[Richard Hudgins]

BlueRooster.

In the old days we chased the Unsprung weight quest a long ways.

Inboard brakes were a major part of this effort.

But, we did break a lot of parts. Halfshafts were a constant problem. We used to paint lines on the Halfshafts to measure twist from acceleration loads.

Guess what, braking loads far surpass acceleration loads. The twist was always in the braking direction on inboard brake cars.

To us in the race industry, it all came home with death of Jochen Rindt.

He was driving a Lotus 72 with inboard front brakes at Monza. A front Halfshaft broke under braking and the car turned into the Armco barrier. He did not survive the incident.


After this, as responsible engineers and participants, we looked at the real benefits and found that that there was really no decrease in laps times once we figured out how dampers worked. (This period really brought damper technology along very quickly and is the true mainstay of chassis dynamics today.)

At this point Inboard brakes ceased to be used on real race cars.


Too bad we had to lose one of the best in order for us to look at the reality of design risk and the quest for performance at any cost.

In closing, inboard brakes on a saloon car are just fine. But on a race car they are just plain stupid.