Go frame by frame on the video, and you’ll see the car go parallel to the ground at one point before twisting again to a straight-up position and then pounding nose-first into the asphalt and exploding into a huge ball of flames.Īmazingly, the driver, Capt. The C2 then starts tilting to the left before completely going airborne. The race involving this red 1964 Corvette convertible appears to be going normally until near the end when the front of the car, while going 158 miles per hour, suddenly lifts off the ground. This will inevitably reduce the aerodynamic efficiency of the component, creating unwanted lift.Check out this amazing video Sunday afternoon of a drag racing crash at the Gulfport Dragway in Gulfport, Mississippi! The turbulent air stream that the car will enter as it goes for an overtake will reduce the smooth interaction of the incoming air with the small front splitter. Slipstreaming is another factor that could have reduced the frontal downforce on the car and when looking at the footage, the cars are attempting overtakes moments before the slips occur. Add in the flat undersides of these cars along with big rear wings pushing down on the rear axle pivot point and the recipe for take-off is fairly prominent. The overhang from the front wheels was longer than the rest of the cars in the field by around 10cm.Īs a torque is a force multiplied by a distance, the longer overhang means that the twisting torque trying to rotate the car upwards from its front axle is increased, resulting in a much more pitch-sensitive vehicle which pivots from the rear axle. The main cause of this is when driving at high speed over the brow of a hill as - relative to the tarmac - the pitch angle naturally increases to an unusually high positive value.Īnother aspect of the CLR that made it vulnerable (along with a select group of other cars) was the geometry of its front nose. The LMGTP cars of the 90s usually operated between a -0.7 degree and 0 degree pitch angle but there are specific occasions where the relative pitch angle of a car can become suddenly positive. This was implemented by softening the rear suspension, making the relatively stiff front axle susceptible to hopping and jumping. But for the long straights of Le Mans, the pitch angles of the Mercedes cars were nearer neutral to allow the cars to take full advantage of their naturally-aspirated 5.7-litre V8s. In LMGTP cars, the pitch angle was generally negative as this made for high downforce in the corners, if sacrificing a little in terms of top speed. A positive pitch angle lifts the nose into the air, while a negative angle pitches the car slightly downwards towards the track. Firstly, an aspect of a race car’s setup that impacts its aerodynamic performance is the pitch angle, that being the angle of the car’s nose in relation to the road surface.
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