BPC wrote:
rear wings on a FWD are classed as rice because the whole point of the wing is to put downforce on the drive wheels, when if the front of the car is stock, it will usually either not help, or give the opposite effect...
feel free to correct me if i'm wrong
Spoilers provide downforce, which stabilises a car at speed.
While a RWD car will see gains more of the time from a rear spoiler, a FWD car at high speed will find the tail less wandery and far more stable under brakes.
Check out pictures of BTCC cars - they're FWD and have rear wings. I doubt the racing teams added all that extra drag and weight onto their race cars because it looks cool when cruising around Soho.
And your average spoiler doesn't get enough airflow to generate meaningful downforce until you're doing well over 100km/hr anyway, so the vast majority of wing-bedecked cars never legally use their wings, regardless of drivetrain. And most of these cars' inherent shapes give them aerodynamic stability at well above the national speed limit, as well as not being so heavily overpowered that they'll light up their tyres at these speeds, so the wing isn't necessary at 110km/hr even if it is generating downforce.
And since the vast majority of drivers are generally law-abiding individuals, it follows that the vast majority of wings are there for nothing more than show and something that increases drag and adds weight....a visible modification that degrades performance being the very definition of rice.
Obviously the shape and properties of the wing will depend on a variety of factors (the drivetrain, the shape and aerodynamics of the rest of the car, the type of driving its doing) but a rear wing on a FWD in itself is no ricier than one on some RWD car that only gets driven on Friday and Saturday nights from The Rocks to Stanmore Maccas.
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