this is also my plan. I have a 44" RedEmber with 4wd and 2x stormcore here… curretly with MBS truck. Now I plan to add the 3-link trucks and maybe a front foot strap. Hope that turning tight will be easier then.
That’s not true and slip angle doesn’t mean what you think it means. In cars the steering can’t over power the friction of the contact patch so it twists the rest of tire around it so when the following twisted part comes into contact the angle difference between the contact patch and the following part is called slip angle, not an ebin 4 wheel Tokyo drift.
The only time slip is faster is when you are comparing someone 2% over the limit vs someone 10% under leaving grip on the table, 0% slide and fully maxing out traction will be faster than any slide. This is all just what the technical perfect is, it requires an incredible amount of skill to stay at perfect grip levels so it’s easier to find the limit by going slightly over it then correcting even though there is technically a faster way.
I clearly haven’t got it right then because every time i feel like I’ve slid in a lap my times are worse.
We dont have a huge racing scene so hard to know. I commented on my experience. Be awesome to ride with guys like yourself one day as always learning.
All very interesting. Thanks.
Here some comments from ChatGPT:
I like to talk about racing car cassis.
Sure, I’d be happy to discuss racing car chassis with you! What specific aspects of racing car chassis would you like to talk about?
Is it faster to have drift in curves or is it faster to have no drift?
In general, it is faster to have no drift in curves when racing. Drifting is a driving technique that involves intentionally oversteering the car, causing the rear wheels to lose traction and slide sideways through a turn. While drifting can be visually impressive and can help to make quick changes in direction, it also slows the car down.
When a car drifts through a turn, it is not traveling in the most direct line possible. This means that the car has to travel a longer distance than if it were to take the turn without drifting, which takes longer to complete. Additionally, when the wheels are sliding, they are not providing as much traction as they would be if they were gripping the road, which can lead to a loss of speed.
That being said, there are certain situations where drifting can be useful, such as in certain types of rally or drifting competitions where style and entertainment value are prioritized over pure speed. Additionally, some drivers may choose to use a controlled drift in order to maintain control of the car when driving at high speeds on a particularly tricky turn. However, in most types of racing, minimizing drifting and taking turns as quickly and efficiently as possible is the best way to achieve maximum speed.
how about formula one?
In Formula One, minimizing drift and taking turns as quickly and efficiently as possible is also the preferred technique for achieving maximum speed. The sport emphasizes precision and speed, and drivers are typically trained to take turns as smoothly as possible, without losing grip or sliding sideways.
In Formula One, cars are designed to be highly aerodynamic and to hug the road as closely as possible. This means that they are engineered to provide maximum grip in turns, which can be compromised if the car is drifting. Additionally, Formula One tracks are designed with specific turns that require drivers to maintain a certain speed in order to remain competitive. Any loss of speed, even momentarily, can be costly in terms of lap time.
That being said, there are some situations in Formula One where controlled drifting can be useful, such as when a driver is trying to overtake a competitor or avoid a collision. In these situations, a driver may use a controlled slide to change direction quickly without losing too much speed.
Overall, though, the aim of Formula One racing is to take turns as quickly and efficiently as possible, without drifting, in order to achieve the fastest lap times and secure a competitive advantage over other drivers.
how about cart racing?
In cart racing, the answer to whether drifting is faster or slower can be more complex than in other forms of racing. Cart racing, also known as karting, is a form of open-wheel motorsport that involves racing on small, four-wheeled vehicles called go-karts. Unlike Formula One cars, go-karts have a much lower weight and power-to-weight ratio, which can make them more prone to drifting.
In some situations, controlled drifting can be useful in cart racing. For example, when racing on a wet track, drifting can help drivers maintain control of the kart while navigating through turns that may be slippery due to rain or other precipitation. Additionally, on certain types of tracks, such as tight, technical circuits, drivers may use a controlled drift in order to take turns more quickly and maintain a competitive advantage over their opponents.
However, in most cases, minimizing drift and maintaining maximum grip is the preferred technique for achieving the fastest lap times in cart racing. This is especially true on dry tracks, where drifting can cause the kart to lose speed and momentum, ultimately leading to slower lap times.
Overall, the importance of drifting in cart racing depends on a variety of factors, including track conditions, kart design, and driving style. While drifting can be useful in certain situations, in general, it is important for drivers to focus on maintaining grip and minimizing drift in order to achieve the fastest lap times and secure a competitive advantage.
As I understand it seems that with optimal conditions, no drift is the fastest option.
But there are “special” situations where drift can be an advantage.
I really like your point @ARCTIC:
an elegant perspective on real life driving.
The first thing to know about tyre slip angle is that there is no actual slipping going on (don’t you love engineering descriptions!)
– Tyre Slip Angle - 2 Clear Explanations [with Animation]
but… I think that’s a terminology concern.
verbiage aside, i still haven’t groked why sliding in dirt is considered faster but not on asphault.
With F1 cars it seems to be because the downforce due to aero is lost and traction is lost quicker.
chatgpt
Yah, i was referring to rally cars on dirt, or sprint cars. chatgpt verbosely describes what that is. and that it’s considered faster, but also kindly that it’s considered less fast seomtimes. not really helpful clarification on why it’s considered faster to slip when there’s less grip vs not slip when grip is available.
Idk if the chatgpt response there answer’s the question for you… but for me it reads as ambigious as the forums i’ve read… which it was likely trained on.
if it helped you maybe you can clairify the point it’s making in your own words.
