Why disengage? Instead, prove that you’re right: borrow a car with a manual gearbox from a relative of yours, redline it in the third gear, downshift to second, and then get back here as to how that went. Just don’t look up what such a maneuver is colloquially called.
Why? Because you’re starting to act like a jerk and I don’t need any of that?
But fine, I am willing to explain if you’re willing to tone down a bit.
To start off: I drove a manual car for a decade until this march. So I kinda know how they work – maybe don’t try to make so many assumptions about who you’re talking to.
And who said anything about redlining? The point is that the drafting car is not redlined. Nor is the one in front, they just can’t accelerate any faster because of wind resistance. Your scenario would only occur when both cars are driving at their maximum achievable speeds. That only happens on very few race tracks like this one.
Maybe you can stop getting stuck in the loop where the only possibility is that you’re right and I’m wrong, but instead explore the possibility that you may learn something.
Your scenario would only occur when both cars are driving at their maximum achievable speeds. That only happens on very few race tracks like this one.
No, it would occur when the cars are geared properly for the track that they’re driving at. Which is what racing teams do, because they aren’t too stupid as to leave speed on the table. And shifting is basically the same between cars on the same track, since they achieve about the same speed at the same points of the track, if the engines are close in performance. It’s not like you’re gonna be drafting behind someone going for an overtake, while still having gobs of rpms to spare.
They’re not leaving any “speed on the table”, a race track has turns. So like I said, maximum achievable speeds are rarely achieved and only on a few race tracks.
Of course the cars are geared for the specific track they’re racing on, but that doesn’t mean they are always at their maximum power.
Drafting is exactly what allows a car to achieve higher speeds with at lower RPM, because it allows the pursuer to short shift and get into a higher gear than the person in front of them. So yes, they would have RPM to spare since they’re in a higher gear and can shift down for more power.
Even in NASCAR on superspeedways downshifting to overtake wouldn’t make sense. Even when you sit in the slipstream for the whole lap and are constantly looking for an overtake. Even when you lose barely any speed in the banked turns and can ride the whole track in one gear. Even if you set the fourth and fifth gears very close, but leave some overhead on the fifth from the top speed — still, downshifting wouldn’t make sense because racing drivers upshift only when they reach the redline on the lower gear in the first place. Otherwise they would be losing speed when accelerating through the gears. The very premise from which you’re working, that the lower gear has better acceleration, ensures that the driver wouldn’t upshift at that speed anyway. And after they upshift, they reach a higher speed that’s beyond the redline on the lower gear.
You know you can just get any decent racing simulator game and test your theories? Wherein ‘Forza Horizon’ and ‘NFS’ aren’t decent sims.
You aren’t getting significant advantage from drafting unless you’re at a high speed, i.e. at those same long straights for which gearing is tuned. If the car isn’t close to redlining the last gear when it reaches the speed where drafting allows for overtaking, that means it lost speed that it could’ve been gaining during the acceleration by having closer gearing.
Maybe your hypothesis works in bus racing, I’m not familiar with that.
Why would I need a racing sim? You told me to take a manual car and test it, which I have been doing for the last 10 years…
And mate, I also routinely ride a road (racing) bike. Drafting is extremely noticeable upwards of 25 kph.
Lastly, in in my EV it is noticeable at highway speeds when I lock my adaptive cruise control to the shortest option behind an SUV, which is still quite some distance, but the projected battery capacity on arrival goes up after a few km of drafting.
Wow, doubling down now and acting like a jerk on top of that? No thanks.
This conversation is over, I’m disengaging
Why disengage? Instead, prove that you’re right: borrow a car with a manual gearbox from a relative of yours, redline it in the third gear, downshift to second, and then get back here as to how that went. Just don’t look up what such a maneuver is colloquially called.
Why? Because you’re starting to act like a jerk and I don’t need any of that?
But fine, I am willing to explain if you’re willing to tone down a bit. To start off: I drove a manual car for a decade until this march. So I kinda know how they work – maybe don’t try to make so many assumptions about who you’re talking to.
And who said anything about redlining? The point is that the drafting car is not redlined. Nor is the one in front, they just can’t accelerate any faster because of wind resistance. Your scenario would only occur when both cars are driving at their maximum achievable speeds. That only happens on very few race tracks like this one.
Maybe you can stop getting stuck in the loop where the only possibility is that you’re right and I’m wrong, but instead explore the possibility that you may learn something.
No, it would occur when the cars are geared properly for the track that they’re driving at. Which is what racing teams do, because they aren’t too stupid as to leave speed on the table. And shifting is basically the same between cars on the same track, since they achieve about the same speed at the same points of the track, if the engines are close in performance. It’s not like you’re gonna be drafting behind someone going for an overtake, while still having gobs of rpms to spare.
They’re not leaving any “speed on the table”, a race track has turns. So like I said, maximum achievable speeds are rarely achieved and only on a few race tracks. Of course the cars are geared for the specific track they’re racing on, but that doesn’t mean they are always at their maximum power.
Drafting is exactly what allows a car to achieve higher speeds with at lower RPM, because it allows the pursuer to short shift and get into a higher gear than the person in front of them. So yes, they would have RPM to spare since they’re in a higher gear and can shift down for more power.
Even in NASCAR on superspeedways downshifting to overtake wouldn’t make sense. Even when you sit in the slipstream for the whole lap and are constantly looking for an overtake. Even when you lose barely any speed in the banked turns and can ride the whole track in one gear. Even if you set the fourth and fifth gears very close, but leave some overhead on the fifth from the top speed — still, downshifting wouldn’t make sense because racing drivers upshift only when they reach the redline on the lower gear in the first place. Otherwise they would be losing speed when accelerating through the gears. The very premise from which you’re working, that the lower gear has better acceleration, ensures that the driver wouldn’t upshift at that speed anyway. And after they upshift, they reach a higher speed that’s beyond the redline on the lower gear.
You know you can just get any decent racing simulator game and test your theories? Wherein ‘Forza Horizon’ and ‘NFS’ aren’t decent sims.
You aren’t getting significant advantage from drafting unless you’re at a high speed, i.e. at those same long straights for which gearing is tuned. If the car isn’t close to redlining the last gear when it reaches the speed where drafting allows for overtaking, that means it lost speed that it could’ve been gaining during the acceleration by having closer gearing.
Maybe your hypothesis works in bus racing, I’m not familiar with that.
Why would I need a racing sim? You told me to take a manual car and test it, which I have been doing for the last 10 years…
And mate, I also routinely ride a road (racing) bike. Drafting is extremely noticeable upwards of 25 kph.
Lastly, in in my EV it is noticeable at highway speeds when I lock my adaptive cruise control to the shortest option behind an SUV, which is still quite some distance, but the projected battery capacity on arrival goes up after a few km of drafting.