What's the appeal of racetrack-based motorsport?

[Bruce_Daddy]

@Mr. Goob

Motorcycles have rain tires, so do F1 cars. I’m sure the engineers at Goodyear are working on it, but I’m skeptical as to how hard.

Very hard. If a race is cancelled, everybody goes home (instead of buying tickets, beer, hotdogs etc) and they show X-Games from 2 years ago on TV instead (good bye commercial revenue). They have nothing to gain from not racing in the rain. The physics are too much to overcome.

At 550kg (1200 lbs) a F1 car is less than half the weight of a Mini.

The amount of aerodynamic downforce produced by the front and rear wings and the car underbody is amazing. Once the car is travelling over 160 kph, an F1 car can generate enough downforce to equal it’s own weight.

Recent GQ thread.

NASCAR Nextel Cup cars weigh 3400 lbs and generate around 1500 lbs of downforce hauling ass, much less through the corners.

Cite for F1 statistics.

Comparing the physics of motorcycle racing and four wheeled racing is … irrelevant.

[brianjedi]

@commasense

No series runs on oval tracks or superspeedways in the rain, even those like CART that also run on road courses in the rain.

I don’t think it’s a tire issue, per se. It’s that speeds through the turns are much higher on average on ovals than on road courses. Also, on oval tracks there’s a lot of side-by-side racing, and the best rain tires couldn’t provide the grip needed to keep cars from sliding a couple inches, which is all that separates them from the next car. On road courses the field is usually spread out single file, except at the start or restarts, so that degree of precision isn’t needed.

But the biggest difference between stock cars and open-wheel cars is weight: it’s easier to keep an 1,800-pound car on track in the rain than a 3,500-pound car.

I don’t happen to know: does NASCAR run at Watkins Glen or the other road courses if it rains?

NASCAR has, in the past, brought the rain tires out in practice at Watkins Glen and at one of the Suzuka exhibitions. For them to be used, though, the cars have to have been equipped to accept a windshield wiper and have a brake light in the back window.

Interesting note: NASCAR has ordered all the teams to equip their cars for rain racing before the Mexico City Busch race in 3 weeks. Goodyear will be mounting all the hand-grooved rain tires in the event it rains.