Courtesy of Lime Rock Park Nissan’s DeltaWing looks worthy of transporting the Caped Crusader.If you live in the Northeast and have had a hankering to see the crazy-looking DeltaWing racecar at the track, your opportunity is coming this summer at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut. The Wing is the closest thing there is to a living incarnation of Tim Burton’s Batmobile, and it has been making its way around various tracks in American Le Mans races.
IndyCar officials rejected the avant-garde car when the designer, Ben Bowlby, tried to ply them with it – after all, it has been a while since IndyCar has changed the chassis layout it currently uses – but with its long nose and skinny, close-together front wheels, the DeltaWing isn’t exactly a portrait of stability.
But looks can be deceiving. It’s less powerful that other more or less similar racecars, but the Wing is also lighter and uses less fuel. And as our own Preston Lerner found out last autumn, it’s every bit as fast. He was in one when it took a turn going nearly 170 miles per hour and doesn’t seem to be any worse for wear.
The DeltaWing hasn’t been without its problems, though. It was flipped off the track by another, presumably heavier car at the 24 Hours of Le Mans race last June, and had mechanical problems at Sebring. But it has also raced in the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta and at the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca just last month. In the latter race, it took third in the Le Mans Prototype 1 class. Not too shabby.
Whether or not you find its looks repulsive, there’s a chance that the DeltaWing could go places in the racing world. If you were able to go back in time and tell one of those bowler-hatted turn-of-the-20th-century guys racing stick-tillered horseless carriages that car races would one day involve screaming, fat-wheeled monsters that look like the X-wing fighters from “Star Wars,” they would have you dosed with laudanum and packed you off to the funny farm (both for the racing car hysterics and the “Star Wars” reference). So who’s to say where this strange machine will end up within the pages of history books?
On Saturday, July 6, Andy Meyrick and Katherine Legge will be piloting the weird-looking two-seater at the American Le Mans Northeast Grand Prix at Lime Rock. So if you live near Connecticut, here’s your chance to check it out.
This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: June 13, 2013
An earlier version of this post misstated Nissan's affiliation with the DeltaWing. The company is no long involved with the car. The post also misspelled the surname of the car's designer. It is Ben Bowlby, not Bowler.
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