My son took his M Coupe to Santa Pod a week or so ago

Just got the car and first time at quarters , first run he went 13.4 at 108mph .

Without doubt that could be improved upon , i havent gotten to see his 60 foot times

 

I can't follow it ( ..... and my degree is in physics)

 

you're a guest and therefore not one of 'us lot'

so need to worry yourself on that score

but you'll see that the thread has developed into a discussion about how to calculate distance differentials

not mud slinging at other cars and drivers

 

I did just type a long explanation with v= u +at and s = t/2 *(u +v) but managed to lose it

Anyway, here's a link to a spreadsheet which explains all, if anyone can be bothered.

Geek spreadsheet

 

Great response

50m at 15 seconds is about right. Remember thats a fair bit away if you pace out 50m. I've said it before on this and many other forums but my biggest dissapointment with 'performance' cars was the realisation that to actually leave a car miles behind you, you have to have a massively greater p/w/r.

I can imagine the M5 feels a hell of a lot quicker but it really won't be miles down the road in a race with an S2000 until mental speeds are reached. That said, if you shut down at 15s 50m ahead of another car you'll know that you've absolutely thrashed it!!!

This thread has zero comparison to the Folding seats to reduce weight thread. The initial post was questioned for validity and there has been good natured discussion on means of assessing the relative performance merits of two accelerating bodies. We've (well, loveagrova) chucked some maths and graphs into the mix to emphasis points and I think there is general agreement now that 3s to 100mph of a difference it significant but not by any stretch of the imagination massive and that there can clearly be a big difference between what one person regards as a big win and what another does.

It's all good and I've enjoyed reading and contributing to this thread. This is what forums are all about IMHO.

That's quite a good example of what we've been saying. My 1/4 is 13.7 @ 103mph. At around trap time the S2000 is doing about 100mph which is 44.7m/s. At 44.7m/s a car covers around 13.4m in 0.3 of a second. This is what I'd expect against a M Coupe over the 1/4m: to pass the line about 3-4 car lengths behind The trap speed tells quite another story though and that's why its arguably more important than the 'time'! We can clearly see the M Coupe is really starting to haul ass having achieved 108mph at trap vs 103.