Traction Control

[JackD]

Everyone would be required to run the prop backwards in keeping with the tradition set by the one that went before them.
 Stu set the sport on the path of destruction with that fuel injection.

[Glen]

Jack
 Then some yuppie added electrinics to it and screwed up the tune it by ear bunch, Wern't they the famous Luguna leanouts.
 LOL

[landracing]

so I guess we are waiting on the answer to what is traction control, why was it over ruled and banned at board meeting. And if one were to bring an argument to the board for allowing it, if we go with its a safty issue then it will be mandated. I don't think anyone here wants to "Mandate" traction control. We would just like to have the option to run it if we would like. Ok so if it reduces the power and we go slower then I guess the guy without it goes faster.
 Or is the argument there is no way to police it so you should allow it. That is my sticking point, can't police it so allow it. And in the process you also make it optional.
 I dont think that allowing it wont make us not amateurs. Just better amateurs.
 The good point is said to allow it only on the lakesters and streamliners. I would even go for that personally. Or how about a bike in there somewhere.
 
 Desoto Man said
 "Why do you want to take the control of a race car away from the driver?"
 
 I say do they steer it, can they brake it, can they take their foot off the pedal? the answer is yes that can do all of it.
 
 John Romero wrote
 "I want to be able to use it, to Engineer a better race car. Does any one else feel this way or am I in the minority?"
 
 I say also I want to use it because I have the OPTION to use it.
 
 Mike Lefevers wrote
 "Of course if they did have TC it would not have spun, they wouldn't have set any records ether because they would have been going slower."
 
 I say what's more important?
 
 quote from desotoman...
 "More food for thought, at the Board meeting Alan Fogliadini got up and stated he had just talked to Al Teague. And Teague stated he was against traction control. Now here is a man that has probably gone over 300mph more than anyone else. Who has had his share of shreaded tires, who has lived this sport along time. Not many people more qualified than Teague to voice an opinion on this subject. "
 
 So Al can tell us all about the feeling of running both traction control and not? Hard to be against it if you haven't tried it isn't it? (no disprespect to Al) Just answering a quote.
 
 Jonathan

[Ken Walkey]

Bob Drury-Sorry for the delay to your question on petitions, Yes, a very good idea, but again, I don't think the board will listen. It's a control thing you know.

[desotoman]

Ken W. I was responding to Dave Dalgren's post on page 3, 11 posts down. It is OK if I respond to a post isn't it?
 
 Now I have a question for all of you Pro Traction Control people. All of you are stuck in the  "Saftey mode",  that traction control will save your butts. So now what happens when I program my Motec to allow my car to accelerate my rear tires by the 6-10% faster than the front tires. Which is needed to run a record. Will this now be considered a saftey item. Will this abuse of traction control stop the shredding of tires. If my rear tires are spinning am I not technically out of control. Have any of you thought of this kind of abuse? Then what happens when someone gets killed because he or she abused something that was passed in the name of Safety?
 
 Not all people were made to be race car drivers. If a car or speed scares you, it is time to get out of that class and go to a slower class. Or get a driver who is qualified and not scared of the car or speed.
 
 Regards,
 Tom Gerardi

[KeithTurk]

Tom... I don't understand why your against it... doesn't make sense to me... and I'm not for calling it a safety gig... ( not saying it's true or not..)   If you don't want to run TC and it was legal... Don't run it... but why not permit me to run it?  is it because other folks couldn't compete against it?  
 
 Progress is a fascinating thing... following the logic along here... in the 50's we would have outlawed OHV's... and in the 60's we couldn't have Automatic transmissions...( ya know a Driver has to shift to be a real driver ) and in the 80's you would have to outlaw EFI... oh wait ... we did that in the classic class...
 
 Turbo's.. ... we gotta outlaw them Turbo's cause they are stomping our blower records...
 
 You get the point... it's all about shifting our mindset as technology allows... none of us are stuck without computors are we?
 
