[Jeff Higgins]

You are exactly right - street car drag racing, on street tires, is all about traction control. To put it in a way that us Porsche-bound "road racers" can understand, I'll compare it to braking performance. We are all taught that once the tires start to skid, braking distances increase. Anti-lock technologies are based upon this principle - once the tire loses traction, performance diminishes.

Well, "launch control" techniques rely upon the same principle - keep the tire from spinning, let the slippage happen somewhere else. With brakes, it it the brake pads "slipping", not the tires. Under power, it's the clutch on a manual transmission, or the torque converter on an automatic. In trying to get a good launch from a street car with less than ideal traction, we slip the hell out of the clutch. I often wondered which was harder on that clutch - a full blown drag launch or a delicately balanced street launch. The latter is sure a lot smellier...