Rams Eye The Track Guy

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Showing posts from June, 2019

Interview: eSports Commentator and GT3 Racer Matt 'Sadokist' Trivett

If you aren't at all into gaming and online championships - eSports - you may not know who Sadokist is. In fact, I had no idea who he was when I met him either. I just saw a "new" E46 M3 GT3 race car at the track that I had never seen before. I'm not exactly a "veteran" of our track - I had only been frequenting the track for about 5 years at the time - but it had been long enough that I recognized most of the regulars and the race cars. It looked like a proper build and the trailer was parked next to the other two local M3 race cars running whose owners I knew very well, so I went to chat and ask about the car.

I learned later that Matt is a bit of an eSports celebrity. You can't argue with Twitter. But you wouldn't know this just talking to him. He's very down to earth, so much so that he simply thanked me when I "welcomed" him to the track... even though he went to his race school as a wee lad 4 years before I even first stepped f…

How Limited Slip Diffs Make You Faster on Track

Over the years, I've found that limited slip diffs (LSD's) are some of the least appreciated performance parts you could get (or upgrade) for a car. LSD's make a big difference, though, because they can vastly improve how early you can get back on the power and, therefore, how good your corner exit is.

That last bit is very important if you're driving on track and want to get a good lap. You don't have to just take my word for it, though. F1 royalty Sir Jackie Stewart puts an emphasis on the importance of corner exit. When Captain Slow was sent to him to cut 20 seconds off his lap time (Top Gear Season 8 - Episode 5), Sir Jackie told him: "the exit of the corner is FAR more important than the entry of the corner, with regards to smoothness."

You really need to nail the exit. And to get a better appreciation for and understanding of LSD's, you first need to know how open diffs work and where they fall short. If you're not sure, brush up on Differe…

Why an Open Differential Doesn't Work on Track

I wrote a tech post comparing various open and limited slip diffs for a comparison and I found that a lot of people were asking questions. To simplify and make it easier to read, I decide to break them up for a future tech article about handling. Make sure to stay tuned for two posts on limited slip diffs this week!.

WHY DO YOU EVEN NEED A DIFFERENTIAL?

A differential's job is to allow two wheels on the same axle (or two axles in a 4WD drivetrain) to spin at different speeds so a car could smoothly go around a corner. Why do the wheels need to spin at different speeds? Each wheel on a car has to travel a different path to reach the end of the turn. You can see that for yourself every time you drive on snow covered roads or muddy trails.

If you take a turn, you'll see that each wheel/tire leaves a separate track (arc) on the road, which means they all have to travel different distances. And since they also have to travel different distances in the same period of time - the time…

Ford Finally Announces HP figure for 2020 GT500

Ford has been teasing the new GT500 for months now and many details are already known about it like specs and even top speed and downforce figures. But the one thing that remained a mystery is the exact horsepower figure. We knew it was going to be over 700 hp, but exactly how much wasn't known. But we FINALLY have an answer now in the form of a video. And what more appropriate way to announce a mad 700+ horsepower figure than a burnout video?

This figure puts it WELL above its primary rivals, namely the Challenger Hellcat with 707 hp and the Camaro ZL1 with 650 hp, but it is still shy of the new Hellcat Redeye with 797 hp, but it should be much lighter, to the tune of 200-300 lb. And while the Challenger Hellcat is a massively capable grand tourer for its size and weight, the GT500 should be in a different league on track, especially with the Track Pack.

Getting that much horsepower makes it the most powerful production Ford ever and the most power and torque dense V8 in the wor…