I sometimes look in at the "other place' to see if anything is going on aside from the typical vocal chord wanking about the "Next Big Thing that is going to save US rally" and blow up the dam holding back the flood of cash from frustrated sponsors which just can't figure out how to give away millions of dollars they have, and give all you guys in the "right demographic" the support you all need to build your $150k Subies or, like in the latest wank-fest, a $70,000 R2 Fiesta.
If fact just yesterday I saw the Fiesta thread and called Sean M and Kevin Hoikansainalainen and told them to sell everything, max the credit cards and get a Fiesta!!!!

But I just see something that is just so wrong--especially in this day and age of instant access to results and exciting vids from club events from all over the world and i just gotta drag over a part and post it.
It's from a guy who I have spoken with and its just puzzling how a statement like this can be made and not decontructed:
Here:

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lwildman lwildman is offline
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Rallyx's are, in my opinion, an invaluable tool for sorting out issues with your rally car, and at the very least as others have mentioned, a great place to get some seat time.

TSD driving and Rallyx driving are incomparable.

Also, everything being equal, FWD will always be faster than RWD on unpaved surfaces. Just the nature of the drivetrains.[[/b]/quote]

No supporting evidence, just a flat assertion...

Does anybody buy that?

(Full disclosure---I raced rwd between 1967 and last was 1991, and rallied FWD from 1984 and 1997---a VERY GOOD fwd car with real parts in the gearbox and decent motor, GOOD brakes and better steering than any FWD car I have seen since.

I posit my normal "Horses for courses" and say here that for North American roads---all of which are from medium fast to absurdly fast-----no particular drive train has any clear advantage, not FWD, RWD, or AWD...

And to top that, at North American skills levels, no drive train gives any driving advantage....

Whatcher all think?

John, I think the interwebs is a giant bench racing wank fest. Probably a conspiracy orchestrated by the worldwide ophthalmologists cabal to sell more glasses, contact lenses and laser eye surgeries...


t

---

Pure mathematics is the enemy of every truly creative man -- Sir Alec

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Ted Andkilde
John, I think the interwebs is a giant bench racing wank fest. Probably a conspiracy orchestrated by the worldwide ophthalmologists cabal to sell more glasses, contact lenses and laser eye surgeries...


t

And whatever Medical Specialist that removes fur from the palm.

The internet makes everyone an expert....facts and data are irrelevant.

Well, looking at recent regional rally results, the G2 and G5 class winners are all FWD cars. At least for the results that I've seen. Granted, most 2WD rally cars are FWD, but that is also telling.

If he was talking about cone squishing unpaved surfaces than that's a pretty true statement. Real rallycross or real stage rally not so much.

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MikeColangelo
Well, looking at recent regional rally results, the G2 and G5 class winners are all FWD cars. At least for the results that I've seen. Granted, most 2WD rally cars are FWD, but that is also telling.

Thia's a blurb, not an explanation.
I know what the results are, and that wasn't the subject---nor really was "just USA" (that was the comment about this being 2010 and results and vids from club events all over the world. The world is all the earth places that are beyond our borders)


Sorry if I wasn't clearer but I was wondering about a couple of things:
Why would somebody believe that-- results from "recently" (and recently? WTF is recent. Recent to me is the last 15 years) , or some OTHER misunderstanding or fault in reasoning?
Notice he said "It's in the nature of their drivetrains"

So, come on boys, save the one line blubs for "the other place, here we can examine ideas in depth and here we can THINK.

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RallyTaco
If he was talking about cone squishing unpaved surfaces than that's a pretty true statement. Real rallycross or real stage rally not so much.

\

Oh, I guess you didn't see Derek Bottles comments about using a fawkin autotragic street car VOLVO and on a rallycross day being something like 11 or 14 seconds FASTER than with his Golf.

Typical PNW bullshit too tight course.
I know you guys get to have more "fun' but this is more "why" does somebody believe that, not "what" we commonly see.

I guess I'm trying to understand how misunderstanding and group errors are created, maintained and perpetuated---and the face of mountains of contradictory evidence.

FWD has an inheirant advantage in that the drive tires tend to be where the traction is. RWD has the advantage of weight transfer during acceleration and a drivetrain that can cheaply take hundreds or even a thousand horsepower reliably.

FWD are more common nowadays as that is what the majority of manufactures offers in their car lines. It is somewhat easier for most idiots to drive in inclimate weather, tends to be lighter so EPA stays happier and is cheaper to make so shareholders are happier.

