Progress report...

StrokerScamp said

That car that's launching is just about perfect. In fact, it might be pulling the tires a bit much. Once you pass a certain point, 100% of the weight is NOT on the rear tires.....at least not efficiently. Once the weight transfer reaches the point to where there is more on the REAR side of the rear tires, you're sunk. The goal is to keep all the weight forward of the center of the rear axle. The further up the front tires go, the worse off you are. In other words, you want to remain in the center of the CONTACT PATCH. Once you are off center of that, efficiency is lost.

Click to expand...

Here are a couple of my close friends who,until recently, raced NHRA Stock and Super Stock Eliminators. They BOTH contend that the higher the wheelie, the quicker their cars run... That would seem to go at odds with the "contact-patch" theory, I would think.

I'm not in a position to argue with them...

The fact is, when you add weight BEHIIND the rear axle, it "leverages" (cantilevers) weight OFF the front wheels and adds it to the rear wheels, so you can get a greater amount of weight increase of the rear wheels than you added, if you "steal" some of that weight off the front. If you add it OVER the rear wheels, all you get is the weight you added... Sort of like a see-saw, with the rear axle acting as the pivot...

Just sayin...