cabrero wrote:
Did you see the video of Marc Gene setting the Road Atlanta course record in a 2003 Ferrari GP car? 1:01.2
from Jalopnik I think this was just this week, maybe even this morning
That video got wide distro among the folks in my class. When we were at Road Atlanta last weekend, there were crews setting up pavilions. We asked them "what's up?" That's when we found out that Ferrari was bringing historic F1 cars for some event involving high end customers and the like.
triguy101 wrote:
That’s awesome. Thanks for sharing. Must be so much fun to get it there and compete like that.
The difference in speed between your vids and that F1 car is unreal tho. When you see that are you like, yeah I could figure out how to do that or are you: omg, there is just no way?
It's easy to get into. Couple different routes. There's "Driver's Education" events at tracks all over the nation. Folks take their cars to the event and, in relatively safe and sane conditions, build skills and confidence until they feel like they're ready for competition school. Competition school isn't about learning to drive fast. It's about talking about how to stay out of trouble, getting some time in close quarters with other cars, and it gives the sanctioning org an opportunity to check you out. If they're not comfortable with you, no license. Folks that go to comp school have, on average, prob 30-40 days of track experience.
The other route, and it's less common, are the various shake and bake schools. They attempt, in 3-5days, to turn a relatively inexperienced person into a comp school graduate. I've not been in one of those, but I'm kinda biased against them. I can't imagine how one could train up their reptile brain automatic reactions sufficiently in such a short period.
The reptile brain automatic reactions are really important because your forebrain is focused on scheming against your buddies around you. You're playing chess. While sliding thru a turn alongside your best beer drinking buddy. At 100mph.
Me in an F1 car. The difference between amateurs and pros. Racing is a funny sport. In every other competitive sport I can think of, it's all about who is better. But in racing, it's more about who has money. Most folks racing in the pros have bought their ride. Only the very best of the pro drivers have paid gigs, the rest are paying huge sums to participate. It's those best guys that we all hear about, but much of the field, in any pro race, is actually made of up well-heeled guys engaging in their hobby. Because there's such huge money in F1 tho, the fraction of salaried drivers is probably high.
Like in any field of endeavor, the skills of those at the top are indistinguishable from magic. The best drivers in any big class have breathtaking skills. Our class is the 3rd largest in the world. The biggest class is based on the Miata. We've a couple guys in LR that are in that Miata class. The top guys in the big amateur classes occasionally go do some pro races (Not F1 to my knowledge. Those top amateurs crush the paying drivers and get on the podium against the salaried drivers.
I have lots of video and data from our top drivers. I can only occasionally do what they do. And I have to scare the shit out of myself to do it. Whereas they will be magic in turn after turn consistently for 30min, I might achieve "magic" in one turn on one lap. Call it a magic ratio of 200:1. Whereas they are pretty comfortable at "that" degree of out of control in a turn, I'm generally not willing to terrify myself, so often the magic ratio is 200:0. I'm not magic, I'm the guy that brings hilarity, a big smile, and beer.
Re. could I figure out how to do that. There are amateur classes of lightweight cars with lots of aero that are reminiscent of F1. Those kinds of cars are a helova lot faster than our cars, so the driver has to be executing much faster than we do. Me, being average in a big class, I suppose that I could figure out one of those lightweight cars well enough to be average there too. F1 and Indy are at the pointy end tho. I suppose that with some practice I wouldn't embarrass myself against the "pros" that have bought their ride. That wouldn't put me anywhere near the guys that are really good tho. I'll never be magic.
There's lots of classes of high hp cars, but most of those drivers aren't very good. Folks that gain their skills in low hp cars are forced to work very hard learning how to optimize turn exit speed, which is the whole ballgame for fast laps. Because in a low hp car, every 0,5mph you lose in a corner, you continue to bleed away time all the way down the straightaway that follows. High hp cars just hit their magic gas pedal. As a result, high hp drivers aren't "punished" for losing tiny slivers of turn exit speed like low hp drivers are. That has a huge influence on skill development. That's why the average Miata racer is much more skilled then the average guy racing in a fancy Mustang, Porsche, or anything else with >200hp. Seeing a dozen Miatas head into a turn at 100mph at 12" spacing, maintain the spacing as they all slide from turn-in to the apex, and still have that spacing as the all end the slide at the outer edge of the track, is some magic shit.
A video that has no speedo in it doesn't provide the viewer much info re. the speeds of what is going on. So the combo of a speedo, and understanding that the cars are as much "sliding" as "turning", makes the vid much more fun to watch. Here's a vid with a speedo.
https://vimeo.com/159221010
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