builder and good friend Brad Hadman. Dupuy quickly discovered that both men had been kicking around ideas of their own to strengthen the body and prevent the problems Dupuy had noticed. Together, the three men, with Amato's blessing and financial backing, devised some rudimentary plans.

Dupuy and Hadman's new carbon-fiber body doesn't flex or cave in at top speed.
RacersEdge Photography

"We all started talking about what I had seen on TV," Dupuy said. "Then, I guess because of my background, we started talking about at Funny Car bodies. In Funny Car, the rear wing does a lot of the work but the body itself applies a lot of downforce also. The whole body works to towards the downforce you need. In Top Fuel, the front and rear wings, mostly the rear wing, produce all the downforce.

"Right off, we knew if we could get some downforce from the body it would lessen the stress and importance of the wing, which, No. 1 would make it a bunch safer. I think that's what really helped us talk Joe into putting up the money for this project. Plus, the new balance of the car would allow us to move some things around like the motor. This body floats on the chassis, it attaches in just four places, so we can move the center of gravity of the car to adjust for the load the motor puts on the frame.

"Brad has a real gift for this sort of stuff and he went to work with our ideas and we had Ron Jones, up in Seattle, build the molds. Then we had to get everything tech'ed by the NHRA. Before long, we had the body we're using now, which is basically the first prototype."

Baby steps
Anxious to see how it would perform, the team unveiled the piece midway through qualifying in Las Vegas. With absolutely no data on the body and the team struggling outside the top 10, Amato stepped in after just a few passes and persuaded his group to shelve the idea until the tune-up was a little more consistent. Six races later and eight spots higher in the standings, Dupuy was finally comfortable enough to try the body again and he picked the less-than-perfect surface of National Trail Raceway in Columbus, Ohio, for its second test,

Don't try this with the old-style body panel system.
RacersEdge Photography

"From the start we knew this body would probably shine the best at the hot tracks where it's much harder to get traction down-track," Dupuy said. "Everyone wants maximum downforce with the least amount of drag. That's the balance you have to strike. In the last two races it's worked pretty well (the team has recorded a runner-up and a semifinal finish) and Darrell says it feels very stable at speed.

"Strength-wise, I can walk on the body. It doesn't cave in at all. And, when all was said and done, it's only a couple of pounds heavier than the panels. The truth is we're on a big learning curve right now. What I need is a lot of laps. We don't have a primary sponsor this year, other than Joe, so we really don't have the budget for R&D. I'd love to put load sensors and cameras all over this thing and test. I'd love to stick it in the wind tunnel.

"Basically, we're taking a shot. I don't know what we're getting from it at this point. I do know that down-track it's definitely different. We don't need near as much wing [attitude] as we did before. I guarantee you no one uses the wing less than we do. We're kind of in an elimination process. We try stuff, see what doesn't work, and remove whatever it was from the equation."

The next step
When they were getting the car design approved, Dupuy and Hadman had several bolt-on pieces inspected and approved at the same time. Their limited use of the car already has shown them that changes need to be made, some of which will be corrected as soon as the 24th annual Mopar Mile-High NHRA Nationals, the next event on tour.

The first test of the hybrid body showed it's potential, especially down-track.
RacersEdge Photography

"Right now the air is spilling off the sides of the car because it's so much longer than a Funny Car," Dupuy said. "That's causing turbulence, and maybe even a little lift, which we definitely don't want. We have some pieces we're adding to the top of the car before Denver that will help keep the air going over the top. It's all legal, approved stuff.

"The NHRA only had a few stipulations. One was that we can't go over 340 mph. The other was that we needed to add two relief panels to the top of the car that will help prevent a blowover. Everything else they said was cool."

So the team will continue to tinker and dream of a better tomorrow, even amidst the quizzical stares and off-handed comments from their Top Fuel peers.

"Joe's made radical changes before and eventually everyone followed his lead," Dupuy said. "I think we'll see that here. I know it'll take time. No one has this design and it'll take time for anyone else to build one. I bet we start seeing more people running Hadman pipe.

"One team owner came over in the staging lanes and started measuring the car. My brother Jim asked him what he was doing and he said he wanted to build one himself. Jim had to run him off. In Vegas, Kenny Bernstein, who's one of Joe's best friends, told him, 'thanks for making the sport more expensive.'

"I think people, at least for now, will be happy to let us be the guinea pig. If we had come out and run 339 mph right from the start we'd see 20 of these already. Give us time; we'll bring everyone around soon enough. For now, we're happy to be where we are in this process."

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