Quote:
Originally Posted by swamp2
I disagree. In cars of this power to weight ratio, in straight ahead acceleration, I can feel the difference between passenger or no passenger (say 150-200 lb). That is on the order of 5%. My butt-o-meter is far from finely honed from years of road racing, but has gotten a decent work out on dirt bikes (rear wheel basically spinning all the time), snow machines, some off-roading in trucks, etc. For me I'm pretty sure I could't consistently identify 75 lb or so of difference. I think very experienced HPDE guys and certainly racers could probably identify consistently around 75 lb, but 25-50, doubt. Definitely no solid evidence/proof here, but reasonable numbers I believe.
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I believe you. And that's impressive.
I have a friend that races professionally and when discussing the importance of weight loss in road cars I asked him if he could notice a 175-lb weight loss. He covered the differences between sprung and unsprung weight but ultimately said he couldn't feel the difference between a passenger and no passenger.
I used to race dirt bikes (back in the good old days of 2-stroke motors) as well but they're so much lighter that proportionally, 75 lbs of extra weight there is an entirely different story.
I honestly can't feel the difference between passenger and no-passenger either. Especially on the street. Like I said before, I'm sure (I'm certain) the numbers tell a different story.
But being able to really feel a tenth of a second worth of difference is truly impressive.