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To: MarkL

Actually ground force holds the car to the ground, keeping it from becoming a temporary and uncontrolled plane. Ground force is your friend, it's one of the interesting battles of racing, the higher (lighter) a vehicle rides the faster it will go, but the lower (heavier) it rides the more control you have over it. Race cars now generate ground force that is multiples of their actual weight, this is necessary at 200 MPH to avoid tragic accidents, so 5 pounds here or there just isn't going to make that much of a difference.

Yeah when you're dealing with the level of horsepower of your average street vehicle 5 pounds can make a difference, 1 HP plus or minus is big. These are race cars, they scoff at the HP of our street vehicles. And of course in bike racing you're dealing with tiny tiny vehicles, many of which weigh less than the driver so obviously the weight of the driver matters much more since you're talking about a significant fraction of the overall weight of the vehicle. 50 pounds is not a significant fraction of the overall weight of an IRL or NASCAR car.


417 posted on 06/02/2005 7:58:14 AM PDT by discostu (quis custodiet ipsos custodes)
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To: discostu
Sorry, I guess I wasn't as clear as I meant to be. In high performance driving, when the vehicles are pretty evenly matched, top speed isn't as important as being able to change speed faster. I meant to post that in motorcycles, 5 pounds in weight is equal at about a 1 HP advantage in acceleration, and there's a corresponding increase in the rate of braking with reduced weight aw well. This allows the driver or rider to brake later, and hopefully being able to keep higher speeds through the turn, which then gives you an additional advantage coming out of the turns.

Most of the racing cars and bikes are able to hit and maintain top speeds that are pretty close to each other. But it's being able to "out-brake" the competition (being able to wait longer before starting to brake), and out-accellerate, coming out of the turns that will win races. And that's where the weight reduction comes in very handy.

Mark

420 posted on 06/02/2005 11:58:20 AM PDT by MarkL (I've got a fever, and the only prescription is MORE COWBELL!!!)
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