Sharpening A Sabre For Bikesports Battle

Our Aries Sabre aero study begins with a rear wing assessment.

The 750 Motor Club’s RGB and Bikesports categories, like their analogous bike-engined categories in the USA, Australia and elsewhere, are popular and competitive club level entry paths into sports prototype racing. In the UK, the Bikesports category is currently numerically dominated by Radical, with other manufacturers such as Spire involved, examples of which we studied in our June to August 2016 issues. The latest to enter the fray is Aries, with its two-seater Sabre.

The Sabre was becoming increasingly competitive in the RGB series, which features 1000cc bike engines, no wings and generally restricted aerodynamics, but Aries boss Phil Edwards wanted to move into Bikesports and the BRSCC’s Open Sports Series (OSS). An elegant new body was designed for the car in conjunction with no less a luminary than ex-F1 and LMP design engineer Enrique Scalabroni.

After sourcing a suitable wing supply, the car was ready to be upgraded to Bikesports specification, running in class C, for engines up to 1100cc. This was, then, a very suitable time for all parties involved for Racecar to put the car in the MIRA full-scale wind tunnel.

A busy pre-session preparation spell saw the car arrive in the wind tunnel with many of the test parts already fitted, working on the principle that it is often quicker to remove components than to fit them. So the initial baseline test was in a completely untested specification. The data are given in Table 1, showing comparisons at 60mph and 80mph, with the differences in counts, one count being a coefficient change of 0.001.

Light Sabre