Lean love

A negative lean is good

“Camber” indicates how much your wheels are inclined with respect to the car’s vertical axis. If the top of the tire is closer towards the car’s chassis compared to the bottom, then that is called negative camber while the opposite arrangement is positive camber. Along with caster and toe, camber angles are significant impact on a car’s handling, especially during cornering and turn-ins.

None of this, though, is even remotely relevant to us when we drop off our cars for service or for alignment. Each car maker prescribes a certain camber angle and the mechanic simply aligns the wheel as per that recommendation. You remain blind to the process and almost don’t concern yourself if these silly mechanical details as long as your car holds straight on the roads and you don’t feel much vibration while braking. The closest one comes to realizing the significance of camber is when they pay the bill for alignment costs.

However, if you own a Lotus, things take a turn for the fantastic. I dropped of my Elise for a warranty related steering rack replacement and I forget about it. Until the next morning, the Lotus mechanic called me on the phone and asked me a few unexpected questions.

“Where do you usually drive the car?”
“Mostly on the street, but I do plan to track it occasionally.” I answer sheepishly, knowing well that the Lotus deserves to be on track all the time.

“Do you usually drive alone or with a co-passenger?”
“Alone” The answer came out much too quick. Alone; mostly-lonely-sometimes-gladly! None of this, I tell him.

“How much do you weigh?”
With my curiosity sufficiently aroused, I answered his final question with the correct number of pounds and began to formulate my question to ask him why he had asked me such questions.

“OK, thanks! I shall go ahead and tune the camber’s specifically to you weight and your intended car usage. The next time you drive the car, it won’t feel the same!” He said, eliminating the need for any explanation.

It was at this point, a warm fuzzy feeling spread over my body. Like when a girl you adore, calls you back the minute you wish she would call. I had never been asked my weight for adjusting a car’s alignment. And this mere fact alone sent me into cupid frenzy. I always knew I had bought myself a very special car. Just did not realize that it was this close to being a race car.

The sheer definition of being one-with-the-car is being rewritten. A car that is imperfect without me in it. A car with asymmetric camber angles between the left front and right front tires. And that it takes me and me alone to sit in the driver’s seat to make it a perfectly aligned automobile.

If it wasn’t already, it has now become, meant to be.