Well that was fun...

Found a certain bit of paper then?

Oops. That's rather annoying.

Not bad, torque rules.

Mod the driver instead first, and I don't mean at your local tattoo parlour. A book that was recommended to me is Skip Barber's "Going Faster". Certainly helped in my case, as did some training.

Apparently it doesn't.

Not on a race track anyway where you really should be revving the nuts off anything which needs the nuts to be revved off it.

Apparently it really is power that you need.

That's what I'm told anyway.

But I'm no expert.

Depends. Grassroots Motorsport did test a bunch of affordable race cars sometime last year and the one that was turning in the best lap times and was easiest to drive was a Cobra Replica (Factory 5 IIRC - they've got their own race series). Out of the bunch it had the best torque/weight ratio

More power and/or more skill than the other folks :).

'No neeeed'

Went down there in a huff accepting I probably couldn't run it after all, and was pleasantly surprised to find the only bits of paper they wanted to see were ones with the word 'pound' on them. ;-)

Aye... especially as it's right in my line of sight and that screen has only been in there since February, but no matter really.

As does a chassis which lets you 'chuck it around a bit' with no real drama.

55.1 was my best lap.

Trust me... the bend before you go up the hill to the hairpin proved it needs to be stiffened up a little, regardless of what I'm doing. ;-)

Overall though, it did well for a 'shagged out barge'. :-)

*shrug*

Straight line they were invariably quicker.

Cornering, they were slower due to the extra weight killing the handling and brakes.

'Swings and roundabouts', really.

Eh?

The petrols were running with a weight penalty, as I recall.

Oh... not something I was aware of.

"JackH" wrote

For a minute I thought you were talking mpg....

Sounds about right for Lydden Hill, they're massively relaxed over there.

Erm, you didn't use the Rallycross part of the track, did you?

That's pretty good, I think that was the ballpark figure I got the turbo MX5 down to shortly before it blew a hose.

Heh yes, that one is always good at introducing wobbles in both the car and driver.

This is me we're talking about, not Dervy. ;-)

Sorry Timo, but Torque:weight is a completely meaningless measure[1]. Generally speaking, torquier engines make their *power* more accessible, and can suffer less gearbox inefficiency, but it is always available power (or rather power:weight) that determines the performance.

That said, the power delivery of modern diesels is actually quite good for racing - a 1.3:1 ratio between gears lets you keep the engine at >90% peak power at all times. Sorry Burgerman...

[1] 'cos torque is mutable by gearing, whereas power is conserved, regardless of gearing, kind of thing.