RE: stock tires do not suck(oh yes they do)

[Marc Gallagher <mgallagher@Langan.com>]

Bill,

I am no expert but...

You said it yourself.  In DRY weather the advantage is minimal.  I believe
this whole discussion started because of poor wet weather traction.  In that
instance, AWD will crush a rear wheel drive car.  I don't care if it is the
new BMW traction system.  I have driven the new 323 at BMW's road show
(including a "wet weather" demo and it is impressive.  But having the front
wheels pull you out of a slippery corner instead of the rear wheel pushing
you through helps tremendously.  I realize it is not close to a performance
car but my Pathfinder can't corner for crap in snow w/o 4WD active.  When it
is in gear no problem.  On a dry race track you are probably right, but on a
wet/snowy road I'll take the AWD.

Marc
97' Jetta GLX - Red/Black

> 
Please don't lose sight of the fact that the ONLY thing AWD will help you
out
with is accelerating ... a properly set up performance automobile can corner
better with RWD.  The ability to isolate the front end from the rear end is
ESSENTIAL!!  I know that we've all seen the commercials, "The Audi A4 has
such
unbelievable traction, it was banned from racing for having an unfair
advantage."  Then some actor says, "I'll take all the unfair advantage I can
get!".

The A4s were banned yes, but the only real advantage that they had was that
they
could pull out of corners harder than everyone else on the field.  In dry
weather, their advantage was minimal at best.  I can't stress enough how
important it is that the driver be able to isolate the front of the car from
rear and do whatever he wished with either end.  With AWD, you are commited
to
driving around the cars characteristics, whereas RWD allows you to put the
car
in any position you want.

GT2 racing (mainly a Viper vs. Porche battle all year) allows the Porche's
to
use AWD vehicles if they choose since they do come that way from the
factory,
yet every team, including the factory backed efforts, run the RWD versions
of
the cars.  Why do you think that is?

Why is it that today's premeir sports cars use RWD?  Viper, Ferrari,
Lamborghini, Vette, NSX, Porche (i know they use AWD too, but it's, for the
most
part, a marketing thing)?

Why is it that the fastest forms of racing in the world use RWD exclusively?
IRL, Cart, NASCAR?

Anything that makes a car faster means that it makes it accelerate better,
corner faster, or brake harder.  While these are very much speed factors,
they
are also safety factors.  If AWD was really an improvement over RWD in terms
of
safety, why hasn't any governing racing body made it madatory?

Please don't fall into the hype, drive both types of car on the track and
you'll
realize how much easier it is to run a RWD car around a track than it is an
AWD
car.  And again, advanced track techniques like throttle steering and
high-speed
rotations are just NOT POSSIBLE with AWD.

Bill
'98 GLX