Here's a flashback to an earlier part of this thread: my active aero idea that uses motors to switch the rear wing on my race car to a low-drag (and low-downforce) setting for the straight sections of my local track.
I did some more testing, and here's a comparison between two runs on the front straight at WSIR, one (red) with the wing going to low drag on the straight, and one (blue) with the wing remaining in a fixed position. The rear ride height sensor wasn't working, so this shows the front, which drops down when the rear wing is switched to the low drag position (note: the line going higher on the graph means the nose of the car was moving lower to the ground).
So that would seem to show that leaving the wing in the high-downforce (high drag) position on the straight meant losing ultimate high speed.
But then here's the flipside. This is the same two laps, but looking at the back straight. This time the high drag (and high downforce) speed starts out slower, but then catches up to the low drag run -- which doesn't make any sense, if the low-drag position is lowering a significant amount of drag.
The difference could be as simple as the prevailing winds during the two (sequential) laps. Or one of many other factors. The back straight data is compromised somewhat by not being entirely straight and also having more abrupt elevation changes, both of which make the ride height data less clear cut than in the previous graphic -- where you can easily see the exact moment where I change the wing's angle.
I did not get enough with/without measurements to see if there is a consistent pattern yet. So this may very well be junk data.
The jury is still out...
