Item Subject: cc:Mail Text

    Dear Michael, please put me in your will for your AUDI.

     The game is braking and evasive action.  Anyone with winter driving
     skills can GO fast.

      As the noted Stanley Michael Baker Hailwood was quoted " on an
     'interesting' course, it's not the power it's the handling"  After he
     smashed all comers at the Isle of Man after his return to MC racing.

     On ice the maneuvering boundary is the ice surface.  On an ice
     surface, energy dissipation is as you might expect, by heat.  If the
     specific heat necessary for a phase change to water is available a
     molecular layer of water is produced which acts as a lubricant between
     the rubber and the ice.  The stiction graph takes an interesting
     downward excursion as this condition occurs.  Stiction is if I recall
     a function of the friction coefficient and the downward or normal
     force.  You and I can control only one variable, the heat dissipation.

     This is proportional to the braking energy required or mV**2 where m
     is the mass of the vehicle and V is the velocity of said mass.

     Studs work by allowing the crystalline destruction of the ice to take
     some but not ALL of the energy.

     When the system operates in the lubricated area the effectiveness of
     the brakes is dramatically reduced as the stiction turns to lubricated
     sliding.

     "it's just fizzix, it's always just fizzix"  R. Feynmann

     Al (no plastic jesus)