Of all the many disciplines of racecar engineering, the one that invariably starts the intellectual equivalent of a bar room brawl is that of vehicle dynamics.
Engines, structures and, to a lesser extent, aerodynamics are relatively well sorted. But when you question some of the well-established norms within vehicle dynamics, or suggest something different, all hell breaks loose. But why is this, and what really is the beating heart of vehicle dynamics?
Firstly, the people who initially tried to codify vehicle dynamics, while being able to draw on a lot of experience, had some key weaknesses in terms of deriving things from first principles. A classic case in point was Carroll Smith. When I was starting in this business in the mid 1990s, I read all of Carroll’s books and still recommend them to anyone starting on this path to this day. They’re a great starting point, and the knowledge contained within is invaluable, but there are missing links. One example from Carroll’s books is that adding anti-roll bars adds weight transfer. At the time I took this for granted but, as I started to do correlation work with ChassisSim, it became very clear this statement didn’t hold water. It isn’t Carroll’s fault, he was writing his books in the pre-data acquisition era. The fact that he got so much right speaks volumes for
