From the racetrack to your garage Chances are your new car is ...

Tag : Brakes Clutches & Parts

The kid who crosses the double-yellow line on a winding mountainroad to pass you because he wants to push every curve to the limitis doing it. So is the driver who executes a hard slowdown andquick lane change to avoid a dangerous situation and the motoristwho takes the off-ramp 20 mph above the suggested speed. All ofthese drivers are taking advantage of the improved performancecapability that today's cars have due to the ultimate provingground for automobiles - the racetrack. There's an old saying aboutthoroughbred horses that "racing improves the breed," but it's alsotrue for cars. So while few of us will ever own an Indy car or atop-fuel dragster, just about every car on the road includestechnology that was originally developed for the track.
In the quest for speed and victory, race teams and the automobilecompanies that sponsor them develop cutting-edge technologies forspeed, safety, handling and aesthetics that eventually find theirway to your garage. Some of this technology can be installed afteryou buy the car, but other features and materials can be foundright on the showroom floor in the most basic components of thecar.
You may have noticed a number of new cars, especially smaller ones,with oversized rear wings and other body add-ons. These have theirroots in racing, and at track speeds can improve aerodynamics andhandling by helping the car stay planted on the ground -unfortunately they don't help all that much on the street orfreeway. These "aftermarket" features are usually installed bybuyers after purchasing the car, but a number of sports carsfeature built-in spoilers that evoke images of a day at theBrickyard. And even paint has gotten into the act as driverslooking for a snazzier ride often request racing stripes. One ofthe most popular templates is the iconic Shelby stripe - originallydeveloped in the 1960s by racing icon Caroll Shelby - which areavailable on certain Ford Mustangs sold today.
An endless variety of race-proven mechanical parts are alsoavailable that can actually improve your car's performance. Theseusually appeal to those who engage in weekend motorsports or gooff-road, and some manufacturers offer their own products tocompete with those made by third-party providers. "Toyota's TRD(Toyota Racing Development) operations have developed a range ofproducts to satisfy customers who desire an extra level ofperformance, including anti-roll bars, springs, shocks, exhaustsystems and even superchargers," said Denise Morrissey,spokesperson for Toyota Motor Sales USA.
One of the most significant racing innovations that has found itsway to the general public is the high-performance transmission. Thenewest automatic transmissions allow you to shift by yourself whenyou want to, but without a clutch. This is particularly helpfulwhen driving downhill in the mountains. These manual-modeautomatics only allow sequential shifting, which can prevent drivererror that could create expensive problems. You can come evencloser to a manual transmission experience without a clutch withDirect Shift Gearboxes (DSG). DSGs allow you to immediately dial ina gear even more quickly than a manual because it is designed liketwo transmissions in one. Right now they're only available in theU.S. in certain Volkswagens and Audis, but that may change as thisrace-derived technology goes more mainstream.
Thanks to racing technology, you can also now stop your car morequickly than ever before. Until about 20 years ago, most cars soldin the U.S. had drum brakes on all four wheels. They were cheap tomanufacture, but disc brakes - a design originally used on racecars- offer superior cooling because of their open design and also havevastly improved stopping power in wet conditions because they shedwater more quickly. Today, most cars have disc brakes on fourwheels, although a few less expensive cars just have them on thefront wheels. Disc brakes today are mostly made of cast iron, butmuch lighter ceramic brakes are used on race cars and are findingtheir way onto expensive sports cars.
You may have noticed car sales reps mentioning that their engineshave a "dual overhead cam" (DOHC) design, which used to be seenonly on Formula One vehicles or exotic foreign sports cars. Thisinnovative design allows for a lighter valve assembly, enabling theengine to rev to higher speed and make more power, and it alsopermits the use of four valves in each cylinder to let engines"breathe" more and generate more horsepower. DOHC is nearlyeverywhere now in large part because consumers began asking for itafter learning that it was a technological advance created for racecars.