acceleration put into perspective
I've always liked this one...but being the science geek that I am, I have to say that original author didnt check his math. The Corvette was not passed after 3 seconds. If you assume a typical great pass by a fuel car of 4.50 second (~0.08 seconds slower that Schumachers record) it would be a tie at the stripe (Looking at 4 decimal places and assuming the Corvette held 200 mph with no further acceleration); however, this is probably not the case. I predict that the Corvette would win, due in part to it accelerating some over the course of 4.5 seconds (albeit not much)
.AND that the reaction time of a excellent driver is in the 0.058 range for a fuel car (which is not captured in the ET)
now you have the dragster loosing by a car length
.ish
If you wanted to assume that the fuel car was on a record pass that would tie Schumachers record, and that the fuel car started at the exact time as the Corvette (excluding the reaction time)
.then the fuel car would pass the Corvette ~21 feet before the finish line. This would give the fuel car an ET of 4.428 seconds and the Corvette an ET of 4.500 seconds.
Yup, you can say it
Im a dork and I think too much :-D