british-cars
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: Line and Smoothness

To: Alliant.COM!british-cars@acsu.buffalo.edu
Subject: Re: Line and Smoothness
From: mit-eddie!hercules.acsu.buffalo.edu!tobin@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (Mike Tobin)
Date: Fri, 18 May 90 14:14:00 EDT
> 
> I remember a video by, I think, Mario Andretti (sp?), and he said (in a
> voice-over of a video shot of him flying around some corner, hands con-
> stantly "twitching to and fro") something to the effect that if you're
> not constantly "correcting" for having "pushed" just a little too hard,
> then you're not pushing hard enough [to *WIN*, anyways]. Of course, you
> have to be REAL good to push "just enough too much" to be able to re-
> cover control, rather than killing yourself!
> 
> Possibly a perfectly circular or "regular" corner you could take in a
> perfect smooth 100.00% manner, but in real life . . .
> 
>                                       -RDH
A few years ago R&T did a big article on this subject, and they used the
"Friction Circle" to illustrate different techniques.  The friction
circle is what the GMeter uses to plot cornering/braking/accellerating
forces on a single graph (it was developed BTW aT my current employer,
Calspan Corp).

The best part of the article was when they hooked up what was really an
avanced Gmeter to a race car (CART, I think) and had a bunch of top
drivers cover the same course.  The difference in plots was tremendous.
Andretti's was by far the most erattic.  He was doing just as described;
constantly refinding the limit.  Stewart was "Mr Smooth", he seemed to
know just where the limit was and stop just short of it.  

I wouldn't critique either of them!  Different strokes for different
folks.

Mike TobiN


<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>