Hydraulic Handbrakes In Rally Cars

Hydraulic Handbrakes In Rally Cars

In every motorsport vehicle, you need high performance car equipment to stay above the competition. This applies to rally races too. The components used in race cars need to be highly reliable and sturdy to survive high speeds.

Rally racing is a very popular sport and is liked and watched by many around the world. The race courses for rallies are different from other races. Unlike other races that take place on proper roads, rally races usually take place on surfaces like asphalt, gravel, ice, snow and sand. They are sometimes held in extreme climatic conditions such as heavy monsoon rains or in bitter cold.

The unpredictable nature of the races, the weather and the roughness of the race courses require cars that can survive such tracks. These cars need to be high performance reliable vehicles that can survive on rough terrains and tolerate severe stress.

The driver should be able to drive them faster, turn them faster and stop them immediately without skidding. Without such abilities, the car is prone to get out of the driver's control. This can result in the car literally jumping over huge bumps or sliding swiftly over icy terrain.

For rally cars, hydraulic handbrakes work best. They have extreme importance in drift or rally vehicles. Hydraulic brakes are extremely powerful in braking and use a pressure mechanism to brake the car. The system operates in a way which allows pressure in the control unit near the handbrake lever to get transferred to the actual braking system near the wheels of the car. The brake fluid used in hydraulic brakes is usually ethylene glycol which is compressed in a master cylinder.

When the handbrake lever is pulled, it forces the piston in the master cylinder to push the liquid into a pressure chamber which exerts pressure on the entire braking system. This pressure forces the fluid through the hydraulic pipes towards the calipers. The caliper pistons prevent the fluid to escape.

The pistons in the brake calliper then exert force onto the brake pads. Due to this, the pads get pressed against the spinning rotor causing friction between the spinning rotor and the pads. The friction results in the vehicle to immediately break its speed and eventually stop.

In rally race cars, hydraulic handbrakes play a major role in keeping the car in the driver's control. They work better than standard cable type handbrakes. Their grip on the wheels is tremendously strong and help the driver to either lock or break lose the rear wheels.

Hydraulic handbrakes allow the driver to take extremely sharp turns, drift sideways to the edge of the track or spin their cars on the spot. It can even act as a substitute braking system if the actual braking system fails. Without a hydraulic handbrake a rally car can slide off into shrubbery and then would need some reversing to get back onto the track. Therefore, hydraulic handbrakes are the best braking systems for high speed motorsports.