SUPERCARS team owner Brad Jones has outlined the Centre of Gravity parity testing process which will take place later this month.
The championship recently announced that for a second straight season, CoG checks will occur immediately after the Albert Park round.
Cars from nine different teams will be involved, with five scrutinised at Dunlop’s Melbourne factory on Monday March 25, and four the following day.
Speaking on the latest BJR Rundown podcast episode, Jones described the “unnerving” process whereby cars are pushed to tipping point.
“For those who have no idea what we’re talking about, they use a forklift with a wire and they lift a car up on one side until it’s at a very uncomfortable position, and then they release the pressure when it’s tilting and it won’t fall down,” he said.
“They read the digi-gauge and they have a formula and work out what the Centre of Gravity is.
“The reason they’re doing it again this year is they’ve changed the weight of panels and they have moved weight around in the cars a little and they just want to make sure they’re close.
“This all stems from when the Mustang came out a couple of years ago (2019) and it was pretty much a composite car and it was a lot faster than anything else; it was racing against the Nissans and the (Commodore) ZBs.
“So then they did the test and realised there was a large disparity… so they had to put some lead in the roofs.
“It’s not like that with these, these are just a check. The difference was not many millimetres last year and I think they will probably find something similar.
“But this is just them going through each part of the process with the pressure they’re getting from manufacturers and teams to make sure that they’re ticking all of the boxes they can.”
He elaborated on the painstaking nature of CoG tests: “They give you lock shocks to put in the car, they give you a set-up sheet that everyone has to set their car up exactly the same.
“They have two set-up patches: they have one set-up patch which is the one everyone has to go on with an independent mechanic looking at all of the measurements to make sure it’s right. Then they take you in and they run this test.
“So, it’s pretty thorough.”
