Yeah, but so are many things; don't make 'em any good.
_________________________ "Forward", he cried, from the rear, and the front rank died. And the General sat, and the lines on the map moved from side to side.
It's done 7.15 so far. It's an incredible device. The engine sits pretty much where you'd expect, front-mounted, but the front axle is *behind* the engine and carries the huge wheels you normally find at the back! The 205-section skinny tyres are at the back, in this application! Strange but great!
Sending huge power through the front wheels isn't really a problem if you only want to go in a straight line though. The problems really start when you want to go round corners.
It is a problem in drag racing, because hard acceleration unloads the driven wheels on a fwd car. Just when you need weight transfer to hook up the driven wheels, it reduces thrust dramatically. This car partly overcomes the issue, by having the front axle further back than normal.
These cars use a wheelie bar to increases traction on the front wheels. It does this as the front wheels spin the centrifugal force means they increase in diameter, therefore pushing the car back on the wheelie bar. Because the bar is fixed it stops the front end from lifting, in effect pushing back down on the front wheels.
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Surely in a straight line its just a case of decent weight distribution to give traction at the driven wheels, irrespective of whether its the front or rear.
Clearly RWD has an advantage when cornering though, not many FWD F1 cars!
Because, like the owner of the car says, massive forward thrust means massive backward inertia. (Just sit in a very, very fast car, or on the back of one of my bikes for proof.) That rearward thrust, 'unloads' the front end, hence the tyres, which can only be overcome so much with wheelie bars. This car has the front wheels where you'd normally find the driver's seat in your car, remember! EVEN with the axle that far back, it's a problem finding as much grip as a RWD car. Can you imagine how much bigger the problem would be, if the wheels were 6" behind the front bumper, as in normal 2WD?
Originally posted by Bamford: Indeed, but the laws are still against it. RWD will always be quicker, despite a longer drivetrain.
Indeed, I don't dispute that. The launch is the most important part of drag racing. A bad launch could mean losing 1-2mph across the 1/4 mile which cost valuable time.
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