The Vicious Crashes and Terrifying Records of Peak Downforce

“Downforce is a mind fuck,” says Tommy Kendall. He would know. “Everything you’d experienced before says, ‘You can’t do this. You can’t go faster.’” Nearing 60, Kendall walks with a pronounced limp, each step a painful reminder of the ­awesome risks that accompanied the weaponized airflow of Grand Touring Prototype racing.

technical chief: Tommy Kendall once told me if you didn’t get out of the Intrepid after driving it and feel sick, you weren’t driving it hard enough. That’s how brutal it was.Trevor Harris, chassis designer, Nissan ­Performance Technology Inc. : It wasn’t by ­accident. We were trying to get ever more downforce. The chassis was to follow whatever the aerodynamics wanted.

’s downforce monsters, the Intrepid was King Kong.Riley: It had 10,000 pounds of downforce. With 800 hp and gobs of torque from its naturally aspirated Chevy V-8, the Intrepid’s ­argumentative visuals—a symphony of vertical battering surfaces—articulated GTP’s bold new direction. Kendall: It just strikes you as a blunt instrument. Once Bob Riley made the decision that the downforce was worth it, he went all in.

intervened, slowing the cars by tightening engine outputs. AAR ran the 1993 season as GTP’s sole remaining factory team. The Eagle Mk III won every race but one and retired with a 74 percent win rate. Of the 27 races it entered, it won 20, including 16 of its last 17, the 24 Hours of Daytona, and the 12 Hours of Sebring. And it killed the class.Ward: The series died after the Mk III. It was over.

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