richard_leeds wrote:My first thought on seeing the video is that the car is turning, the exhaust is kicking up the dust, and we are looking at a trace of the car's path around that bend.
We can't discount that the car is turning. The exhaust kicks up some dust, the car travels forward and turns right, so the point at which the dust is kicked up is then offset to the side of the car.
There is also some merit in the water splash analogy. The initial impact of the exhaust would be outward. However, would the dust continue on that path if the exhaust formed a vortex down the edge of the car? Is it reasonable to expect the dust to form a nice vortex like smoke in a wind tunnel, or would the dust kick up and get flung out as the vortex hit the ground?
Finally, how long had the dust lain there? Had it previously been stored in a bucket, open to the damp sea air?
Actual drive line relative to the track plays obviously significant role to our observations, and i agree it seems to go away from the dust.
Don't think it's reasonable to expect dust/water to form a vortex.
Regardless the speed of the car, speed of external flow in reference to dust/water on the track is more or less zero. Dust/water particles get kicked off the track by colliding with high momentum (both speed of the exhaust flow and thermal energy of molecules add to that) gas particles - they'll gain high enough momentum to overcome adhesive and gravitational forces acting on them.
As n_smikle mentioned already, there are no significant pulling/sucking forces from the exhaust gases itself involved, so you rely on external atmosphere's molecules filling the gap (low pressure under the car and diff) - and obviously those molecules (cold, just started to accelerate towards low pressure area) are by far not energetic enough to carry dust/water particles with, not to mention the fact that we are pushing from 8cm diameter pipe (jet, sort of), but pulling from all ovr the wide open space.
For the same reason 747's turbofans can easily kick off the car behind them like a paper toy, but you are more or less safe standing few meters in front of them at the same time.