Fwd circle track cross weight how to#
Fwd circle track cross weight driver#

This weight transfer has significant impact on traction. We see that when standing still, the front tires have 900 lbs of weight load, and the rear tires have 600 lbs each.Īnytime the car's direction changes through braking, accelerating, or cornering, each tire will experience a gain or loss of mechanical downforce, such as the examples illustrated. We'll assume the car's side to side weight distribution is equal. Referring to the figures, we have illustrated a street car weighing 3000 lbs, and with a typical FWD street car's weight distribution of 60% front and 40% rear. If you were to have a set of scales under the tires while driving, you would see what appears to be a constant changing of the weight at each tire, hence the name. These changes are referred to as 'weight transfer.' Of course, the weight of the car isn't changing, or moving about the car, but the forces on the tire contact patches are changing due to inertia and momentum. While a car is braking, accelerating, or cornering, the effective mechanical downforce on, and therefore the grip of, the tires is constantly changing.

As we stated in the tire traction article, this downforce impacts the grip potential of the tire. Given a certain car weight, there is a certain amount of mechanical downforce applied to each tire.

Fwd circle track cross weight how to#

If you do not fully understand weight transfer, you will not be effective in understanding how to adjust the car for maximum handling performance. “Key to success is making any changes for the track conditions you expect to see at the later stages of the feature race.A fundamental topic in any discussion about handling is weight transfer. “If you are making changes with tire stagger and wheel offsets, you’re never messing with the true balance of the racecar. If the track is a flatter track with minimal banking, I like to move the left front out which will also help the car turn better.” If your car is wicked loose, Merritt says you do the reverse. “Your spotter can watch the driver’s hands on the corner entry and it will pretty much tell him everything.”Ĭontinued by saying, “If the problem is tight on entry, you can move the right front in to help the car pivot better.

Fwd circle track cross weight driver#

The changes that you can make using wheel offsets, “If you find yourself with an extremely tight car during hot laps, you can run less offset in the right front or you can move the left front or right rear out.” Merritt explained that it helps to have a set of eyes watch the car on the track to verify what the driver is feeling. By feature race time, these guys have no clue where the weight and balance of the car is.” When they come off they take the 10 rounds back out and dial in 10 rounds somewhere else. Then they go out and run a heat race when the track is tacky. “ illustrated the point by telling us what he has seen at various tracks over the years, “Too many times we see guys go out on the track for hot laps when the track is muddy, come off the track and dial in 10 rounds on the weight jack. You can change a wheel on the car without disturbing the scaling that you’ve done at the garage. “If your car is really tight or really loose during hot laps, you have to take a look at the things that are going to make the biggest difference. Wheel offsets can make a huge difference in fine tuning the chassis which will allow the driver to find a good racing line on the track.