A car running alone is faster?

General topics of interest to racers and race coordinators alike.
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Speedster
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A car running alone is faster?

Post by Speedster »

I'm curious why a car running alone would be faster. Is it due to track vibration, no air disturbance, something else? I couldn't resist trying this with my test car. I raced the test car alone, against a slightly slower car and then against my Midamerica car which is faster then the test car. There was no change in the speed of the test car. The test car speed will vary .01 second on my 2 lane track so perhaps a more accurate test could be done on a 4 lane Best track. What would be all the reasons for a car to run faster alone? Are there any reasons why a car might run slower alone?
knotthed
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Re: A car running alone is faster?

Post by knotthed »

I think faster is a relative term, at this point I think we are talking numbers in the 3rd decimal place which may be statistically hard to differentiate.

You say your car varies .01 on your track. Can you give us your times for however many runs you ran? What I am getting at is what is the standard deviation of the car times?

This cars times vary by ~.01 on the min and max, not each run. Some would probably even say that 12 runs is not enough, but you would want around 30 runs which would seem to be impossible if you were using graphite.

Total Heats: 12
Avg: 2.9315
Min: 2.9267
Max: 2.9364
Std Dev: 0.0026

I can tell you that staging will matter, when you get to this point. I had the opportunity at a race to stage my own car and then let a "pro" do it. The "pro" staging times were better than mine by a few thousandths on average.
Speedster
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Re: A car running alone is faster?

Post by Speedster »

I basically proved nothing but I was curious. Perhaps a car with razor wheels, professionally built, on a better track might give a more true answer. I recorded the times when the car ran by itself. The times running against the fast car and the slower car were basically the same. I doubt any parent would object to a late scout racing his car by itself. I never considered a car would run faster by itself until this Post. Live and Learn.
2.828
2.821
2.831
2.826
2.818
2.823
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