Watching Youtube videos, I noticed that Hale-Ray HS out of CT built a rear steer car and raced at Lime Rock 2014. Was that considered a success? Will we see the car again?
Sorry for long wait before reply. I don't look on here as much as I should.
Yes that is the video I was seeing with the rear steer/leaning car. I didn't see anything of it on videos for 2015, so have to assume it wasn't competitive.
Rear-steering has a lot of unpredictability. Without going into a lot of geometric details, suffice it to say if it was a good thing all the auto manufacturers in the world would be using it. It has to do with scrub angles, traction, weight transfer, and centrifugal forces interacting. Rear steering belongs on fork-lifts because maneuverability is important and speeds are very low. For vehicles that need to maintain stability at anything much above walking speed, rear steering is unstable and unsafe. Yes, there have been auto manufacturers who have experimented with 4-wheel steering, but not very successfully and it usually locks out the rear steering at highway speeds. Also, 4-wheel steering was tried on an Indy car back in the late 1960s. After it scared the daylights out of a couple of drivers with its unpredictability, the car was withdrawn and did not attempt to qualify for the Indy 500.
In my years in Electrathon I have seen 3 different "leaner" cars. One was fairly successful, two were pretty much junk. They tend to be heavy and overcomplicated. More importantly, I am yet to see any advantage of a "leaner". Electrathon cars, if built correctly, are so low and small that weight transfer is not a problem, so why bother with a complicated linkage system to make a "leaner"?.
Bottom line - my advice: avoid rear-steering and "leaners". Build your car to be reliable and as friction-free as possible. "In order to finish first, you must first finish".
