Thanks Andy! and Ford presenters
Thanks Andy so very much from the Ford GT owners for bringing this Detroit SAE meeting to our attention and coordinating with the host group to get our tables all together! Very much appreciate all that you did for us out-of-towners.:biggrin
As others have stated the meeting was very well presented in terms the general audience could understand, appreciate and embrace. Raj did a fantastic job of explaining the background information how the Groundhog, uhhh, errr, Phoenix program (NFGT) rose from the ashes of the Silver (Mustang) program which was rejected as not realistically competitive in reaching for the ultimate goal of winning Le Mans. The backstory of late night meetings, weekend courtyard viewings of design iterations, lots of coffee and ultimately explaining to the Board the fruits of their covert activities was very interesting. The goal, from day one, was to win Le Mans on the one chance Ford had to celebrate the 50th anniversary win with a brand new car which only had 4 races (and just one win) under its GTLM belt before heading across the pond to take their best shot at destiny. Mission accomplished! Even with the BOP weight/boost penalties, leader light problems, transmission solenoid problems and Ferrari never answering their Black Flag penalty. Glad I was there to witness this historic event which Raj helped me relive last night.
Chris Svensson did an equally superb job of explaining how the design team created the exquisite shape of the new car and the uncompromising attention to aerodynamic detain achieved by his team of engineers. The discussion of frontal areas, front/rear shapes, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) results, coefficient of drag value and weights of various benchmark auto targets relative to the teams design was informative and easy to understand. They have given us the new supercar benchmark.
What can you say about Larry Holt other than what Dave stated and I echo-
I'd also say that it should be transparently obvious to anyone that comes across him that Larry Holt is a F*(&(!*# genius. That's really all I can say about it.
The Multimatic engineering execution of the two suspension systems and the front/rear aero balance technique is pretty amazing. And as colorful as Larry can be (I was lucky to have dinner with him at Daytona last year) he did not go “off reservation” (Raj’s term not mine) and provided the audience with some really detailed information on many of the engineering marvels buried deep within the car. He is genius. I could listen to his stories for hours.....
I felt badly for Bob Fascetti that he only got 3 minutes to talk about the FGT powertrain. The presentation was running long on time and program management opted to truncate Bob’s presentation. I really believe the audience would have stayed longer to listen to the engine details. (the attendance was by and large engineers)
Raj, since you frequent our Forum, I am sure the ownership ranks would be overjoyed at having a similar presentation format at our Utah based rally August 23-26. As related in this thread many FGT brand-ambassadors could not attend the Detroit SAE meeting and still many more did not attend the Le Mans victory. Since we all live and breathe the heritage of this iconic Ford race car, it would be a great honor for all the rally attendees to relive the Le Mans win story you tell so well. Consider, if you would, bringing Chris, Larry and Bob with you to our 2017 rally. Perhaps you can detail the strategy used to win Le Mans the second year as well!:thumbsup
