| It's also worth pointing out that the closer to the starting line you accelerate, the more impact on ET that your acceleration has. The farther you get from the beginning, the harder it is to reduce your ET. A great launch can easily cut a half second from your ET. When you're already going 110 mph at the end of the track, can you imagine how much more power you'd need in order to pick up a half second there? This is one reason that Grand Nationals and big V8's own the track. They put slicks on, use that low end torque to pull them out of the hole and run great ET's. Your Z will be playing catch up for the rest of the race. You may cross the finish line at a faster trap speed than them indicating more average power produced throughout the run, but they will still have the better ET. And here's another thing to think about: Let's say you have 2 identical cars, car A and car B. Both run identical 12.0 @ 115 quarter miles. If car A leaves the starting line exactly 1/2 second before car B, he'll pull on him for the rest of the track. It will appear as if car A had more power, since he increased his lead in carlengths the entire race. But if you think about it, car B did finish exactly 1/2 second after the car A did, just as expected. So why did car A keep gaining ground the entire track? Because at launch when the car B took off, car A had already taken off 1/2 second before and is now going about 30 mph. At 30 mph 1/2 second is about 22 feet. So when car B launches, car A has a 22 foot lead. When they cross the finish line, they're both going the same speed, 115 mph. At 115 mph, a half second is about 84 feet. So car A will have a 22 foot lead when car B launches, and a 84 foot lead when car B finishes. Now let's take this line of thinking one step further: Let's say those two cars were *almost* identical, but not quite. They still run identical trap speeds at the end of the 1/4 mile indicating identical average power output, but the way they accelerate is different. Car A has a torque monster engine with loads of low end grunt. It gets out of the hole great but loses steam early. Car B is a high RPM screamer that doesn't launch well, but really gets up to speed during the last half of the track, gaining as much trap speed as car A. Car A will dominate. It'll get out of the hole so fast that car B will never be able to reel him in. While ultimately he didn't go any faster than car B, he covered more ground in the critical beginning portion of the track. Traction+torque owns drag racing.
 |
