Read Why An Open Wheel Formula Car Is Best For A Racing School

Speed enthusiasts have many choices when it comes to fulfilling their need for speed. Speed, however, without skills, many times ends in tears. Allen Berg Racing Schools employs Tatuus-built, carbon fiber OPEN WHEEL formula race cars for our racing school programs for very specific and important reasons. Here are a few of those reasons.

Open-wheel formula race cars are a specialized platform designed specifically for road racing, versus a road car design that is then adapted for the race track.

An open-wheel formula race car has to be driven with a specific technique – line, smoothness, precision – that is the ultimate way to lap efficiently (quickly) on a racetrack. This technique is applicable and transferrable to most other vehicles that are used in road racing, whether they are open-wheel formula cars or closed wheel sports cars.

At Allen Berg Racing Schools, we use carbon fiber chassis which is the latest form of chassis development in motorsports (versus tube frame or aluminum monocoque) due to safety, weight, and rigidity. This is the same chassis construction that is used in Formula 1, IndyCar, and in top-level prototypes in sports car racing at Le Mans and Daytona.

At ABRS, the racing transmissions require precise upshifts and downshifts. All forms of race cars require shifting, and the high level of technique learned in a formula car will make shifting in any other race car easier and smoother, which gains overall lap time.

Our race cars do not employ driver aids such as ABS or traction control. Many other types of high-performance vehicles that are operated on race tracks have these driver aids which makes driving on the racetrack easier but does not help at all to develop the necessary feeling and car control skills required by a racing driver. Also, when a wheel is locked under braking in one of our open-wheel cars, it can be seen immediately by the driver. Conversely, in a closed wheel car, this is less noticeable and sometimes you are only aware you have locked a wheel after you glance in the rearview mirror and see a trail of blue smoke behind your car.

And lastly, feedback is immediate. The race cars at ABRS are stiffly sprung, so a driver will know immediately if his or her input is incorrect. By comparison, a closed wheel car is ‘softer’, and as such a control input takes longer to make its way through the vehicle to your senses. As an example, in a road car, you may have hit the throttle pedal too aggressively and the back end steps out into oversteer 50 feet down the road. In an open-wheel formula car, you will feel the back end coming out as soon as the rear wheels start to spin. 

These are just some of the key factors that contribute to maximizing your experience when you enroll in one of the racing school programs at Allen Berg Racing Schools. And, the view of those ‘open’ front wheels – free of fenders – when you roll off of pit lane for the first time is a view you will never forget.

For more information, click on FAQs under the “About” tab of our website.  

Published on: Jan 27, 2021
Updated on: Mar 14, 2022