I have to agree with both of you actually.... The Driver has a Great
ability to process information.... BUT at some point Task Saturation
occurs.... I don't' know if it's at a particular speed or something.... but
it really happens when several things are happening at one time...
In our case while we progress down the course...not only do we have the
task of physically aiming the car but trying to control wheel spin in
conjunction with applying 700hp to the salt through a skinny set of
tires... Keep in mind your focused on your shift points... Egt's... mile
markers and style points.... ( it's highly unfashionable to spin a car at
200mph ) The whole situation really comes to bear at Maxton where all of
this has to occur in a Mile.... I remember the first time I didn't check
the gages while I was going down the course.... When we progressed from 145
to 165.... the course just got real short.... the step between 180 and 200
is Just absolutely enormous....at Maxton.... On the salt it isn't near the
problem... I can actually check the gages.... What I can't do is tell you
where they are without concentrating on a particular set of values.... and
if I do that all the other information I might possible be capable of
providing is lost.... Hence the term task saturation and in our case the
desire to log the data.
John Goodman and I were chatting one day and his comments about racing in
general was Quantify Quantify Quantify..... if you know what you did before
and the Parameters with which you did it.... there is a very strong
likelihood that you can do it again.... or improve apon it... based on that
set of values... Well after our first year of logging data on the salt... I
can tell you that I had no clue what the car was actually doing going down
the course.... I had the gist of it.... but I couldn't dream of providing
us with Real information to truly quantify all that happened in a single
pass.... I am tickled Dave Stuck the Quick Data in the car this year... I
decided it was so cool that I'm not letting him have it back... in other
words I'm buying the system. If it means I can't run in the Classic
category it's worth it to me....
Keith
----------
> From: Dave Dahlgren <ddahlgren@snet.net>
> To: john backus <34ford@msn.com>
> Cc: Nt788 <Nt788@aol.com>; RTMACK@pop3.concentric.net; joetimney
<joetimney@dol.net>; land-speed <land-speed@autox.team.net>
> Subject: Re: Tire reliabilty, and traction control
> Date: Thursday, December 06, 2001 4:11 AM
>
> The brain being a wonderful computer is poetic and a nice thought, but
> unfortunately pretty optimistic in the bigger picture of things. The
brain cannot
> process what it is not aware of. If you think you can feel the onset of
wheel spin
> in the 5% or 10% range I think you are kidding yourself, especially while
driving
> 250 mph on the salt with everything else going on.. Go ask a pilot that
is flying
> a difficult aircraft and things start going bad about pilot overload.
> Dave Dahlgren
>
> john backus wrote:
>
> > As I view it, traction control is handled in two ways; the application
of
> > braking to the spinning tire/s and /or closing of the throttle
momentarily.
> > Either would be detrimental to increasing speed and handling somewhat.
> > Offshore boats have a similar problem where they have a throttle man
onboard
> > that controls the rpms when the props are out of the water. I always
wondered
> > why this guy couldn't be replaced with an rpm controller. The answer to
all of
> > the above must be that the human brain is a fantastic computer that
when it is
> > in tune with the total feel of the vehicle can control the engine speed
> > infinitely with the feel of the car and the sound of the engine to get
the
> > most out of the entire car under the current conditions. Traction
control is
> > great for snow and ice but I'd prefer to go by the overall feel of the
car.
> >
> > John Backus
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Nt788@aol.com
> > Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2001 10:47 PM
> > To: RTMACK@pop3.concentric.net; joetimney@dol.net
> > Cc: land-speed@autox.team.net
> > Subject: Re: Tire reliabilty, and traction control
> >
> > Dear Mr. Mack don't knock it if you ain,t tried it! What if you
accidentally
> > built a car that didn't need traction control and somebody said you
couldn't
> > run until you paid Edelbrock $10,000 for his super unit! How would you
like
> > that? Jack
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