Dee Flint wrote:


Someone skilled in driving a vehicle with a manual transmission and actually
using it can reap a number of performance benefits. These include improved
gas mileage, better passing performance, better performance in hilly
terrain, etc. If people were required to learn how to drive vehicles with
manual transmissions, more of them might actually choose to drive such
vehicles.

Dee, N8UZE


Not all of those statements are always true. As fond as I am of manual
transmissions, sometimes automatics have the advantage. A hydraulic
torque converter with a manually controlled "automatic" transmission is
better at drag racing than a manual gearbox under many conditions.

This is less true under road race conditions where the lower torque
needed to be handled by the transmission allows the newer style "manual"
transmissions to change gears in milliseconds. The secret is 2
transmissions, one for the odd gears, one for the even, and 2 clutches,
you are literally in 2 gears at the same time for a short period of
time. Takes a lot of computer control. That's one way to do it, there
are others.

The landscape is very blurred nowadays concerning what is a manual and
what is an automatic transmission, with "manuals" in modern race cars
being more automatic than "automatics" in non-race cars.

And the state of CW vs digital is about the same. Except CW can always
be beat if your PC works. You just need to select the correct mode.

tom
K0TAR