I’d have to imagine it would wear down the tires incredibly quickly too. I’m not much of a car enthusiast but I’ve never understood this one when I’ve spotted it in the wild. It seems incredibly impractical.
It’s an exaggerated version of something that’s used in racing, but going this far is not useful.
When you go around a corner, the car will lean into a bit. If the tires are angled like this (known as “toe”), more of the rubber is in contact with the road through the corner. Of course, this comes at the expense of having less rubber touching in the straights. Racing teams will tweak it a few degrees depending on how bendy the course layout is.
But only a few degrees. Toe to this extent doesn’t do anything but wear down a little strip of tire.
Hey thanks for the excellent explanation. I always wondered what the point was and you summarized it perfectly so that even an idiot like me can understand.
Someone once told me that when the car is going 100mph+ the tires stretch out and touch the road, providing full coverage. They could not answer how the tires maintained pressure while stretching that much nor how that provided any benefit that wouldn’t have been there with the tires on the ground to begin with.
I’d have to imagine it would wear down the tires incredibly quickly too. I’m not much of a car enthusiast but I’ve never understood this one when I’ve spotted it in the wild. It seems incredibly impractical.
It’s an exaggerated version of something that’s used in racing, but going this far is not useful.
When you go around a corner, the car will lean into a bit. If the tires are angled like this (known as “toe”), more of the rubber is in contact with the road through the corner. Of course, this comes at the expense of having less rubber touching in the straights. Racing teams will tweak it a few degrees depending on how bendy the course layout is.
But only a few degrees. Toe to this extent doesn’t do anything but wear down a little strip of tire.
For more information, it’s more broadly called camber angle.
Hey thanks for the excellent explanation. I always wondered what the point was and you summarized it perfectly so that even an idiot like me can understand.
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Someone once told me that when the car is going 100mph+ the tires stretch out and touch the road, providing full coverage. They could not answer how the tires maintained pressure while stretching that much nor how that provided any benefit that wouldn’t have been there with the tires on the ground to begin with.
I mean this is true with dragsters but not most cars.
Look up a video of a dragster warming his tires. Those things balloon like crazy.