Top Truck challengers undergo the preliminary engineering test to find RTI
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MotorTranscript
00:00 [engine revving]
00:05 The engineering section is made up of four elements.
00:07 The first is straightforward and very simple.
00:10 It's a measurement given in degrees.
00:11 It simply measures the angle of approach and the angle of departure
00:14 to measure the ability of a vehicle to get up or down off of an obstacle.
00:18 [music]
00:20 With the advent of rear steer over the past few years,
00:23 the results of the turning radius competition can vary wildly.
00:27 However, the measurements are still done the very same way they always have been.
00:30 Park your front left tire here, turn that away, go 180 degrees,
00:34 and you measure across it.
00:36 The big name is the ramp travel index.
00:38 We just call it RTI.
00:39 It's a 30-degree ramp.
00:41 The idea is to test the articulation of the truck.
00:43 Drive the truck up the thing as far as you possibly can
00:45 while keeping all four wheels on the ground.
00:47 Then the math comes in.
00:49 You take the distance in inches up the ramp,
00:51 divide it by the wheelbase of the vehicle,
00:53 multiply that times three zeros just to make sure you have a whole number
00:56 instead of an itty-bitty fraction, and that is your RTI.
00:59 [engine revving]
01:01 The last segment of the engineering competition is not all number crunching.
01:05 Actually, this is their opportunity to explain to the judges
01:08 why they built the vehicle the way that they did.
01:11 The judges pick this vehicle apart and then give a subjective judgment
01:14 on how they like it.
01:16 [tires screeching]
01:17 [BLANK_AUDIO]