On Tue, 25 Jul 2000, Dave Whitworth wrote:
> This got Andy thinking: Is there "correction" that could be made to the PAX
> for asphalt course? He started throwing numbers at it and came up with
> this: He added 25% to the index factor of everybody and resorted the index
> results.
This didn't make sense at first, but it's starting to. Let me see if I
have this straight.
The PAX is based on performance potential, and a big component of
performance potential is tire size/stick, call it sticktion.
As surface friction goes to zero, sticktion goes to zero. So imagine
plotting surface friction vs sticktion for several different classes.
Stiction would be on the Y, and along the X axis we would see
No traction------Ice-------Rain------Asphalt-------Concrete
If we plotted STS, AS, ASP, and AP, and ignored the effect of tread on
water, we would see that AP would always be on top, and STS would always
be on bottom, but the gap would get wider as we moved from left to right.
And the PAX is all about the gap, right? So I agree with Dave - slicker
surfaces should have the effect of narrowing the performance differential
between cars, and, in theory, the PAX could be adjusted accordingly.
Comments welcome, I'm not physicist.
Steven
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