 Keith

[ddahlgren]

Well you could use a Motec or you could use an EFI tech or a Pectel.. the list is pretty long. But to answer your question yes you can set the slip point at whatever you like. In the lower gears 6 to 10% is probably realistic, but at terminal it is also probably too much depending on the speed of the tire. A 300 mph car has a wheel speed around 3600 rpm with a 28 inch tire. 360 rpm of slip would be a problem heat wise. The problem is most drivers can both feel and hear the slip on pavement. From everything I have seen at the salt it is more like driving on hard packed snow and once the tire starts spinning it takes a little more time to reel it back in. This may be due to the water under the salt or the basic nature of the substance. But I have seen data logs of very accomplished drivers that said the car was on rails no problems and they were turning the tires up pretty good. So I think the feed back is hard to find for the driver. At the end of the day you can not go any faster than you have traction to do it. Going 300 with 10% slip is no faster than going 300 with 2% slip. The problem is all about aero loading, downforce and traction thru the wheels and suspension. All traction control does is not slip the tires you end up going as fast as the traction allows and no faster, but you do it with less drama and less chance of overheating a tire. A better name for it would be slip control by power reduction. real traction control uses the brakes not the rev limiter. It slows down the slipping wheel with the brake and lets the others do their job. That is traction control. That is not what we are talking about in the first place and no one even seems to understand the most basic facts in this issue. If you don't know the difference between slip control thru power reduction and real traction control how can you even have a logical position on the issue?
 
 As far as a driver or rider being scared. I would worry a lot about one that did not have a healthy respect for running over 200 mph let alone 300 or 400.. Is that scared, no but a little concern is always good.
 
 The other thing that every seems to miss is the driver with or without slip control is pretty busy. At 440 ft per second I suspect they are quite busy. If you compared this to a jet fighter pilot trying to land at 300 wouldn't it be more like a controlled crash?
 
 The reaction times of a lot of the drivers and actually I would have to say most because in general this is not a young mans sport from what I have seen at the starting line. I would have to guess the median age some where around 50 to 55. The drivers are over the hill in reaction times by a long shot and no amount of talent or practice can fool mother nature, it just takes longer as you get older so everyone ought to just own up to it. Do you se many 55 year old F1 drivers??
 
 At the end of the day every time there is a ruling with no answer that makes sense it comes down to El Mirage and car club points , or am I missing something ? The thing that amazes me is the rules committee I assume is apointed by the board to give them recommendations that would make things better safer and fairer. These people are apointed because the board has great faith in their judgement and technical ablility to come up with sensible solutions to hard problems. From what I heard the vote was 14 in favor and 1 not in favor of TC/slip control. So the rules commettee is over 93% sure that TC/slip control is a good idea. What happened to the trust in the rules committee? What is the point of even having a rules committee if a recommendation that was favored by this percentage is ignored? Lets just let the board tell everyone the way it is going to be because that is what they want and don't bother with any explanation because you are argueing an opinion rather than a fact.
 At this point I wish no one else had put in for a rules change concerning this as I suspect it probably muddied the issue. All I wanted was a simple enforceable definition as to what constituted real traction control using the brakes as OEM's use. It is also quite dangerous to develop on your own in your garage using the brakes. This is easy to enforce, you can see the actuator. Slip control though power reduction is impossible to detect period. It equally will not let you go faster in a straight line. It will allow you to corner faster though. Remember all the places that it is outlawed, at least the ones that make sense as NHRA raely makes sense to me, are all about cornering and making a spectator event. NASCAR is not racing it is a staged production for entertainment and advertising.
 
 Hello we have no cornering in LSR at least not intentional cornering.
 
 Dave Dahlgren

[landracing]

Originally posted by desotoman:
 
 Now I have a question for all of you Pro Traction Control people. All of you are stuck in the  "Saftey mode",  that traction control will save your butts.

Hey Tom have you read my posts above. I stated  if we go with its a safty issue then it will be mandated. I don't think anyone here wants to "Mandate" traction control. We would just like to have the option to run it if we would like. Ok so if it reduces the power and we go slower then I guess the guy without it goes faster.
 
