Skidpad - Centrifugal Force or Centripetal force?

[TexRex]

I just had a lively--but friendly--debate with someone over centrifugal/centripetal force and how they act on a car going around a skidpad when determining the lateral G limit. I know that centripetal force is the force compelling an object moving in a circle to stay on its axis, where centrifugal force is making it want to fight that, but I wonder if someone here more knowledgeable than I (no mean feat) can settle this argument.

 

[TexRex]

@Famine
@Griffith500
...no offense to others, these users popped into my head first.

(Sorry for the double post, I intended to tag them initially and I know they won't get the alert if edited. I'll likely ask that this post be deleted at some point but hopefully not until one/both of them see(s) it.)

 

[Famine]

Centrifugal force doesn't exist [/discussion]

Well, kinda. It's complicated, but "centrifugal force" is an inertial force - one that only exists in a non-moving reference frame on moving bodies. It's effectively an expression of Newtonian physics whereby the centripetal ("centre-heading") force exerted on the body at the centre of motion by the body in motion results in an equal and opposite centrifugal ("centre-fleeing") force exerted on the body in motion by the body at the centre of motion.

So the answer is yes, in that your lateral g rating is both centripetal and, because it's equal and opposite, centrifugal force. But only centripetal force is real.

 

[TexRex]

My position was that the tires best represented the tether holding the object in rotation around a center point, thereby being representative of centripetal force. It seems I may well have been right to say that centripetal force was best exhibited, if only because centrifugal force is nonexistent.

Thanks for the 2 cents.