Oh, and "real men" don't use ABS. "Real men" also get beat in the braking zones, tend to slide off the end of the track in the wet, and love the "thumpety-thumpety" sound of flat-spotted race rubber... ;-)
Hehe, yea. All of this "ABS is bad" nonsense was dispelled a decade ago. Hinders learning? Hurts performance? That is 100% hogwash. You might as well say "Horsepower is bad - it makes winning too easy, so
Real Men unplug the coils on two cylinders!"
ABS is so important that
this is the single driving factor between the optional power-to-weight ratios in NASA's popular American Iron racing series (Camaros, Mustangs, etc). Look at this:
http://www.nasaproracing.com/rules/american_iron_rules.pdf - current AI rules
6.1 American Iron (Power)
The “American Iron” (AI) class has a strict 9.5:1 (9.5 pounds of vehicle weight per each horsepower) power to weight ratio maximum and 9:1 (9 pounds of vehicle weight per each foot-pound) torque to weight ratio maximum as measured at the rear wheels. All vehicles that compete in this class may have less than the specified amount but may not exceed the 9.5:1 and 9:1 HP & TQ ratios,
unless specified in the Table 6.1 below.
Code:
[B]Table 6.1[/B]
[U] ABS TYPE........................................POWER LEVEL [/U]
None ........................................9.00:1 HP / 8.50:1 TQ ratio
Any OEM ABS (except 2005+ Ford)..............9.25:1 HP / 8.75:1 TQ ratio
2005+ Ford ABS Only .........................9.50:1 HP / 9.00:1 TQ ratio
So, not only do you get to run a more favorable power to weight ratio if you remove the ABS - because that is proven to slow your car's performance on track - the 2005-up Mustang ABS system is handicapped even more! Why? Because it works so well that
S197s are crushing the National level AI fields. Racers in non-S197s have been complaining bitterly because they get out-braked by 50-100 feet, and when you have the same power and weight (ratio) as anyone else,
that's where all the passing happens. So they made this adjusted power-to-weight handicap to help the non-S197s. Let's look at the AI Nationals results from 2012...
Look at the top 7 finishers:
all S197 Mustangs, and I'd wager that they all had their ABS fully functional. 7 more of the 19 finishers, also in S197s. They all have the same basic power-to-weight ratio (with the S197 ABS cars adjusted to the worst one possible), all are stick axle, RWD, almost all are McStrut cars... but the biggest differences are in the ABS system. The S197 ABS is considered "God-like" (not my words) and many industrious AI racers are swapping the S197 ABS system onto their SN95 and Fox Mustangs, gladly taking the power-to-weight hit.
At the last NASA race I attended (Hallett, June) I took pictures during several of the AI races. The majority of the spins and offs were cars that had ABS systems removed or worse, that failed for some reason.
All this "Real men don't use ABS" stuff is
BAD INFORMATION for newbies to be reading. Please, tune out this noise and keep your ABS. Take it from someone who has raced for 26 years on track, with a decade+ of that in cars w/o ABS:
LEAVE YOUR ABS FUNCTIONAL!!! ABS makes your car faster, every car made from ~1995-on has it, race cars keep ABS when it isn't banned, and ABS saves you money (flat spotted tires, crashes).
Of course, you
should turn off the traction/stability control systems. Completely off - yes, hold the brake and press the button for 5 seconds. Yes it is a PITA, and if it re-activates while on track for some reason (that's a fault, not a normal condition) come in and reset it (unless you are in the middle of a W2W race). Leaving the traction/stability system active on a Mustang will burn up the rear brakes quickly, because the computer is using massing amounts of rear brake applications to prevent any tire slip or yaw. I forgot recently at a NASA event and it was FREAKY how much rear brake was being applied. Undrivable, had to blow off that session and come in.
Cheers,
