zhillz

Wouldn't a reason why those other series don't use FWD is because they are mid engine? (I think i don't know shit about these series) It would be impractical to move power to the front at the point.

slow306stang

they could design any platform they wish too, some of the cars are front engine...


and the gt classes you could run any production chassis you wish...

as for rolex you can run what you like chassis wise under the body, still no fwd.

Chuck 98 RT/10

There are many different classes of racing, most cater to a specific car type. Burgy makes the most reasonable assumption, if FWD were so much better the top venues - F1, LeMans and I'll throw in Indy and NASCAR would be running FWD.

Ultimately as long as you're racing it doesn't matter much, just that you're racing.

omgwtfbbq!

Starting weight around 2200lbs my ass. The new civics weight about 800lbs more than that off the showroom floor. Race ready I guarantee those cars are all within a few hundred pounds of each other before ballast is assigned. Its not like the BMW engineers are ignoring the minimum race weights and just throwing metal in the car for the fun of it.

Edit: Found the rules posted on the WTCC website

So the new cars will be a max of 120lbs heavier, the old cars will be no more than 90lbs heavier than the FWD platforms, and could possibly be 110 lbs lighter than the turbodiesels.

Also the Koni Challenge ST series is actually being dominated pretty hard by the Compass 360 racing team in Honda Civics, they've got GTIs chasing them down in 3rd, and Kias are 5th in the points. Not as damning as BTCC and WTCC but 3 of the top 5 manufacturers are using FWD platforms. So the only conclusion I can draw is that either FWD doesn't suck as hard as most people think, or everyone with a RWD race car sucks at driving.


I leave out the upper end series because those are no longer production platforms. They may have similar shapes and subframes, but you know the C6R isn't a showroom corvette with stickers on it. At that level of performance, the advantage of having your engine closer to the rear wheels, and by logic driving the rear wheels, is much much more pronounced. The Porsches show that pretty well, using 3.6-3.8 liter engines and keeping pace with the larger ferraris, corvettes, etc. A FWD F1 car could probably still corner at 5.5 Gs, but the mid engine rear drive cars will be able to do it at 6 Gs, which means the FWD cars would get lapped several times. In sports car racing everything is less refined. You don't drop 5 places because you miss a shift on the straight. That allows room for someone to be advantaged in the corners and not the straights without losing any time on the people in front of them. The slower pace irons over any small wrinkles caused by driver error or platform inadequacies, so in my mind its a much better field for comparison.

Also thanks, I try to sow the seeds for intelligent discussions among the few people on TR capable of having them.

slow306stang

koni st is designed to be a fwd class.. its geared for them, i was talking about the fast cars you know the ones lapping the st cars every 2-3 laps?


race weight and production weight are two very very different things also...

omgwtfbbq!

Yeah I know. Either way your logic falls apart, because the RWD cars are only penalized a few lbs, and they're still not winning.

slow306stang

thats nice, fwd is still an inferior platform?

omgwtfbbq!

Yeah, that's a fantastic supporting argument you have there.

Chuck 98 RT/10

Badass!!! I'd love to have one of those.

slow306stang

i don't really feel like expanding upon whats been proven over the last 40 some odd years?