A SHORT HISTORY
A revised Handford device was fitted to the CART cars at the turn of the millennium as the key to a new aerodynamic package.
The Handford MKII, as it was commonly called, replaced the original and the ‘superspeedway wing’ used in short-oval competition during 1999.
“I went on to create a derivative to the superspeedway Handford device that did something similar to slow down the short-oval lap speeds,” explains Mark Handford. “But it created a significant upwash [because it created downforce] and was abandoned after only a couple of races.”
The updated MKII was slated for use on all small and intermediate ovals, as well as the Road America road course, and it was expected to lower development costs and wing inventories by being a ‘spec’ part.
There were two versions: a highdownforce wing for Nazareth, Rio de Janeiro, Milwaukee, Chicago and Road America, which generated a further 700lb of downforce and 260lb of drag compared to the superspeedway wing in testing; and a low-downforce version slated for Homestead, Motegi and Gateway, which produced 150lb less downforce and 145lb more drag than the superspeedway wing.
But like the original Handford device, there was a problem. In this case, it had not been tested in traffic. That meant on ovals with just one racing groove, it exaggerated the ‘follow-the-leader’ racing.
“When we started using it on the short ovals, that wasn’t very good,” remembers Dario Franchitti. “It was completely unsuited to short ovals, they missed the book with it.”
It was quickly dropped from short ovals and never raced at Road America, then was quietly phased out – along with the original device – before CART’S collapse in 2003.