Talk:Camber angle

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Ah, the old chestnut about camber thrust, or developing forces more in line with the plane of the tire and wheel. Negative camber increases the effective footprint at high lateral force levels; the tire distorts at high side force levels and tends to "roll under" and lift the inside edge and run more on the outside shoulder. Beginning with negative camber results in a better footprint when this distortion occurs. However, the part of the tire that contacts the ground is the only part that develops grip and it doesn't know anything about how the force got to it. The tire carcass has a different lateral stiffness than vertical stiffness but this only affects the amount of distortion, not the force that's developed, so it has no effect on grip developed due to forces. There may be indirect grip variance with camber that's a result of changes in the way the carcass behaves dynamically (it does a lot of flexing and wobbling as it goes around), but these are not the result of changing the direction of forces due to camber.