Quote:
Originally posted by xivera
Pls. tell me that you copied & pasted that from a source... somewhere... 
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Just wrote it up on the fly. If I borrow from somewhere else, I always try to cite my sources.
A couple of other notes:
--Somtimes you hear race drivers or announcers refer to a car as 'loose' or 'tight'. A loose car is one that oversteers - it feels very squirrely around corners, like you are about to lose control. A tight car is one that understeers - it pushes the front outside through corners. Thus you'll often hear - "he's getting a little loose in turn number three, I think they'll tighten it up when he comes into the pits" - meaning: "he is oversteering a bit in turn three; when he pits, the crew will probably adjust the aerodynamics or the suspension to make the car understeer more"
--If you want to understand why understeering is generally safer than oversteering, try this little experiment: Go to your local uber-mart and find a shopping cart that has both rear wheels locked into the straight ahead position, and both front wheels on 360 swivels. Take it out to an empty spot in the uber-parking lot. Now push the cart forward with a moderate running start, let go and watch it's trajectory. Now, turn the cart around, push it backwards with a moderate start, let go and see what happens.
The swivels wheels simulate the wheels with no traction - they don't have a preferred direction of travel. The fixed wheels simulate the wheels with traction - they'll only go straight forward.
Enjoy!
PS> This is also a good demonstration of why it's a good thing that cars steer with their front wheels and not their rear ones.