|
I definitely will not say something if I think a reasonable person is likely to misinterpret it or misunderstand it.
Drafting as I said is not one of those things. Before I even say the word draft I always say "I stay more than 2 car lengths back always, but I like to draft. . ."
I also live in Tennessee and our truckers don't care. They do it to each other much more so than I do and if they see me come back there they will always signal far in advance of making a move. Likewise I always communicate with them when I can. If they put on a blinker and there is room in front of me I flip my lights to say its all clear.
My FE is 25% above my combined for my city driving(I only have short city hops during the week). My normal tank does 35, but if I am highwaying without a truck escort I still can punch 37. I'll be the first to tell you my transmission is geared too low.
Also drag doesn't really take off. Its a quadratic with no inflection points. Its a pretty big deal at 20 mph for a bicyclist. At 30 mph its a considerable force for a car.
One of the single most effective proposals to eliminate the need for high speed rail is to install on the HOV lane a magnetic strip. As soon as you want to insert your car into the lane click a switch the car closest to being behind you decelerates just enough to allow your car in. your car catches the line sends a radar pulse finds the car in front of it and tada, each car can draft inches away from the car in front of it safely.
Lets just imagine that except for the lead car this more than less eliminates drag( at out speeds its pretty close but at race speeds its not so close). It requires 9 horsepower to overcome drag at 60 mph. My max is 101 hp at 6400 rpm(?), I'm barely pushing the gas down at 3000 rpm, but even if we assume I'm WOT at 3000 I'm still using 1/2 fuel and producing roughly 1/2 the power. 50 hp-41hp/41 is a 21% improvement. I can assure you its not anywhere near WOT so its going to be alot more than that.
|