Which is faster?
Which is faster?
Acctually in some cases a drift can help you get through a corner faster, but not the kind of drifting where you swing the *** end out so far that you're perpendicular to the road... basically what the pro drifters are doing on D1.
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Originally Posted by mrcoolhandsome
Drifting is the absolute fastest, that's why only drift when i'm doing quarter mile runs and kill everyone. hehe jk
also drift might be faster on certain cases but it ****s up your tires quick.
actually... drifting is faster in some cases and not in others. if you have a 180 degree hair pin you can carry more momentum outta the turn by dirfting it. awd or rwd. uhm... basically it's this. i'll try to explain very clearly.
basic physics tells you that the static friction is always more than kinetic friction, this is the reason for not locking your brakes when you wanna stop the fastest. when you're stopping the continuous rotation of the tire maintains a static friction with the ground because the point of contact with the ground is stationary with respect to the ground. think of it as... the tire is moving aBOUT that point of contact on teh ground, then a new point of contact touches the ground and the tire moves about that, so that one point maintains stationary state.
now if you take the same principle and apply it to drifing. when you drift you are in a kinetic friction because the tire is moving with respect to the ground, no matter how you cut it. this is known as rolling with slipping as opposed to rolling without slipping which puts you in static friction. in this case... think bowling... they grease the floor so you stay in rolling with slipping longer cuz this maintains your ball's speed, once yer ball starts rolling it will lose speed (but in bowling it's good to roll too cuz the added rotational inertia makes your ball go through the pins, instead of just colliding).
now how does this have an affect on turning? well then in general you have the case where drifting is slower than gripping. but there are of course exceptions and i believe these exceptions come from the fact that there is a polar moment of inertia in the car's dynamics. drifint is slower than gripping when you're in steady state corners, corners where latteral adhesion is straight forward, where the change in direction does not make need for the polar moment to become overly involved. basically you're not rotating enough to make a hash of anything (the system).
but if you're encountered with a very sharp 180 degree turn perse... you need to change directions and you have to change directions in harmony with the polar moment, to not break the rear end will give you the maximum lateral adhesion towards the radially outward direction of the turn. but since the exit of the turn is in the direction that you came, depending on teh line you take, to sacrafice SOME lateral adhersion in the rear will NET you a larger sum of adhersion TOWARDS THE EXIT OF THE TURN, which means YOU'RE GOING FASTER!!!!
in rally they do a lotta drifting because they can't stay in static friction anyways, so might as well maximize the amount of corner exit adhesion that you can. see?
basic physics tells you that the static friction is always more than kinetic friction, this is the reason for not locking your brakes when you wanna stop the fastest. when you're stopping the continuous rotation of the tire maintains a static friction with the ground because the point of contact with the ground is stationary with respect to the ground. think of it as... the tire is moving aBOUT that point of contact on teh ground, then a new point of contact touches the ground and the tire moves about that, so that one point maintains stationary state.
now if you take the same principle and apply it to drifing. when you drift you are in a kinetic friction because the tire is moving with respect to the ground, no matter how you cut it. this is known as rolling with slipping as opposed to rolling without slipping which puts you in static friction. in this case... think bowling... they grease the floor so you stay in rolling with slipping longer cuz this maintains your ball's speed, once yer ball starts rolling it will lose speed (but in bowling it's good to roll too cuz the added rotational inertia makes your ball go through the pins, instead of just colliding).
now how does this have an affect on turning? well then in general you have the case where drifting is slower than gripping. but there are of course exceptions and i believe these exceptions come from the fact that there is a polar moment of inertia in the car's dynamics. drifint is slower than gripping when you're in steady state corners, corners where latteral adhesion is straight forward, where the change in direction does not make need for the polar moment to become overly involved. basically you're not rotating enough to make a hash of anything (the system).
but if you're encountered with a very sharp 180 degree turn perse... you need to change directions and you have to change directions in harmony with the polar moment, to not break the rear end will give you the maximum lateral adhesion towards the radially outward direction of the turn. but since the exit of the turn is in the direction that you came, depending on teh line you take, to sacrafice SOME lateral adhersion in the rear will NET you a larger sum of adhersion TOWARDS THE EXIT OF THE TURN, which means YOU'RE GOING FASTER!!!!
in rally they do a lotta drifting because they can't stay in static friction anyways, so might as well maximize the amount of corner exit adhesion that you can. see?
