Quote:
Originally posted by Joe Fan
Like I have said earlier, these cars are low downforce cars and they don't have the security blanket of a wing helping push and stabilize the cars on the track like the open wheel cars have. I have read that due to the downforce produced by the wings and the light weight of open wheel cars, they could theoretically run upside down at speeds of 175mph.
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I think I touched on this earlier, but let me restate again. Downforce is in NO way a security blanket in the rain. Downforce simply increase the amount of friction that a tire is able to have with the surface. So YES, with downforce, one can run faster in the rain than without it. BUT, downforce actually makes things MUCH less safe in the rain. Reason being, once a car gets out of shape (begins moving in an undesired direction), downforce is lost. Once downforce is gone, the only friction left is that of the mechanical gripping force of the tires. Thus the driver is left with ZERO room for recovery once past downforce is lost. The driver was already moving at a speed faster than the mechanical force of the tire would allow without downforce, thus a simply out of shape becomes a spin when downforce is lost.
Also, downforce really doesn't come into play until 80mph for the best cars. My M3 with the Lightweight spoiler really doesn't make significant downforce till 100mph. With the average speed at 120 something in the dry, you can bet they would be around 65-70 in the wet, meaning that downforce would hardly even come into play except in the straightaway's. And we all know, downforce doesn't really help when you are going straight (unless you are braking of course).
I still think NASCAR should have run the qualifying. Would have been fun to see those guys poke around the track without the slightest idea what a wet line is.