Well, there are
two more problems to be solved, for a race car besides the huge aerodynamic drag. Is that drag what forces you to use smaller wheels (like in Tyrrells), which means: more wheels = smaller wheels.
If you don't use smaller wheels, drag eats all the advantages of traction, so I respectfully disagree with the equation more wheels=better lap times. Actually in open wheelers a lot of the drag comes from the wheels, just check any simulation of aerodynamic flow and you'll see two red patches in front of each wheel, if red means high drag.
As the cat tracks are essentially a wheel covered with a track, you're better if you drop the track and use the wheel inside, which is necessarily smaller and has less drag.
So, the two disadvantages I would like to mention are these:
1. Lateral flexing: cat tracks are notoriously bad for lateral loads. They tend to derail easily.
2. Higher center of gravity: the complexity of the mechanism implies that is taller than a regular wheel, so your braking/acceleration is poorer because the COG is taller and you get worse weight transfer.
Other problems (super extra high rolling resistance, lots and lots of unsuspended mass) have already been mentioned. They are more or less the opposite of an ideal racing wheel, if I am allowed to put it in this way.
There are more problems, if you think in "perfection" (which is an excellent method for inventing new things).
What I think you want in a perfect racing wheel is:
a. Zero
rolling resistance
b. Low
lateral stiffness for a flat patch (that is, when the wheel twist laterally, the patch keeps in contact with the floor, instead of lifting one side of the patch out of the road). The walls of racing tyres help to "dampen" lateral movement, something very easily seen on a kart.
c. Zero
weight for zero unsuspended mass that damages the response of your car to bumps or potholes.
d. Low
gyroscopic effect that resists changes in direction
e. Half of the suspension should be "integrated into the wheel". Pneumatic wheels act like
springs, that's the reason why they are used instead of solid wheels of yore. The quality of the ride in a snow tractor is horrible if you go out of the snow. Putting springs in the caterpillar track won't get you out of the predicament they have: you feel every bump of the road in your butt. Instead of the tunable "double suspension" that a pneumatic wheel offers, you get only one (that is, the springs and the dampers only).
So, my verdict is: guilty as charged!
For a civil engineer like me, the solution lacks
taste, and
taste is everything in structures. I guess nobody here will follow my drift, but
you're using a compression member instead of a member in tension. So, instead of cables (very efficient in a thing that is round! A wheel is NOT a column!) like in a regular wheel, you are using straight struts (essentially).
Horrible. My "structural soul" aches only by viewing the thing... Now, if you could invent a track that works in tension, the Zen would return, but I cannot imagine how.
