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First time my new '71 Ford van got loose in the snow on me I was almost sideways before I realized what was happening. This after 10 winters of driving cars and trucks with more conventional seating locations. I realized real quick that when sitting almost on top of the pivot point a lot of "natural feel" is lost. ...
Same with a '68 chevy van in Wyoming. It could do 360's in a heartbeat on an icy road. Never had the same problem with any other vehicle in the same conditions.
A good driver, and you are going to need a great one if you are planning on running even over 400, is going to feel what is going on in 'his butt' way before he is going to visually see it. This is true at even regular highway speeds. Next winter take your car out and push it in snowy conditions with a yaw string and see if you feel what is going on body wise vs. sight wise first and which allows you to compensate.
I feel a lot of people don't have any idea how much a car has to be driven on the salt. Straight line on a flat surface, surly can't be hard to drive right? But, watch in-car videos and see how much people's hands move and the wheel moves on any car that can over power the salt. You are reacting way faster than you could by watching something visually and then correcting.
Moving the driver in front of the front wheels undoubtedly offers aero advantages but if the car can't be driven safely what is the point. A driver that is sitting very closely behind the front wheels is in a tougher driving situation vs. one sitting further back.
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With the Summer Brother's car if the figures are accurate it would of taken them 3900 HP to run 500 (probably about what the Turbinator used to run 500). To run 600 they would of needed 6700 HP. You don't only need the HP but the parts that won't break using that much HP and a track long enough to get it to the desired speed. Pretty unbelievable that the Turbinator was able to have a 503 exit speed in 5 miles and they have been doing this for a couple family generations now
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Sumner