Motor Sports, Demon Tweeks and the Modern Hobbyist: Preparing the Vehicle for Racing

The world is full of motor sports enthusiasts racers; detailers; and car preparation geeks whose central joy is the creation and performance of surprising machines. There's a lot of colour and power in these quite focused worlds, all of which have their own shorthand and their own special vehicles. Places like Demon Tweeks (and this is not the only one, by far), which supply the materials and the knowhow to serve the race enthusiasts, exist at the heart of the hobbyist's world.

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.

Do Higher Fines Really Work to Reduce Your Speed?

The government is planning to increase speeding fines by more than 66 per cent from £60 to £100. At a time when many people in the UK are experiencing financial hardship, the proposal has puzzled many motoring experts.

Excessive Speed
Speed is one of the main causes of injury on roads throughout Britain. Claims for whiplash compensation often result from accidents in which motorists have driven too closely to others at excessive speeds and government officials are keen to reduce the impact of compensation claims on the UK economy. Curbing speed, it is thought, should help to reduce accident rates.

Deterrent or Disingenuous?
Justice Secretary Ken Clarke estimates that raising fines for speeding motorists will generate an additional £30 million every year. The money, he argues, could be used to compensate crime victims. However, a victim's surcharge of £15 is already levied on offenders who are fined in court and there has been no suggestion that the surcharge will be altered to accommodate the proposed £40 rise in speeding fines. Critics, therefore, have condemned the government for planning to introduce another so-called stealth tax when motorists are already suffering from the effects of higher insurance premiums.

The increase might appear to be a veiled attempt to raise cash by a cash-strapped government, but will it also serve as a deterrent for speeding motorists? The simple answer is maybe. Nobody can predict how drivers will respond to the threat of a £100 speeding fine. Would law-breaking motorists suddenly change their driving habits if fines increase by £40? Is a £60 ticket not a sufficient deterrent? If not, would £100 be more effective? Why not £150 or £200? Why not £500? Though a line must be drawn somewhere, the principal objective of deterring dangerous driving perhaps ought not to assigned an arbitrary value.

Perhaps fines should not increase at all. It could also be argued that increasing fines to better support the victims of crime is futile. If more money were spent on policing the roads, installing speed cameras and improving road signage, would road traffic accidents not fall in proportion? Would fewer victims not require less support, thereby reducing their burden on the public purse? Claims for compensation have become an issue in the UK, so would it not be more prudent to propose ways in which the number of road accidents can be reduced rather than focus on fining offenders more?

Road Safety
Regardless of whether the proposed increase would serve as a deterrent or stealth tax, its reach would extend far beyond speeding motorists. In a bid to improve road safety, the rise in fines would also apply to motorists who fail to wear seatbelts and those who use mobile phones while driving. Drivers who ignore traffic signals and pedestrian crossings would also be affected by the increased penalty.

On this basis, it would be unreasonable to argue that higher fines are unfair, but on the issue of speeding the theory is less clear. Reported casualties among road users in Britain have been on the decline for a number of years. Speeding is still a serious problem in the UK, but traffic-calming measures, cameras and speed-awareness campaigns have already encouraged drivers to slow down. It remains to be seen whether higher fines would achieve the same.

For more motoring and car related information visit Hughes Carlisle.

By Sophie Banat