Everybody has their preference for the type of racing they like. For whatever reason, people like racing to show how fast their car is against another. Some like 1/4 Mile drag races, others 60-130 MPH vBox results, and others roll racing.

Recently I saw a guy say he didn't like 60-130's because there were too many variables -- and roll racing is the only true and accurate way to test one car against another. "Say, what? I thought?" I understand not liking 1/4 mile drag races because the results are dominated by driver skill and not car performance. Similarly, a roll race may be fun, but if the results are close you can't ever really tell which car is actually quicker. I thought a roll race can't ever be accurate because it's impossible for two people to start at exactly the same speed or same exact time. Somebody will always start a fraction of a second before the other. But I just didn't know how much difference that fraction of a head start would influence the results.

So I thought: what's there not to like about 60-130's? There's a set of rules that apply to everybody equally. The results are measured with a vBox GPS device that is accurate to a few hundredths of a mile-per-hour. On a car like a BMW M3 with DCT, even the shift speed is taken out of the list of variables. So assuming you have two similar cars with equal tires, suspensions, but different drivers and motor mods, then I don't quite understand what's not to like about a 60-130. But it got me thinking about roll racing again.

A couple of years ago I wrote a program that can reanimate a race between two cars based on nothing but their vBox files. I called that program "vBox Racer" and you can find some of the videos on youtube that show how it works. I wondered what would happen if I could simulate a roll race between two identical cars where I changed nothing but the delay to start the race. I wondered how that fraction of a second delay from one driver hitting the gas to the other would affect the results. It seemed that vBox Racer would be perfect to help answer that question.

To find two identical cars would be easy: I'll literally use the same vBox file for both races by making a second copy of the file, and I'll insert a fraction of a second delay in the second file. Then I would use vBox Racer program to reanimate the race and see what happens. The goal isn't to prove or disprove what somebody says, but more to educate myself and anybody else who wants to learn along with me.

The video below contains three reanimated races:
1) 1/2 second head start (0.50 second head start)
2) 1/3 second head start (0.30 second head start)
3) 1/10 second head start (0.10 second head start)

To help illustrate how much or how little time we're talking about, the video contains a demonstration of a split second white screen in 1/2, 1/3, and 1/10th second intervals then shows the results of a race using that same head start. In a real roll race, any of of these fractions of a second are possible. I'd say most roll races one driver punches the gas between 1/10 to 1/3 second earlier than the other.

Here's the video. Watch and decide for yourself. (Recommended to watch in full screen mode.)


About vBox Racer

vBox Racer is a program that will reanimate a race based on the contents of two vBox files. Everything you see is rendered perfectly to scale. The cars, road, distance between cars, and even the lines passing on the road are all rendered to exact speed and scale.

The distances you see between cars (car lengths) are the actual distances that would exist based on the contents of these vBox files.

 

Neat video.

 

This goes two ways IMO...

One, VBOX can accurately show a 60-130 time for a car. But to compare one to another unless they are both at the same place and run the same time will never be an accurate depiction of the two cars as weather and elevation both contribute to varying times.

What about roll racing, we'll I feel that actual roll racing is more accurate..why?
Same time same space race. Now your argument is it will never be exact when two racers start, and thus affect the outcome. But, that is assuming both cars have the exact same hp and exact same driver skills. So if that is the case, roll racing is not accurate. But since we know no two cars have the exact same hp and race the exact same way, I would conclude the roll racing is more accurate. Racing isn't just about the car, the other variable such as driver comes in the picture too. And even if the lower hp car gets the jump, eventually the higher hp with a same or better skilled driver will catch the car....

 

But that's not how roll racing is compared...at least not in the forums I visit. In the forums I visit and smack talk I read, the roll racing is used to compare one competitor's product to the other given the same type of car. Almost without exception, the new guy on the market wants to show his products are better than his competitors; and these roll race videos are exactly what they're using to "prove it."

The vendors leave the impression that roll racing is an equal comparison between products...when it isn't. I created this video to show that drivers really do matter after all. And if you're going to use roll racing to promote your products, then people need to know that roll racing isn't going to be accurate at all due to driver differences.

To get it really accurate, you'd instrument both cars at the roll race with vBox's and then make a vBox Racer video (like the one above) to take the driver out of the race completely. That would show once and for all which car is really faster.