All that being said about skid pads, I saw a really neat R&T article a
number of months back about skid pad competition. If I recall correctly,
the winners were these purpose-built cars that had large vacuums attached
to the car and sucking down on the ground. I forget what kind of figures
these cars were getting. Somehow I seem to remember that 1 g was, or used
to be, a pretty magical figure. That new Corvette must really be
something.
That being said about R&T, I've also noted in another e-mail group a
discussion about how car magazines really beat the hell out of their test
cars. Apparently in the acceleration tests, they rev the rpm way up to
practically redline and then just dump the clutch. EEouch! The car
companies know that their clutches will be fried when they get the car
back. But, have no alternative if they want the publicity. I was recently
reading a R&T article in which the author did in fact mention that he
brought the rpm to something like 4000 and let the clutch go. Have I been
taking off from a stop wrong all this time? :^)
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