How Much Faster Can Cars Get?

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

I can't think of a race series where the performance ISN'T artifically limited, and a lot of the reason for that is human fragility and reaction times.

Pike's Peak.

In reply to Berck :

After Carlin Dunne's death, they banned motorcycles from the Pike's Peak hill climb and limited it to 4-wheeled vehicles only. 

I recall a documentary called The Fastest Car on Earth, wherein the best driver in the world, a lad called Speed Racer, couldn't handle the speed of the infamous GRX and he slipped into "another dimension."  Don't argue with me:  this was science.

brandonsmash said:

In reply to Berck :

After Carlin Dunne's death, they banned motorcycles from the Pike's Peak hill climb and limited it to 4-wheeled vehicles only. 

Yes, but the motorcycles were not faster than the cars and the ban is thus not an artificial limit on performance.

In reply to Berck :

They aren't running door to door, for laps over laps over laps, though.

And they paved the road!

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to Berck :

They aren't running door to door, for laps over laps over laps, though.

And they paved the road!

Fair. But that made it artificially faster, not slower!

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to Berck :

They aren't running door to door, for laps over laps over laps, though.

And they paved the road!

And I thought I remembered reading a story years ago that it became fully paved, it actually made erosion worse which was the "environmental reason" for finishing paving the entire run.

In reply to z31maniac :

It wasn't erosion so much as dust, by recollection.  When it was dirt/gravel they were spending a fortune on dust abatement spray and they only DIDN'T pave it because of curmudgeons who wanted to keep it authentic or whatever.

If they sold the paving idea as due to erosion, that was probably just their selling point, really they probably figured that it was long-term cheaper to pave it than keep spraying what amounts to really expensive used motor oil all the time.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to z31maniac :

It wasn't erosion so much as dust, by recollection.  When it was dirt/gravel they were spending a fortune on dust abatement spray and they only DIDN'T pave it because of curmudgeons who wanted to keep it authentic or whatever.

 

If they sold the paving idea as due to erosion, that was probably just their selling point, really they probably figured that it was long-term cheaper to pave it than keep spraying what amounts to really expensive used motor oil all the time.

 

I know the oil thing is done in other dusty areas around the country, at least used to be, but that sounds like an environmental travesty all it's own.

It was paved because of a Sierra Club lawsuit which claimed that the endless gravel they were dumping on the road to keep it in reasonable condition was causing pollution.  So, not erosion, but the runoff from the gravel.  I doubt the city fought back for any reason other than the insane cost to pave it and the disruption the paving operation caused to the quite-profitable tourist traffic.

https://www.denverpost.com/2011/09/30/paving-completed-on-pikes-peak-road-13-years-after-sierra-club-suit/

In reply to Berck :

Thanks for sharing that!

Modern racecars are just ground based airplanes with tractive propulsion, the aerodynamics are what make them work, so the limit is the human onboard.  No different than if the banks at oval tracks were at 90deg for some sustained distance, at some critical speed + distance the drivers would just pass out, g suits or no.  Actually could probably run a superkart or even a shifter kart in a wall of death at a carnival and duplicate the outcome without much logistics.

In reply to Coniglio Rampante :

And now Chevy just announced that they're equipping the ZR1 with the E-ray's front electric motor for a new X model. As if 1000 hp wasn't enough.