Dealing with dirt is very different than pavement. The traction is a lot less, and the tires do not break away in the same manner as pavement. On pavement, as the car turns, the tires are achieving a greater and greater slip angle. On road race slicks, once you pass a certain slip angle, traction drops off very rapidly (see the picture that I took from the video I posted earlier). On a passenger car tire, the traction drops off much more gradual, so that the average driver can usually detect it and correct it before the car swaps ends. But on the dirt, the breakaway point for slip angles is waaay out there, you have to be very sideways to find where the tires let go. So the basic nature of dirt allows you to put the car sideways in a manner that is almost impossible on pavement. On dirt, you have to find traction, or manufacture it. Because you can achieve great slip angles in the dirt, racers have found that one fast way around the track is to use the driving wheels like vectors. You want to go fast and corner? Going fast means you want your force vector to point straight backwards. Going around a corner means you want your force vector pointing straight to the side. Do what comes hard on pavement but easy on the dirt is to combine both force vectors and the resultant force vector is pointing at a 45 degree angle to the rear and side. Like this.
The front tires aren’t doing much, but in this right-hand corner, if you examine the rear wheels you can see that they are pushing (the force vector) not only backwards but sideways. If you put that same car on ice and imagined that the fronts could maintain traction, the same action would be happening …regardless of the level of traction." TL;DR- On dirt or other loose surfaces, the rear tires on a rally car are used to push the car into the apex while maintaining forward momentum, because loose surfaces provide nowhere near as much front traction during steering as hard surfaces do.
Been racing cars since the late 80s. What fascinates me the most about e-board racing is the unknowns of this sport. We are continuously discovering what makes speed. The ability to transfer large weight % front to rear and maintain right to left lateral loading balance is just one factor that is intriguing to me.
What works the best will be determined on the track till someone comes along and changes the game again.
We are all involved with the process. These are like the days of when automobile and motorcycle racing were in its Infancy. This is a very special time to be involved in e-board racing.
So true. I wish I was 10 years younger to be a bigger part of the growth. Exciting times for sure!
heh, that sounded so familiar. I actually read that whole thing here:
It just sort of jumps to the other force vector ideas, (which i think is the one morgan has in his head). that you want the thrust from the rear wheels pointed at the exit.
none of which really says why with more traction you don’t also want to do that.
it all just raises more questions for me.
I will say that my gut still tells me that as minimal of slide as possible while gaining some free rotation is the fastest way.
i have to say… i feel this ability to balance grip based on where i keep my weight, which as you start out is mostly positioned to balance acceleration/braking and turning… then you start to feel it’s also balancing grip. (downforce) it was an epiphany.
Did you watch the video artic posted? the part about oscilating around the max slip angle before losing traction? do you feel that matches what you’re feeling? or do you think you’re more rally car drifting through it.
Yeah, I got it from F1 technical but basically anywhere where dirt vs asphalt racing is discussed this is the go-to copy-paste, it does a great job of explaining things in an easy-to-visualize way.
The reason you want to maintain traction on asphalt is that tires will glass if you push them past their breaking point and then you lose a ton of grip, this is why ABS exists. This doesn’t really happen on dirt both because of the surface and compound/tread grabbing at the loose surface. It does to an extent but not as extreme.
Its also near impossible for an F1 car to have a controlled slide since as this picture shows, its an extremely steep drop-off, and once you hit that point it’s going to keep sliding because once it goes past that point it can’t just pick up where it broke you need to go lower than that so it can regain traction and de-glass. If you have ever watched an F1 race (which I know Morgan has because every time I scroll past one of Mercedes’ posts it shows he liked it already ) you will notice 2 things the first is that there is no slide at all (at least on purpose) and when they do slide they can hardly correct it, the tires break traction so abruptly that their grip basically vanishes and they spin, mind you these are basically the top 20 track drivers in the world.
Yes this makes sense for sure. As Moe has stated though esk8 has different variables as we’re able to shift our weight around the board so much I’m not sure if F1 is the best comparison anymore?
Have you seen the T-Race leaderboard? We’re basically in the top 10 in the world lol. Nah seriously it’s all good discussion. I really want more people doing the T-Race too!!!
Here is a huge thing to note in this discussion, Morgan is probably about twice as fast as me around a track and all I’m doing is having fun being an armchair racer, theory is often never reality so everything I’m saying is just theory not practice.
Of course, F1 is a terrible comparison to almost everything esk8, they have downforce, suspension, only steering on the front axle, front brakes, etc., but all I was comparing is the way that tires behave when stressed and pushed past their grip limit and that is at least decently similar.
Hmm, so one might conclude from this, if losing traction is more acute and leads to loss of control, then it’s faster to maintain traction. otherwise it’s faster to drift through rally car style.
our traction on the SRB tends to break loose relatively controlled.
otoh, i found some folks suggesting that less slip is faster even for rally cars, but that it’s less predictable with dirt roads to not slide it.
Partially because it’s way more predictable to control. Rally is no where near as predictable as circuit racing(yes, even tarmac), and I’d imagine if they tried to take many corners the normal way at speed they’d get caught out on gravel or mud and just understeer right into the ditch. The awd cars can pull themselves out of corners faster than any 2wd racecar could hope to, so they just slide in, square it up, and explode out of the corners.
– https://www.reddit.com/r/rally/comments/4a5dnm/comment/d0xjo3h/?context=3
Actually one of the fastest drivers of his era, Walter Röhrl, was driving a more track like style with less oversteering. I think Waldegard said he tried that style but it felt unsafe to him and he couldn’t do it.
In one interview Rörhl said he had a photographic memory and could replay the whole stage in his mind before going to bed at night. Maybe this allowed him to drive with this approach.