Speeding sucks 4153

Wedge is primarily about changing the front-rear balance of a vehicle. As I already said, weight transfer is *almost* neutral with respect to total traction, but not quite. Instead of being a completely linear function, the friction between rubber and the road increases somewhat less than in perfect linear proportion with increasing load. So if you want to get the most traction from a pair of tires, you want each to be carrying the same weight.

But overall, this effect is small. But by using wedge, you can induce it to cause the overall weight transfer of a race car to happen more at the front or the rear; with the end that has more weight transfer getting a little less traction relatively as the car starts to accelerate laterally around the turn.

Put simply: add wedge to the outside rear tire, and when the car is turning, more of the overall weight transfer of the vehicle will happen on the rear wheels than on the front and the car will turn in more agilely (it will be "looser" in Nascar-speak). Wedge on the inside rear will have the opposite effect (as soon as the car is turning some) as it will cause the rear tires to have less of the overall weight transfer and the car will "push" (Nascar and other forms of racing use this term). In general, loose is fast, but you risk having the car spin out, while push is slower, but more stable.

And one of the reasons sports cars have stiffer suspension, to have less body roll for a given amount of weight transfer.

Once again, I suggest that the majority (almost all far more experienced than you) are the ones who are likely to be right. Or have most of the people you've encountered in your life been willing to commit dissolution.

-- Alan Baker Vancouver, British Columbia "If you raise the ceiling 4 feet, move the fireplace from that wall to that wall, you'll still only get the full stereophonic effect if you sit in the bottom of that cupboard."