 
 Also if you are dead against it and you were at the Board meeting WHY DONT YOU TELL US WHY THEY BANNED IT. GIVE US A REASON. I THOUGHT YOU WERE On the RULES COMMITTEE.
 
 Jon

[Randy Williams]

Dave, thanks for pointing out the difference between TC and Slip Control.
 
 Yes there is a HUGE difference.
 
 For those that not had the pleasure of driving a high HP car with TC I challenge you to go test drive a new Corvette. I have had that pleasure. With the TC on it was one of the worst drives I've ever had.With it on I had no clue what it was going to do. With it off I could feel what the car was doing and make the correct driving input changes.
 
 TC no thanks.  SC YES. Safer yes.... but not a saftey device.
 
 Now I'll rant about the cost. You just spent $600.00- $1000.00 on rear tires. Opps gone in one pass. Bummer. Hope you brought a spare set or two with you. Cause you ain't gonna find them on the salt. Thats a lot of money tied up in just tires.
 
 One of the  ignition boxes that the SCTA has banned is the MSD # 75314. It was made to buy as a complete... bolt on, plug and play unit for my GM Ecotec engine.Hummmmmm I am now in searh of something that won't cost twice as much or require  twenty hours of fab time to work.I'm not mad or angry. Rules are rule's and I like my stuff to be legal.

[Ken Walkey]

At the top of page one(1),When I seem to have started all of this, I made the statement "Streamliners and Lakesters are the ultimate, UNLIMITED way of doing your thing in LSR, lets keep it that way", and I strongly believe that. Other classes, cars and bikes, all have your guidelines to establish those certain classes, as it should be. The Special Construction classes are just that,Special Construction. This is where we try that new manifold, that new fuel injection, that super new design kind of blower, this is where we can take a V-8, and only run 4 cylinders of it, or cut it in half. This is where we can even run the front (or rear) wheels in tantam like a bycicle, this is the protype, development class, or classes of LSR. How about those crazy guys that took the horse away from the buggie, and put a gasoline motor in it....now we have air conditioning, electric windows and a buggie that can take us almost anywhere, at a faster speed and much safer. Ford,GM, and yes, even Audi can't all be wrong. We've had a very good healthy discussion, pro and con, on this subject of traction control. We cannot stop progress as long as we have people that think. I once again ask the SCTA/BNI board to stop and think, and leave the Streamliner and Lakester classes "as is", the ultimate, UNLIMITED way of doing things.
 
 I promiss...I will say no more, amen

[Bob Drury]

Maybe what we need here is to disallow any board member from voting on this issue unless he or she has driven a car over 250mph on both dry and wet salt.  Secondly, maybe no one over 55 should be allowed to vote on it because statistics show we aren't as quick as we used to be.  How about that, Tom?

[Stan Back]

It never has been Unlimited and it will never be.  It will always be limited by the rules.  You'll never be able to put a monkey in as a driver with a rocket-powered car launched from a satellite.  That's limited by the rules.  It's a shame if they had to reword it -- it still is Unlimited in so many other ways that other racing organizations are not.  Land Speed Racing is not guaranteed under the Constitution.  We all make the choice as to racing under the SCTA rules.  And we have the opportunity to change their rules -- either thru the Rules Committee or thru changing the Board of Directors.  And a poll taken on this website is not necessarily representative of all Land Speed Racers.  If this website was, we'd all be riding motorcycles and trying to get on self-serving top ten lists.

[Ken Walkey]

Just to clarify one point, then I promiss to "shut up", The rules committe that voted 14 to 1 in favor of TC, for the most part,are the same people (board members) Who voted in the following board meeting to disallow it. frustrating --yes. Thats what got this whole conversation started.

[desotoman]

Keith Turk,  I have always felt it takes two things to set a record. One a good race car, two a good driver. I have aways admired the people in the two club as being good drivers. I personally feel if you let the computor take control over the drive tires, then you have just eliminated the driver. Then in my opinion the two club hat should go to the computor tech who made the run possible. By letting a computor run the car you have just put driving on a level playing field. I don't feel that is right.
 