Last edited by trinydex; Sep 13, 2005 at 04:17 AM.
Trinydex came pretty close to hitting the nail on the head. However, even in 180 degree turns, it is still often faster to not slip the tires. You're avg corner speed will be lower, however the ability to accelerate sooner, because your tires have adhesion in "grip" driving, means that you will almost always have a higher avg speed on the track as a whole. So if you want to make a turn the fastest, drifting might be necessary, and if you want to make the fastest lap then put the contact patches to full use.
The part about rally drivers drifting to predict loss of friction is spot on. They don't do it because it's theoretically faster, they do it because in actual application they can reach a higher speed more predictably (have to worry much more about surface irregularities, etc).
The part about rally drivers drifting to predict loss of friction is spot on. They don't do it because it's theoretically faster, they do it because in actual application they can reach a higher speed more predictably (have to worry much more about surface irregularities, etc).
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Joined: May 2005
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From: Shenzhen
But I think there are some things must be considered.
First, racers cannot turn at exactly the right speed. Let's suppose V is the theoretical fastest speed of a certain corner. Since the racer cannot reach that speed exactly, he may turn the corner at speed V1=kV. In drifting case, he may turn at speed V2=tV. Here we can expect that k,t<1, but we cannot surely expect that k>t.
Second, in some cases, drifting can make the car finish turning earlier which means that we can start accelerating earlier.
Third, I think, RWD must be considered as an exception.
I am not sure about this. I just guessing.
First, racers cannot turn at exactly the right speed. Let's suppose V is the theoretical fastest speed of a certain corner. Since the racer cannot reach that speed exactly, he may turn the corner at speed V1=kV. In drifting case, he may turn at speed V2=tV. Here we can expect that k,t<1, but we cannot surely expect that k>t.
Second, in some cases, drifting can make the car finish turning earlier which means that we can start accelerating earlier.
Third, I think, RWD must be considered as an exception.
I am not sure about this. I just guessing.
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 311
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From: Australia
Thgey do slide around a bit in rallying but on bitumen it is mostly in tight the hairpin corners and because the roads are usually a lot narrower then a race track. Some of those corners would require a multipoint turn if they didn't use the handbrake to slide around.
On a race track drifting is slow, a little bit of power oversteer on some corners can be quicker on some of the tight tracks, especially in road cars because of their tyres and the way the suspension is set up, but in a proper race car keeping it straight is the fastest way. F1 is the best example I think, sometimes they do get a little bit of oversteer but that is because they have 700hp+ and it can be a bit tricky to get on the road, they don't "drift" though (from the outside camera you can hardly tell they are sideways).
On the dirt it is the same but a bit more oversteer is ok, still usually not "drifting" (big sideways) unless you have a rally car set up for it. The RWD rally cars have the suspension and everything setup for going sideways (it can actually be harder to not go sideways) but that is also to do with the type of diff they use. They have lockers or even welded diffs for maximum traction on the dirt but then they go sideways more under power. A lot of them also have smaller engines so they have to stay on the power a lot more to keep the speed up, even if it means going sideways and sacrificing a little bit of corner speed.
Aston
On a race track drifting is slow, a little bit of power oversteer on some corners can be quicker on some of the tight tracks, especially in road cars because of their tyres and the way the suspension is set up, but in a proper race car keeping it straight is the fastest way. F1 is the best example I think, sometimes they do get a little bit of oversteer but that is because they have 700hp+ and it can be a bit tricky to get on the road, they don't "drift" though (from the outside camera you can hardly tell they are sideways).
On the dirt it is the same but a bit more oversteer is ok, still usually not "drifting" (big sideways) unless you have a rally car set up for it. The RWD rally cars have the suspension and everything setup for going sideways (it can actually be harder to not go sideways) but that is also to do with the type of diff they use. They have lockers or even welded diffs for maximum traction on the dirt but then they go sideways more under power. A lot of them also have smaller engines so they have to stay on the power a lot more to keep the speed up, even if it means going sideways and sacrificing a little bit of corner speed.
Aston