Al asked: "Caster is used in Sprint racing to get the inside rear tire off the ground. It needs to do that in order to turn. With stagger, why would you need to do that"
It's not a matter of weight leaving the inside rear Al, it's about the ">>>FACT<<<" in a turn it ">>>always will<<<" leave the inside rear.
I think it is you Al who often proposes a rolling tire offers the least resistance.
Since even with stagger because turns are not perfectly round, except for where stagger exactly matches up to the radius of the track one tire or both tires have to slip and offer rolling resistance.
Perfection then becomes about how you match the amount of unloading of the inside rear per stagger, tire grip, track grip and how your racing is using track banking according to weather your slowing down maintaining speed or accelerating, to use your inside rear tire to accomplish something needed. In a nutshell if your using the resistance between the inside rear tire and the track to provide something you need then it can not at anytime be scrubbing off speed.
An example is when you're on a straight with more then enough available hp to slip either or both rear tires, you may be gaining your acceleration strictly from the INSIDE REAR smaller tire and slipping your OUTSIDE REAR tire.
Why would you even want to do that, you might ask Al?
The reason would be to accelerate using your sudo low gear off the smaller INSIDE REAR tire and at the same time also be putting preload on your INSIDE REAR tire for entry to the next turn.
Any time you use stagger outside of a perfect circle it's use will as you correctly often say on here: ">>>ALWAYS<<<" offer resistance.
Yes you are absolutely correct Al about stagger offering resistance on the straights.
Butt Al it will only scrub off speed depending on a lack of available hp or not being in a position on the track where it is necessary to reduce built up momentum.
There's a difference Al between scrubbing off speed and reducing acceleration.
Yes I expect understanding the difference to be difficult.
Each Al have their own fixes or adjustments to minimum each.
THEY ARE TWO SEPERATE THINGS. period
Speed because of stagger on the straights is ONLY scrubbed off because of excessive use of one or the other rear tire. period.
The fix depending on available hp is to either increase or decrease the grip at one or both rear tires.
Which rear tire or both you need to fix depends again on available hp AND your ability to change how both or one rear tire is gripping.
It's all about reducing any conflict or fight for acceleration between your two rear tires at all places around the track where acceleration is possible.
Beyond that it's about reducing any conflict for control of direction between your front and rear tires.
Perfection/balance is all four tires rolling and turning while accelerating, decelerating and maintaining speed in the direction you want to go.
The only thing which makes a LTO karts faster in turns then sprint karts is their ability to reduce the need for front tires to do "ALL" turning.
The only thing which makes sprint karts faster when going straight then LTO karts is they do not need to slip a tire when going "STRAIGHT".
ANY time either a sprint kart or a LTO kart is NOT going straight, except for when stagger on a LTO matches exactly to the radius of a turn, one of the rear tires or both MUST slip.
... well right or wrong, that was fun to write