by BARC 1 » Wed Oct 05, 2016 12:19 pm
Once the cars arrive they go through inspection. The design of the mini with the open motor and its low track clearance, benefits from some inherent magnetic traction from the motor magnets. I measure this tractive effort as 9 grams. No magnets have been added to this chassis, and on a wooden track this traction would not be there.
Interesting that with the magnetraction the weight of the car climbs to 39 grams.
Lloyd had brought this to my attention at the very beginning that cars built with HO open motors would have some magnetraction advantage. This is noted, but will not keep the mini from participating in the race, even though Peter graciously suggested it be pulled for the contest. It is a fun run after all, and the fun is in participating not sitting in the garage, after its long journey here.
The amount of magnetic traction is light and the car can still lose the back end, and it gives excellent feedback to the driver, but it does have an advantage over the other cars entered, ie it has 9 grams of virtual weight because of the magnet, but that mass does not need to be handled by the chassis.
Like LeMans different classes of cars can still race on the track, and if I had more cars entered that fell into this category they would be classed differently and race against each other.
The stewards have ruled no foul, but the final results will indicate this inherent advantage.
Cheers
Dan