Quote:
|
Originally Posted by AtomicLabMonkey
That is completely flawed thinking, Dean. The outside front will always be planted in a turn, no matter what you do. The key to maximizing front-end grip is getting the most work out of *both* tires, not just the outside one. A pair of tires will produce their highest combined lateral force when they are near equally loaded. I have driven powerful RWD cars and believe me, they can understeer too. You can't just forget about making the front end work right cause "they gots mad p0wah!!".
|
I am not disagreeing with you, it would be nice to have all 4 wheels on the ground, but as I mentioned in the paragraph you didn't quote, the transitional forces in autocross are extreme, and having a suspension that will absorb those forces while still permitting the individual corners to conform to the contours of the course within the confines of the rules for that class is not always possible.
Even in SM, the class we are discussing, you can't change the basic geometry of the suspension. Anti-sway bars, shocks, springs and camber/caster adjustment of some form is all you get.
So the compromise in autocross is what setup gives the fastest raw times for the combination of the car and the driver's driving style, period. Unlike other motor sports where tire wear from countless sources, fuel mileage, and similar things just don't matter. Camber, caster and toe can and are set to angles that would destroy tires in most any other form of motor sports. very large anti-sway bars are employed to try and manage the lateral transitional forces that would again be overkill for other types of driving. A "perfectly" setup national level autocross car can be almost undriveable at the track due to lack of high speed stability, overly responsive handling, and tendency to rotate.
Of the cars from of people on this board, my WRX may have been the closest to this configuration and it was a handful at the track, ask Scott, but it wasn't even close to the level of insanity the nationally competitive cars are at. Oh, and it lifted the inside rear at autocross, but not at the track.