At 02:56 PM 1/27/2004, Wilson, you wrote:
>Hello all:
>
>Yesterday, a student of mine commented the following: He argues that when
>his car takes a horizontal curve with a certain speed and a lower gear
>(manual transmission) the car "handles better the road" compared with
>taking the same curve at the same speed but on a higher gear. Any
>explanations for this? I know that "handling of the road" is not a
>scientific observation but he argues that he has asked other people and
>they have experienced the same.
>
>Wilson J. Gonzalez-Espada, Ph.D.
Dirt track racing cars stay in second gear for better control. This is
based on close examination of one when I worked in a gas station near
Darlington, South Carolina in the 1970s. The boss built race engines. The
race drive next to the station brought his race car in for gas on Friday
nights during he summer time. I also got to change tires for him. He had a
home made rubber strap roped around the gear shift to keep it in second.
The right front tire was extra wide. All the dirt track racers who stopped
by to get gas on the way to the track had the heavy rubber band to hold
onto second gear.
I used to fly small airplanes such as a Piper Cherokee 140 and Cessna 172.
When you slow fly an airplane to just above the stall speed by raising the
angle of attack (raising the nose) and lowering the rpm to maintain
altitude, you will begin to see the effects of engine and prop torque
turning the airplane and requiring a bit of extra rudder control. This
effect will cause a small plane to break over to one side in a stall and
you learn to be quick in compensating with rudder control.
So do you think engine torque was working in these real life examples?