this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2026
851 points (99.4% liked)
People Twitter
10602 readers
1297 users here now
People tweeting stuff. We allow tweets from anyone.
RULES:
- Mark NSFW content.
- No doxxing people.
- Must be a pic of the tweet or similar. No direct links to the tweet.
- No international politcs
- Be excellent to each other.
- Provide an archived link to the tweet (or similar) being shown if it's a major celebrity, figure or any politician
- https://www.sotwe.com/
- https://twitterviewer.net/Note: Archive.is is no longer recommended because they remove/alter content.
- If a tweet (or similar) makes a statement of fact, either mark it as "satire" in the body or provide the original source link backing up the statement (see rule 6)
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
They shift gear and suddenly the car lurches forward.... Were they in the wrong gear all along?
This is really a metaphor for life.
Well I think that when they’re drafting behind another car they may be in top gear and shifting down definitely helps to accelerate, just not maintain a certain speed.
Driving in top gear at 105 mph. I'm gonna need to really give it the beans if I have any hope to pass them. I increase throttle for the down shift, pop the clutch, increase throttle just a little more, pull too hard on the shifter and jam it into second. I slam on the gas but there's a hard lurch, the tires chirp in agony, I weave around trying to control my car, and a rod launches from my engine.
Just when it seems like I'll never recover, I grit my teeth, hunker down over the steering wheel with white knuckles, grip the shifter knob, and slam on the gas. My car makes a sound like a lawnmower misfiring. I engage my NOS and burst into flames then explode. Guess I won't be back for the sequel, but I'll be in the one after that.
That works well in real life when youre in top gear at 2-3k RPM and downshift and accelerate through 5-7k RPM.
In the movies theyre racing already and should be at high RPM basically the entire time, so if they downshift then they would just red line it lol
I assume that drafting allows them to drive a lower rpm than the front guy, so the car still has done extra from the overtake
You assume wrong, rpm correlates directly with road speed, so if you're going a certain speed in a certain gear you'll be at the same rpm, drafting or not.
What drafting allows you to do is use less throttle to maintain the speed (or go faster with the same throttle position).
Right, so what is it that makes them be able to accelerate past their opponent? More room for acceleration within the same gear?
Nothing to do with gears. When you're drafting behind an opponent you can accelerate slightly faster than them because you have less wind resistance. You can also reach a higher top speed before the wind resistance is too much for your engine to overcome. Building up enough speed in the draft can let you make an overtake or get alongside before the next corner.
Whether it is actually an effective way to pass depends on the type of car and track. It's an important part of many types of racing but totally ineffective in others.
Nothing. That's the whole point of the topic. It's all nonsense.
Stuff like that doesn't happen in real racing. In real racing you usually pass someone by pressuring them to make a mistake or forcing them to make an opening in a corner. Some motor sports have boost mechanics like DRS or electric boost and stuff but those are limited to specific areas with specific rules on their use. It's not the winning strategy usually.
There's also tracks which doesn't let you maintain top speed. But the car in front can still keep blocking unless it's a wide track (so basically some off-road racing I think)
Change gear and disappear