Seen many videos of fast cars (mustangs especially lol) accelerating in a straight line and then losing control and going into the curb/crowd. What would cause it to do that when the wheels are just pointed straight ahead?
How does one prevent or control this?
In: Engineering
First: they are bad drivers with more money than sense.
But in regards to muscle cars, they have heavy, powerful engines at the front and they deliver their power to the rear wheels. That means most of the weight is on the front tires, and the rear tires have less adhesion to the road. As a result, if you simply go full throttle from a standstill, the energy the engine sends to the rear tires far exceeds the grip they are capable of and the wheels start spinning out. Since the two tires are constantly experiencing changing and differing levels of grip, the back of the car tends to fishtail as one tire experiences slightly more grip than the other.
The solution to this depends on what your initial goal is. If you’re in a drag race, the solution is to ease of the throttle and find the point where the tires are able to grip the road and accelerate properly. If you’re doing burnouts or drifting (IE making the wheels spin on purpose) the solution is to subtly steer towards the side of the car that is sliding away countering a slide. Drifting essentially involves doing this through the entire turn.
Both of these are basically subconscious actions from a professional driver and they can do it almost without thinking. But the videos you see on YouTube of car meetups and street takeovers are usually novice drivers who have a lot of disposable income to invest in a car and attempt burnouts and donuts that seem easy but actually require quite a bit of skill.
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