To understand the products provided by the hobbyist centres, you first have to understand something about the world in which they exist. There are two core concepts at the heart of the racing world: speed and safety.
Speed is the ultimate goal of all racing preparation. It is, in itself, served by a nested set of sub-concepts all goals that the detailer or tuner wishes to achieve in order to serve the overall prize of attaining greater speeds without sacrificing safety. Performance, for example, which is a word you'll hear flying around the pits and garages a lot, is not simply defined as "going faster than everything else". To perform well, a vehicle must be nimble around corners without sacrificing too much forward motion in the process. It must be able to achieve high speeds quickly without losing handling ability.
To achieve good performance, the tuner looks not just at the power developed by the engine, but the ability of the suspension to deal with that power as it is pushed out through turning wheels. As a rapidly moving vehicle changes direction, the bite of the wheels on the racing surface is compromised by the sudden intrusion of lateral and twisting forces which, where rigid suspension is concerned, can be translated into fishtailing and bellying. Modern suspension, then, must be introduced to take more individual control of each wheel effectively allowing the car or bike to cope with changes in directional force as well as changes in the actual architecture of the road beneath.
There's a fine line the tuner and detailer must tread, between weight and power. The lighter a vehicle is, the faster it goes: but then the more powerful it is, the harder it becomes to control without weight sitting over the wheels. The goal is to find the perfect medium between stripping out extra weight and adding more power, so the car or bike may be controlled by an expert without shaving active horsepower out of its performance. "Active horsepower" may be thought of as the amount of power developed by the engine that actively increases the speed of the vehicle, rather than simply allowing the wheels to move the weight of its body.
The second major element of vehicle tuning safety is present throughout all of these considerations. To make a vehicle lighter, for example, a person may also make it much less structurally safe particularly where the major weight elements in the chassis and frame are those installed to keep the driver safe.
To properly tune a car for racing, then, it is necessary to replace key bits of the body with lighter but stronger materials. Carbon is often used for this purpose. Its structural integrity makes it much more robust than metal. Yet it is also much lighter, allowing the vehicle to develop more power and performance.
About Author:
Henry Walker is an amateur racing enthusiast. He has looked at demon tweeks in a recent article for a trade magazine.
