Originally Posted by nomadtrash
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A mod car had the bodywork break and come loose during the event. The car won 1st in PAX. The car was protested because it was under weight. It was a weenie protest because the car would have probably won anyway. A mod car body is only about 15 pounds but generates a couple hundred pounds of downforce. The weight savings benefit was vastly negated by the loss of downforce. The car was probably slower without the body.
I'm probably preaching to the choir about downforce but I'll give a brief description of why it works. A hypothetical race car with 10 pounds of weight will grip 10 pounds in centrifugal force while cornering. The same car with 20 pounds of weight will only grip 18 pounds in certrifugal force. The overall grip is almost double but the effective grip has gone down. You won't be able to corner as fast as the 10 pound car. If you apply 10 pounds of weight and 10 pounds of downforce then you can go around the corner with 18 pounds of grip in a 10 pound car. You will be able to corner almost twice as fast as the 10 pound car.
Of course, all the fancy tires, low weight, downforce, etc... doesn't matter if you don't exploit the corse to it's full potential. That is why a noob really shouldn't care too much about having a car prepped to the limit.
