#DRAG RACE CAR GOES AIRBORNE DRIVER#

Video shows the car go airborne and land hood first. The vehicles then turn around, wait for a couple of seconds and start racing down Fourth Avenue Northeast in Collier County. (WBBH/CNN) - Two Florida teens were injured when the Lexus they were using in a drag race went airborne and flipped last weekend in Southwest Florida.Ī neighbor's camera captured the scary wreck, which shows both cars drive by at first very casually. Fine calculations like this one put engineering professionals to work finding the best balance and the greatest angle of attack.COLLIER COUNTY, Fla. More than ever, racing at all levels has become more technical. Clearly this is a topic that takes a great understanding of physics and aerodynamics. This innovation came about in 2013 to prevent the sanctioning body from restricting speeds.ĭownforce is calculated as: ½ (wing width in meters) x (wing height in meters) x (angle of wing) x (lift coefficient) x (air density) x (velocity). When moving backwards, a handful of tabs suddenly appear on the top and on the hood of the car to prevent the crash from going airborne. When going in the correct direction, the flaps aren’t visible. NASCAR cars however have a unique use for flaps and downforce. NASCAR vehicles also use this technique to create a stout and blocky profile.

Instead of adding anything onto landspeed, the body design is often elongated and smooth, creating a slippery shape.

#DRAG RACE CAR GOES AIRBORNE DRIVER#

These attachments can often be manipulated by the driver inside the car to change the amount of drag and are hard to miss. The most obvious racing examples of aerodynamics would be in open wheel cars, where appendages called spoilers or wings are added for downforce. The less drag, the faster the car goes.Īerodynamics, downforce and drag are essential to the design of any vehicle, whether it is in the air, on land or on water. An aerodynamic car slices through the air, thus creating as little drag as possible. Instead of creating an upward force, fast moving air is manipulated to push the car to the ground, thus preventing airborne crashes.ĭrag is the friction of wind against the exterior of the car. The same concept used in aeronautics to lift airplanes off the ground is used in racing to keep cars on the ground. This added pressure on the tires also results in more grip that makes the car easier to handle.Īerodynamics is the manipulation of downforce for additional speed, handling and apparent weight. This is important because in racing, downforce is used to keep the fast moving vehicle adhered to the surface of the track. The more downforce, the heavier a car appears to be. In racing, that object is clearly the racecar in motion.ĭownforce racing specifically is when air moves at high speeds over the surface of the car. Simply, force is an object of mass that is moving. Defined in physics as: any interaction that will change the motion of an object when unopposed. is a prime example of a slippery surfaced car designed to implement downforce.įorce is an abstract concept. The Frisbee CANAM car driven by Al Unser Jr.

Drag race car goes airborne