Questions on aerodynamic enhancement

Aero certainly does matter. Has anyone else noticed that a slightly slower car can keep pace with a faster car on single lane when drafting behind it? When I first started in the hobby, I set up 60' of track and experimented many, many times as to how even in a 1/64th scale can be affected by air pressure. Do the same and set up a box fan at the end of your drag strip blowing up the track and you will, 100%, see slower times. It's even noticeable with the fan on low. I did. Think of allll of the top drag racers in this hobby as well as pinewood derby racers for years and years and they all will tell you the same thing: aerodynamics do matter. Open track? A well balanced and smooth running build will most certainly beat an average aero car most of the time. Essentially, in racing open track aerodynamics may have a miniscule effect. In drag racing, it most certainly does.

IMO, aerodynamics would play a bigger part of the performance equation in 1/64th scale if the vehicles were travelling @ higher speeds over a longer duration. Small, subtle changes in bodywork are less likely of making a noticable difference because the cars are tiny and are not going fast enough for aerodynamic pressures to be influential. However, when all other factors are equal(...and they often are) you might see a performance increase with dramatic differences in frontal area. Less frontal area is always better. If you were racing a Thunder Roller against an El Segundo Coupe with weight and rolling resistance factors being equal, the smaller coupe will be displacing much less air than the big rig and should have a slight advantage. But keep in mind that aero advantages are easily erased by poor tracking/rail riding, so you're still relying on a clean run.

Very interesting guys!! 

It's settled then. Someone will have to make a track inside of a vacuum chamber and completely eliminate the variable of aerodynamics. For fairness and for science. 

20 runs with windows down(taped down during runs) and 20 runs with windows up, and the Speed Seeker was on average .095 faster with the windows down. That's not a lot of difference time wise, but could be all the difference on a 1:64 scale race.

While watching a diecast drag race video on YouTube recently, the host commented on how he witnessed consistently lower ETs on vehicles making solo runs rather than heads up, side-by-side racing. This raises the question on the effects of turbulence generated by the vehicles in motion. Our cars may not be travelling fast enough the reap the benefits of downforce, but they're still displacing air and developing a pressure wake. Big, boxy front ends can displace more air and develop higher pressures. Anyone who has driven on the interstate with large trucks knows how the lateral wake pressures from a speeding big rig can affect a regular sized motor vehicle. You can feel the influence of the turbulent air as you drive along side it and may have to apply steering and throttle corrections to overcome it. And finally, you can feel the resistance lift and control restored once you complete the pass and reach 'clean air'. The same comes into play in 1/64th scale except we obviously can't rely on steering for control or an engine for additional power. Often enough, a passing diecast vehicle will maintain an adequate amount of kinetic power to overcome the turbulent pressure and complete that pass. But there are senarios where the pressures developed by the leading vehicle are high and the kinetic power of the passing vehicle is marginal. In those cases, aerodynamics are, indeed, having a direct affect on real world performance.