 Dave Dahlgren, one of the persons who submitted a rule change and was talking for traction control(at the rules meeting) was only implying that this was needed for safety, no other reason. He stated that when being pushed off on the salt, one of the people in the push truck told him he was getting sideways. He said he did not know it was even happening. I believe this scared him. Then he started to talk about pencil rolling his streamliner etc, etc. Bottom line he said this was a SAFTEY ISSUE. After much dicussion a vote was taken. I got to vote because I was representing my car club. Even though I am against taking any control away from the driver, I had to think about how my club would want me to vote. So I voted against my personal feeling and voted yes to accept TC. I don't think this has anything to do with El Mirage and Car Club points.
 
 Jon Amo, I cannot speak for the board. I can tell you TC was bought up, there was discussion, the board voted on it and it failed. What more do you want to know? I did not go around and ask everyone of the board members why they vote like they did. I just respect their decision. I never said I was on the Rules Committee. I was at the Rules committee meeting, and did vote. I was representing my car club, which is why I was allowed to vote. If you want to know who is allowed to vote I suggest you contact Dan Warner. Oh and Jon you don't have to yell at me in your post(capital letters) I am not hard of hearing.
 
 Regards,
 Tom Gerardi

[ddahlgren]

For Tom and everyone else here is what i submitted for the rules change so you don't go putting words in my mouth and you know what i asked for and not what you think i asked for.. I don't know about the other person and honestly that is not my concern. Please try to find the word safty device in my petition.. All i stated is that if activated it would reduce power output and put the car in a safer set of operating conditions. Just like a rev limiter.. but real men probably don't need those either..
 Dave Dahlgren
 
 
 PETITION FOR RULE CHANGE OR CLARIFICATION
 
 Petitioner:       David Dahlgren                860-536-9192 home
       2 Ashby Street            860-536-6125 work
       Mystic CT.06355            860-536-7235 fax
       ddahlgren@snet.net
       
 Issue: Definition of traction control vs. engine control
    
 Relevant Rule: Section   _2Q____        Pages # 19 and 20 in 2003 rulebook
 
 Desired Outcome:
 Allow engine controls to actively control engine output by any means using inputs including wheel speed and tire slip. This should always result in a decrease of power and a safer situation rather than a more dangerous one. The engine builder should have full control over the operation of the engine for any reason they see fit. The control mechanism should comply with the current rules for Vintage, Classic or standard classes. I.E. electronic or mechanical as required.
 
 Reason change is necessary:
 The current rule concerning traction control is unenforceable and ambiguous. The current definition of traction control does not state what traction control is and is not.  The penalty for mis-interpretation is severe considering how loosely worded the current definition is currently stated. This new definition prohibits what is dangerous to a competitor and allows a simpler method to check for something that is potentially dangerous. Reducing engine power output moves the car to a safer set of operating conditions, applying a single brake does not. Most electronic engine controls have this feature built in at no extra cost or minimal extra cost and it is problematic to check if the option is operating or not, there are no simple tests that can not be defeated easily.
    
 What are the side effects? (Example: 20 new classes, records voided, etc.)
 None concerning new classes or old records. Very possibly a safer racing environment if this change decreases tire failures due to excessive slip.
 
 Desired Rulebook (re) wording:
 Page 20 paragraph 2  of rule 2Q "Active microprocessor  or non-driver controlled anti-wheel spin (traction control) devices are not allowed…)"  Add definition that "Traction control devices are defined as anything that will operate the brakes either individually or as a group, in order to reduce wheel slip, that is not driver controlled though the use of the brake pedal. No actuators either electronic or mechanical are allowed in the wheel braking system that are not directly controlled by the brake pedal. Other devices such as pressure sensors, balance valves and fluid level indicators are allowed"
 _
 Forward this form to appropriate car or motorcycle technical chair listed in rulebook.
 Note* You may be required to research and develop information concerning the effects of this proposed change.