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Comment by jdavis703 | Hacker News Reader

I was driving through the desert in my truck. I took a tight turn, probably a little too fast for my truck but it worked out. The driver in the performance car behind me wound up flying off the road. Because it was flat terrain he was fine and back on the road shortly. But I always wondered why my truck took the turn alright, and he had what could have turned in to a nasty crash. I guess the lesson here is, make sure to keep your tire tread in check.

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Sports cars usually have stiff sway bars, which are generally better for high grip situations. Your truck, and rally cars will generally have less or no sway bars because in a hard off road corner, weight will transfer to the outside wheels which helps them bite into the ground and keep you on track. A car with stiff sway bars and suspension will slide out horizontally because the whole car stays much flatter in the corner.

I highly doubt it's tire tread if it was dry weather.

Turn-in is actually noticeably improved by lower tire tread on tires (as long as your tires are still roadworthy and the road is dry).

If you take a look at one of the most popular "sticky" tires for autocross, it almost looks like the tread has completely worn away on a normal tire: https://www.tirerack.com/images/videos/video_images_758x426/...

More likely they tried to get into the throttle during the turn at the wrong place, or tried to brake during the turn when caught off-guard, both of which would upset the balance of the car and send you off the road.

Traction control (or intentional chassis/suspension design) might have saved them from oversteering (spinning out towards the road), but not been able to prevent them from going off the road

Speculation, but could have been: Going into the corner too hot, coming out of the corner too hot (throttle induced oversteer), or just not knowing how to drive...

I was once at an "open track day", and this group of kids brought a Nissan GTR and a Skyline. They couldn't drive these cars, there was a Miata out there that they couldn't keep up with. I never actually saw them out on the track, so all I have is second hand reports via stories that were making the rounds of the pits, but I do know they didn't stay very long.

Probably panicked and locked up the brakes. Most cars (even sports cars) are set up to understeer unless really provoked, on the basis that a frontal crash is safer than hitting something sideways.

Highly doubtful, he probably hit the accelerator in the turn and overdid it. There's no way your pickup out handled a performance car on blacktop.

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