I am wondering if there was a specific reason for the minimum track width rule (1.1)? We are thinking about trying to keep our wheels under the bodywork and 24 inches seems wider than necessary.
One of the original reasons was that we did not want 'near motorcycles' in the race. The idea behind Electrathon is that the vehicles are more car like than cycle like. We used to not not allow go-cart style wheels and a lot of other things that we now allow but I think the 24" to 48" track width is fixed in very firm concrete. But I have often been wrong before. Mike
Mike,
I would think that the stability rule (6.0) would keep the vehicle from being too motorcycle like. The 24 inches minimum track seems arbitrary. On the other hand, defining stability so that everyone can tell if their vehicle is stable or not might be difficult.
mhodgertt wrote:
We used to not not allow go-cart style wheels
I do not know much about what people have tried in the past but has anyone run a competitive vehicle with go cart tires? I would guess running high enough tire pressure to get reasonable rolling resistance would distort the tire too much.
The cars that run go cart or similar wheels have always lost. The best teaching lesson the students seem to get form them is that the teacher tha told them they would work missed going to the class on rolling resistance. BUT, some learn better by failing than by science and the lessons of others.
That said, "stability" is pretty hard to define. When you are doing an inspection is pretty hard to tell a team that spent months building a car and hours driving to the race that they need to go home. They believe it is safe. It is far better to have a basic set of rules for all to follow.
I think that we need VERY specific statements in the rules (just as the min. and max. width) because otherwise we run into "grey areas" as tech inspectors.... everybody has a differing "idea" about how stable their car is... as in "my 6 inch wide car is PERFECTLY stable" not likely... I have seen 4 ft wide cars with pretty low centers of gravity up on 2 wheels during a race (under too agressive of cornering) and at the last race I drove in (mapleton Oregon, may 11th 2013) had a car with a near 4 ft width ROLL right in front of me ( about 15 ft ahead) after a rear tire blew in a corner.... I can only imagine that a 2 ft wide car would have rolled quicker and more violently than the 4ft wide car did.... therefore I think the width rule is a pretty good "compromise" (as well as the stability provision of the rules) and we should probably keep both definitions in the rule book.
