> On the contrary, it appears that unless you're in 6th gear, you can't 
> exceed about 65 MPH.

Wow.  Are you really saying that at 60mph the RPMs in 5th gear are at 6000 
or something?  That sounds more like 3rd gear in my car - I can see now why 
you are annoyed!

> BTW, is drag proportional to speed linearly? Or quadratically? Or...?

Roughly speed squared.  But the power needed to overcome a certain force is 
also proportional to the speed.  So in the end the power needed to maintain 
a certain speed is proportional to speed cubed.

> It's news to me that it *is* the other way around. I thought F1 cars had 
> drum brakes. (You'll be surprised to hear that I haven't actually taken 
> too many F1 cars apart.)

You used to be able to see them easily before they started using those silly 
bits of aerodynamic plastic around them.  You can also sometimes see the 
discs glowing bright orange through the wheel under heavy braking.

http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/formula-one-12.gif

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