This month, we begin writing a computer program to simulate the physics of racing. Such a program is quite an ambitious one. A simple racing video game, such as "Pole Position," probably took an expert programmer several months to write. A big, realistic game like "Hard Drivin'" probably took three to five people more than a year to create. The point is that the topic of writing a racing simulation is...

This month, we introduce the traction budget. This is a way of thinking about the traction available for car control under various conditions. It can help you make decisions about driving style, the right line around a course, and diagnosing handling problems. We introduce a diagramming technique for visualizing the traction budget and combine this with a well-known visualization tool, the "circle of traction," also known as the circle of friction. So this month's article is about tools, conceptual and visual, for thinking about some aspects of the physics of racing...

The title of this month's article consists of two words dear to every racer's heart. This month, we do some "back of the envelope" calculations to investigate the basic physics of speed and horsepower (the "back of the envelope" style of calculating was covered in part 3 of this series).

How much horsepower does it take to go a certain speed?

One often hears of "centrifugal force." This is the apparent force that throws you to the outside of a turn during cornering. If there is anything loose in the car, it will immediately slide to the right in a left hand turn, and vice versa. Perhaps you have experienced what happened to me once. I had omitted to remove...