New 1200 mile spec to debut at Indy as Honda provide all the power for Indy Car source: irl.racing-live.com - ORS / CAPSIS International As the sole supplier of engines to the IndyCar Series, Honda must provide equal powerplants to all 20 competitors for the upcoming Indy Japan 300. However, that just begins a period of intense logistical planning for both Honda Performance Development (HPD) and their technical partner Ilmor Engineering, Inc. "As we looked at the schedule getting ready for the season we determined the period from the Motegi race.. through Indy to Watkins Glen which is the race just after Indy was the worst time period on the schedule," said Robert Clarke, the head of HPD. "We put the focus of all of our studies on that time period. Through that process we were able to determine the logistics and a build schedule, dyno schedule, and everything required to give us the confidence that we were able to support not just this time period, but also the remainder of the season." In contrast to their first year in the IRL, HPD now does most of the development and planning work on the engines, with Ilmor providing about 65% of the race ready powerplants and 60% of the traveling engineering staff. The engines themselves are distributed by the IRL, with teams not knowing until the get the engine whether it was built by HPD or Ilmor though they all use exactly the same parts. One of the difficulties in getting ready for Motegi was that it is the final race with this specification of engine. All of the engines shipped to Japan (1 per car, plus 10 spares), will be returned to HPD and Ilmor immediately upon clearing customs for conversion to the "Indy" spec that will be used for the remainder of the season. "The first three race of this seasons were kind of an interim step," said Clarke. "We are looking at introducing our final spec for the 2006 season at beginning of Indy and that will continue through the rest of the year and that is basically a two race engine."
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