Back in the day...when we all had 150 hp cars and junk suspension and little truck tires...the PNW was dominated by RWD. Whiting in a RX3 and 2.6 Colt, Christensen RX3 and RX7, Wright RX3, Patterson RX7, myself in a 210 and RX7. The top 5 cars would usually be nip and tuck and the next 5 would be a long ways behind. Mark Qvale could run up front in a new and nicely prepped FWD turbo Dodge but wasn't dominant. Hartman and Koji could run close once in a while. On a day to day basis it was the same old RWD faces having their way out here...and with the national guys as well. Didn't much matter if it was FWD, RWD or AWD when they showed up we beat on them. I was the 9th ranked driver in the US then and I wasn't the fastest guy out here. Just the fastest that usually entered nationals. If we all did the top 10 US probably would have 5 or 6 PNW cars. It got to the point the SCCA made us start 3 minutes back of the national..we'd still catch cars in 5 or 6 miles. Then they shortened the event so we couldn't compare times. They knew though, the PNW could drive...other than Millen, Buffum, Shepard and a few other legends..the 323s, Subes, Talons were cannon fodder for the old RWD cars.

What has changed? The Impreza largely. Great traction in all conditions, decent power, decent weight, good bits and affordable. The RWD went away as "Detroit" stopped other than a couple pony cars. FWD became the norm and people adapted. People forgot how to drive RWD. That is the current problem. You see these guys thinking RWD is fun because it slides and they force the slides. 1/2 way thru a corner the guys hang on the throttle, car exits way sideways, ass in the ditch, no traction, big whip as the cars comes out of ditch and fishtails into the other ditch. Slow, slow, slow.....

People haven't changed in their natural abilities and physics haven't changed, there's still 5 fast guys and a buttload of slow guys. The fast guys now just drive FWD that's all. RWD will still take more power reliably and just needs a couple fast guys to show that.

Ability
Reliability
Platform

That's the secret fast formula buried on the mountain under a rock.....

For what it's worth, recent is last 5 years, when your talking academic papers. So, all the accredited colleges and universities teach that when trying to find recent sources for backing up opinions and claims, its 5 years for recent information.

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Dazed_Driver
For what it's worth, recent is last 5 years, when your talking academic papers. So, all the accredited colleges and universities teach that when trying to find recent sources for backing up opinions and claims, its 5 years for recent information.

Thank you, Timmy.
Next time the subject of college papers for undergraduates comes up I'll know why the papers seem so shallow and superficial.

What thread was that from?

I'd find that one where I posted video of Mikko Kauppinen and another Finn from the same stage, one in a Honda Civic, one in a Toyota Starlet.
Though I did save the videos.
Mikko in Starlet:
http://nocoastmotorsports.net/Videos/2WDCompare/kouvola2006-ek3.mpeg

Matti in Civic:
http://nocoastmotorsports.net/Videos/2WDCompare/mattirantanen-kouvola2006-ek3.mpeg

Does this work?
<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="

?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="

?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>

Grrrrrr, is there a way to embed vids here i don't know about?
Cause here is some good driving in (gasp!!!) an excellent FWD car.

Gotta agree with Gene except to point out that certain old funky fwd cars routinely battled second for second with Joel in his RX, and caught Koji SEVERAL times in less than 7-8 miles only to eat his dust when he would never pull over.

But that certain FWD car was actually very well specced out so it's not surprising.
That same FWD car 7-8 years later actually caught the reigning PGT Champion in a Celica All Trac turbo in as little as 6.4 miles---the difference was that she walked back to the old funky FWD thing and said "I don't know what the hell got into you but YOU'RE starting the next stage ahead, cuase its longer and I know you'll be catching us, so come on"
There was a good sportsman.

Gene's point that the weight is over the drivewheels SEEMS like it should be a decisive advantage and it may be that that Wildman was thinking.
I do agree that for an absolute amateur that having the weight over the drive wheels without thinking helps them get grip for acceleration, but for cornering, we ALL move weight to the front with the most critical---and powerful--system in the car: the brakes, so that's equal.





But when we look where there are simply more numbers of cars, hundreds of cars we see no domination of any drive train and definitely vastly less FWD, and apparent advantage judging from results...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/08/2010 01:21PM by john vanlandingham.

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Dazed_Driver
For what it's worth, recent is last 5 years, when your talking academic papers. So, all the accredited colleges and universities teach that when trying to find recent sources for backing up opinions and claims, its 5 years for recent information.

That is a false statement.
For one of the highest level of courses in Statistics I took, a PhD level longitudinal modeling course, we had no text book and everything was based on journal articles starting as far back as the 50s.
Now maybe if you're talking proteomics or genomics, yeah, it's all recent literature as was my other PhD level course in analysis of microarray and genomic data.

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NoCoast

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Dazed_Driver
For what it's worth, recent is last 5 years, when your talking academic papers. So, all the accredited colleges and universities teach that when trying to find recent sources for backing up opinions and claims, its 5 years for recent information.

That is a false statement.
For one of the highest level of courses in Statistics I took, a PhD level longitudinal modeling course, we had no text book and everything was based on journal articles starting as far back as the 50s.
Now maybe if you're talking proteomics or genomics, yeah, it's all recent literature as was my other PhD level course in analysis of microarray and genomic data.

don't feed the Troll