Has anyone here in this group driven his car above 300km/h? If so, maybe he
can tell you how realistic this effect is... Otherwise, we don't think we
can provide you with a true answer...
--
Isaac Wong % Protel Compiler Group
TEL: (613) 763-6127 % Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
writes:
> |> Hi,
> |>
> |> When playing F1GP I noticed that I was able to gain sometimes 15 or more
> |> km/h when going close behind another car in a 315 km/h straight.
> |> It seemed also that I kept getting more speed even *after* I was side
> |> by side with the other car. My question is: how realistic is this effect ?
> |> It looked a little bit too much to me ...
Its called drafting, and thats exactly how it works. When you are
following behind another car, the drag or wind resistance is
effectively split between the two of you (same frontal area, but now
the length is doubled) therefore each car experiences less drag than
it would on its own. This translates into an increased topspeed for
the both of you. Now comes the fun part, the car in back is really
in control and the car in front better know it. When the rear car
dips out to pass, all of a sudden the front car looses the benifts of
having the drag divided between two cars (same frontal area, but now
just one car length) and thus is slowed. The rear car also
experiences this, but it is not as sever a slowdown. The most
effective way to pass is for the rear car will drop back a little,
and then as it accelerates to the front car's rear end, it
should quickly cut to the side to pass. Both cars lose speed, but
because the rear car was going faster in the first place
(accelerating up to the rear end of the front car) it can still
easily pass the car in front.
--
Eric T. Busch
Emory University
> about 40-50ft behind the truck as you pull up to it.
>I can even tell you of a story when 3 of us were coming back from a road
>trip. We all were going about 95-100 or so down an Interstate highway.
Just a note to some of the more impressionable young drivers on this forum
who feel the "Need for Speed". At 95 mph, following 50ft back
gives a gap of about 0.3 - 0.4sec. That's less than the reaction time for
many drivers, especially ones with little experience. While I believe that
the individual assumes his/her own risk, and I assume that your drafting
team were all consenting, I would recommend you play your games on the
computer. If I were the truck driver (who obviously was not part of the
racing partnership) I would have tried pretty hard to get rid of you. Truck
drivers have enough of a safety black mark without others forcing their errors
in judgement on them.
Stephen
>Just drive behind a big truck on the highway that's going 70. You should
>notice a lot less drag on your car, read less peddle to go 70, about
>40-50ft behind the truck as you pull up to it. I made a tank of gas
>stretch WAY passed what I normally would have just by drafting a truck
>closely. I think I went from 14mpg up to 20mpg (which is a lot for
>the piece of junk that I was driving).
Must have been a piece of junk because I always avoid driving
behind trucks. Flying stones... you know...
Interesting story though!
Ahhh, don't apologize, tell the pigs to *** off. :) And what have
lawyers got to do with it? Sure they should all be killed (William
Shakespeare certainly was a clever guy) but they have nothing to do with
driving, do they?
There's a very nice new driving sim out there, I played it a bit
at a computer store. It's called Need for Speed and it's "by" Road and
Track (don't recall the software co.). Smooth 640x480x256 graphics on the
pentium they were using. Quite realistic too, you could do donuts on the
dry track with a NSX. (Not that I've driven a NSX...)
--
Max Behara | Save the animals! Cats rule!
Molly: DM Bt+W C 2 X L- W+ C+++ I+++ T++ V-- P- A+ PA++
Home Page - http://www.geocities.com/~ac575/Profile.html
Windows: Just another piece of DOS software.
