In spite of racing a car built in the very first days of ABS, I know far more about ABS functioning (along with TCS and ESP/ESC/VSA/VDC/VSC/PSM/whatever you want to all stability control) - I'm an ABS/TCS/ESP engineer at Bosch. Hate to sound full of myself, but there are few others on this forum quite as knowledgeable on the inner workings of the system (a number of my co-workers race IT and occasionally stop in on this forum too).
I state that just to give background and weight to my opinions. If we were racing Showroom Stock cars with stock (original as-delivered) tires, there is no question in my mind that the car with a modern ABS system would have a competitive advantage over older systems or cars without ABS. That's without even going into the subject of electronically-controlled brake proportioning (DRP, EBS, HAB, etc) and what it can do in corners on a modern 4-channel 4-sensor car. It's pretty slick.
But we're not racing SS cars; our cars are modified, with completely different suspension setups, brakes, and tires. I hate to admit it, but all the benefits of ABS and EBD/DRP are pretty much gone with most systems at that point - you've gone way too far from the car on which they were designed to be used. At this point, ABS is only really going to provide a real benefit to the rank rookie who doesn't really know how to use his brakes in all situations. He's not going to become an Auberlen (or Scott
just by turning ABS on. The only rare exceptions where ABS is even going to reall help would be on a Porsche race car or the like, delivered with ABS calibrate for race tires, etc. The weight transfer and tire slip characteristics are just too far out of the normal range of tolerances.
So, I have trouble getting that worried about newer cars showing up in the grid with ABS. I know I can still out-brake them. I would recommend making sure that they're allowed to run with it disabled, in fact, for their sake. Now I just have to get off my butt and send in my feedback to the comp board.
Oh, not to get embroiled in an unimportant semantic discussion, but ABS will (or should) optimize the braking force at each and every wheel, given proper input (sufficient pressure at the MC). FWIW, I'd run screaming from any "chipped" ABS-equipped car; knowing how hard it is for us to do the job, I most certainly wouldn't trust code hackers to get it right after the fact, and I'd give any such car a wide berth on track, as I don't think I'd count on them to avoid spearing me at an inoportune time!
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Vaughan Scott
Detroit Region #280052
'79 924 #77 ITA/GTS1
www.vaughanscott.com