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When push comes to Chevy

They serve two different purposes - the road-going SRV and the track-built Formula Rolon Chevrolet. And yet, they have reason enough to pose together for family photos, says Ashish Masih

You've already met the Chevrolet SRV in these photos, so we'll dispense with the introductions for this car. The other machine here is India's first-ever rear-winged track car. Which qualifies it as the country's most modern, purpose-built single-seat racing machine. With adjustable aids to fine-tune airflow around and over it, a proper sequential racing gearbox and a fully adjustable racecar pushrod suspension system, the Formula Rolon Chevy, to know it by its full name, is the reigning heavyweight in the Indian Roadracing championship. This track-configured machine's role is focussed - to ease upcoming drivers into the world of racing as it is abroad - by exposing them to the arcane art of setting such a car up, and then exploiting these advantages on track.

Track of evolution

Let's take it a step at a time, though. The F Chevy features nose and rear-mounted wings, which provide aerodynamic downforce at higher speed and help provide greater grip.B Vijaykumar of Coimbatore, the builder of the car, makes no tall claims about the effectiveness of his aero package, though: "It has been put together with pure imagination, using no wind tunnel. But we will do something about that in the future." Maybe Hindustan Aeronautics could lend a hand and some wind tunnel time!

The F Chevy's design is based loosely on the Formula Asia racecar and borrows from Formula BMW-Asia as well as other Formula cars. It uses a traditional tubular spaceframe design as against a bonded aluminium honeycomb design or a monocoque carbon fibre tub and is built from easy-to-repair but heavy mild steel. Weighing 150kg, the chassis has also been engineered to deal with the pounding that Indian tracks and street circuits are likely to deliver.

The slick racing tyres that JK Tyre will supply to this racing series aren't ready, and so we are running wet tyres — on a damp-to-dry day. And even then, the levels of road-grip are high and the F Chevy comes across with surprising bite at the front end. First impressions are of an honest-to-God racing car that delivers everything boy racers look for in a streetcar. Even when we start going harder, roll and pitch are minimal and it's easy to keep the car's weight well distributed over the four contact patches as long as we're smooth and don't throw the car about. Oh, and we quickly discover the quick steering is deliciously direct, maybe a little lethargic in slow corners, but very nicely weighted through sweepers and at higher speeds.

But though the F Chevy feels as fast as a sports car in a straight line and to a novice, the grip levels are impressive, the car really needs much more of both. The good news is that development is underway and results are expected soon. It does feel stable when you plot it through high-speed corners though, and unlike the rather crude, basic car from a parallel series - the Formula LGB - the F Chevy drives and handles with greater finesse and doesn't need to be muscled around as much.

Sibling rivalry

Since we had arranged this family reunion of sorts, we decide that the SRV and the F-Chevy might as work their way through a friendly head-to-head at the Kari Speedway, in Coimbatore. Now, as the similarities between the two suddenly melt, the differences become glaring. The F Chevy uses the same motor used in the Aveo, SRV and Optra. Designed and built by Daewoo, this 1600cc twin cam motor develops 101bhp. In the SRV, this motor drives the front wheels and is placed transversely in the nose of the car - meaning the cylinders are placed left to right - and allows for a shorter nose and better space distribution. And as the SRV is front-wheel drive, the power doesn't need to be sent all the way back to the rear wheels via a heavy and expensive propeller shaft.

In the F Chevy, the engine finds a home behind the driver and drives the rear wheels. The gearbox mounted to its engine is handcrafted too - it's not standard Chevy issue. Moreover, the motor, in its racing guise, uses a high-flow air filter from K&N and a free-flowing exhaust, with no power-sapping muffler or catalytic converter present. Over here, you also get a mild chip-up from Chevy engineers - a 5 bhp boost, made possible by allowing the motor to spin to a higher 7,000 rpm before the limiter cuts in. Later versions of this car will apparently produce 150bhp...

The SRV, despite being powered by the same motor, logically stands no chance against the racecar in a straight-line run. The Formula Chevy's power-to-weight ratio works out to 186bhp per ton versus 82 for the SRV. So, while the SRV takes a leisurely 13.14 seconds to amble to 100 kph, the F Chevy blitzes to the ton in just 6.6 seconds, reeling the horizon in at a top 170kph, where the SRV manages 135. According to our test kit, the F Chevy also registers higher cornering forces all around the track.

Friendly match over, it's now time for a wind-down snack and some good humoured back-slapping.

Now, we're not sure if you're planning on an SRV for the family. But if you're betting your future on the track, this is the racecar you want to get your hands on. As Narian Karthikeyan puts it succinctly, "Once Vijaykumar and his team sort this car out, we will have come 10 years forward in just one." Louis Chevrolet, founder of GM's most successful brand, die-hard racer and a self-taught mechanical genius, would surely have approved.

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