NHRA Chevrolet Impala SS Funny Car Wins 2007 Championship
From GM Racing:
Chevrolet Impala SS Funny Car Claims 2007 NHRA POWERade Championship
Long recognized as a leader in drag racing competition, Chevrolet has built a winning tradition unsurpassed by any manufacturer in the history of the sport. In 2007, the red bowtie continued to raise the performance bar in NHRA Funny Car competition with the introduction of the Chevy Impala SS. By season’s end, Tony Pedregon and the Impala SS captured Chevrolet’s first NHRA Funny Car championship since 1994.
Few vehicles have enjoyed the ongoing success of the Chevy Impala. With last year’s NHRA POWERade championship, the legendary nameplate reaffirmed the Chevrolet’s commitment to excellence in NHRA competition.
“Chevrolet has firmly established itself as one of drag racing’s most successful automotive brands,” said Ed Peper, Chevrolet general manager. “The Chevy red bowtie competes to win, and like its production counterpart, the new Impala SS Funny Car has been designed and engineered to carry forward that performance heritage.”
The Impala SS Funny Car was the first GM drag race body devised and developed utilizing a 3-D computer-aided design process, something GM Drag Racing Group Manager Dan Engel had wanted to do for a long time.
“There was no physical model that we were working from,” said Engel. “It was all done on a computer. Once it was designed and a CAD file created, the file was sent to a CNC machine that cut out the shape as it was designed on the computer screen.”
Working within an extensive list of parameters established by the NHRA, GM engineers first had to accumulate mathematical data on the production Impala and then design the new race car while conforming to the tolerances established by the sanctioning body.
“We knew we had certain dimensions where we had to stay within tolerance,” said Engel. “We took those measurements, and said, ‘Okay, let’s optimize those dimensions that would make a better race car.’ And that means either shortening the dimensions or lengthening them, or in the case of the angle of the windshield, we’re allowed three degrees tolerance so we take advantage of the full three degrees. All those dimensions get optimized for the best aerodynamic conditions. Then it’s a matter of smoothing in the car, although that’s not as easy as it sounds.”
The goal of GM Racing engineers is always to give its Chevy teams the best Funny Car body possible, but the key objective was to make the nitro-burning version of the Impala SS look as similar as possible to its showroom counterpart.
“We wanted the new Impala to come out a slightly better car aerodynamically than the Monte Carlo Funny Car,” said Engel. “Even though there isn’t a big advantage with the new car, there are some incremental advantages with the Impala SS that certainly helped our Chevrolet Funny Car teams. We really wanted it to look as much as possible like a production car. That’s the direction we think the NHRA wants with this class.”
After construction of the body, the Impala Funny Car was taken to the GM Aero Lab for a series of wind tests to confirm the aero numbers on the car and to gather additional data that will be distributed to all Chevy race teams.
“The wind tunnel test confirmed that we hit it pretty close right out of the box,” said Engel. “We then went back for another test to get the car dialed in and we finished that up during the second week of January.”
Safety changes made during production of the Monte Carlo Funny Car, including a stronger carbon-fiber body; a larger burst panel to allow greater dissipation of energy from an engine explosion; and an enlarged roof-hatch escape to compensate for the increasing numbers of drivers wearing a HANS; were also incorporated into the latest Chevrolet Funny Car. An NHRA-mandated change to the escape hatch (which is now required on all new Funny Cars) was an additional feature on the Impala SS.
“From a safety standpoint we did a great job with the Monte Carlo and were able to roll those features into the Impala,” said Engel. “A new rule from the NHRA required a little recess on the roof hatch so that somebody from outside can get a grip and get it opened. Those hatches tend to lay pretty flat so if the driver can’t open it, you need a way to open it externally.”
After a year in design and construction, Engel was extremely pleased with the final product, especially after its rapid success on the track. In addition to the 2007 POWERade championship, Chevrolet Funny Car teams captured five national-event victories in 11 final-round appearances and earned eight No. 1 qualifying awards. Tony Pedregon’s championship-winning Chevrolet set the class national elapsed time record at 4.659 seconds.
“It was a great season for Chevrolet, and the Impala SS played a significant role in that success,” Engel said. “Our goal in 2008 is to continue to provide our race teams with the necessary hardware they need to be competitive.”
