{"id":8563,"date":"2018-03-19T04:08:24","date_gmt":"2018-03-19T11:08:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/?p=8563"},"modified":"2018-03-16T13:15:55","modified_gmt":"2018-03-16T20:15:55","slug":"q-why-is-the-theoretical-line-not-the-fastest-line-through-a-corner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/q-why-is-the-theoretical-line-not-the-fastest-line-through-a-corner\/","title":{"rendered":"Q: Why is the theoretical line not the fastest line through a corner?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Q<\/strong>: \u201cFollowing on from Podcast 61 with Ann Morey<\/a> in which she talked about drawing arcs on track maps to work out ‘the line’, I tried a similar thing\u00a0for my local kart circuit. The corner I picked is a combination of two fast clockwise corners that need to be treated as one. I plotted the largest diameter circle I could that joined the following three points: 1) the\u00a0outside edge of the track at turn-in; 2) the apex\/clipping point; 3) the outside edge of the track at track out. I also superimposed three karts onto the circuit at these three points. This corner sequence\u00a0is preceded and followed by decent length straights so I see no obvious reason to compromise\/prioritize entry or exit over one another. My question is this: Why is this theoretical line not the fastest, and if it is, why do people not tend to drive it? I see people make roughly that clipping point and that track out, but I don’t see many\/any people turning in that late and missing the first apex by that far.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

A<\/strong>: With the limited information that I have, here are a couple of possible answers to your question (which is very interesting):<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The line that has the most grip usually is faster than the theoretically ideal line. So if everyone takes a more shallow line entering the corner, it will likely have more rubber down there, and therefore have more grip. And grip usually wins (but not always).<\/li>\n
  2. Looking at the arc you\u2019ve drawn, it does add distance to the track. Often, a shorter distance – even if the line is not as \u201cideal\u201d – will result in less time taken to get from one point on the track (the start line) to another (the finish line). This seems to be more important in lower-powered cars (like karts). If you watch NASCAR Trucks run at Daytona they take a completely different line than the Cup cars do – they just drive around the bottom of the track. That\u2019s the shortest distance, and since they don\u2019t have the same higher power\/speed that the Cup cars have, they don\u2019t need to use all the track.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So if I had to guess why drivers don\u2019t drive the line you\u2019re drawn, I going with grip and distance as the two likely reasons. Usually, given enough time, at least one driver will try a different line and find out of it\u2019s faster. If it is, others will follow. So I suspect that someone has tried the line you\u2019re drawn and found that it\u2019s not as fast.<\/p>\n

    There are always exceptions to the rules\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    “My question is this: Why is this theoretical line not the fastest, and if it is, why do people not tend to drive it? I see people make roughly that clipping point and that track out, but I don’t see many\/any people turning in that late and missing the first apex by that far.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ask-ross"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8563"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8569,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8563\/revisions\/8569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}