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That was the 1980s Group C cars. Turns out, it's fairly straightforward to build a car that rather radically exceeds the physical limits of the driver. I woul
by Syonyk 4y ago
That was the 1980s Group C cars.
Turns out, it's fairly straightforward to build a car that rather radically exceeds the physical limits of the driver.
I would love to watch the autonomous version of that, though, with "no restrictions" (or nearly none - melting the nose of the car behind you with a flamethrower isn't quite in the spirit). You want to have a driver in a sim booth drive it over wireless? Great. You want to have a self driving algorithm? Great. You want to generate gobs of downforce with upward firing jets? Great. Just define some basic fan safety based limits, or... don't, and have a closed track.
I would love to see what some of the race teams could come up with, unrestricted from all the various "Hey, let's keep drivers and fans alive!" limits out there.
- Someone 4y agoIf you’re going to race, rather than time-trial, you probably want limitations on car size, too. Also, formula one for years has cars leave a so highly turbulent wake that they had to introduce a system that gave cars close behind other cars some leeway as to their aerodynamics to make overtakes possible (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_reduction_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_reduction_system) I guess you’d need something similar, too.
- bombcar 4y agoYou could also "golf" it where each contestant runs on the track with nobody else present, and you compare times.
- evandijk70 4y agoThis gives me the idea of a race for autonomous, RC-sized cars. A lot cheaper and safer, but probably just as fun.
- Shorel 4y agoI want this, with cameras in the cars and simracing rigs.
- OskarS 4y agoThey've actually radically redesigned the aerodynamics of the cars this year to address this exact problem (using ground effect instead of relying so much on wings for downforce). It's had it's own issues (there have been real problems with the cars bouncing on track), but it does seem like it's worked, they can follow much closer for much longer now. DRS is still there though. The basic argument for it is that it makes races more exciting by encouraging overtakes even more (though there is a lot of debate about that).
- jl6 4y agoThe vehicle would probably be less like a car and more like a missile with manoeuvring rockets.
- pixl97 4y agoNow that's what I call podracing! I mean, things like X-games get a lot of viewers, why not the above?
- MichaelZuo 4y agoI don't think even if you could get the entire human race to watch that the $100 billion cost per lap would be recoverable.
- jotm 4y agoGiven that one restriction would have to be no hot exhaust (which would damage the other cars), electric turbines would have to be used, which should make the races pretty interesting, and the technology useful, especially for electric planes!
- jotm 4y agoI looked into it and hot exhaust is possible for electric turbines! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_propulsion_engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_propulsion_engine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiXuHjyxW14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiXuHjyxW14 It would need quite a lot of energy, so batteries are the limiting factor, as always.
- themitigating 4y agoGroup b