Mark in Baltimore

This thread reminds me of SundayDriver's thread a couple of years ago: https://rennlist.com/forums/racing-a...ill-level.html

smarlow2

If you race and you have never spun, crashed or been off you are either lucky or slow.

Steve Marlow
Surprise, AZ
Spec 944 #74
NASA and SCCA Instructor
Competition Licensing Director, NASA AZ-Region

Brian P

No. You are lucky.

I know too many slow people who have crashed.

Basically, you fall into one of two camps:

Camp A) You have mad skillz and you drive on the edge and balance the car effortlessly. Eventually you'll crash because you are on the edge and either something on your car breaks or something on the car in front of you breaks. Since you are on the edge, when this happens, you have no reserve to save yourself.

Camp B) You think you are good, but really you aren't. Eventually, you'll go ever the edge by accident (since, by definition, you aren't good), and when you do, you have a higher probability of crashing. Sure, maybe you'll spin a few times and not hit anything, but statistics will catch up with you and you'll eventually crash.

I think the only way to not crash is to be driving somewhere around 7/10's the entire time so that when something breaks on the car in front of you, you still have plenty of reserve to make emergency maneuvers. I don't quite see the point in driving 7/10's all of the time, but then again, I'm racing. Maybe it's different for somebody doing a DE.

RedlineMan

Hmmm...

Although in far smaller quantities, we are only now beginning to share the wealth of slippery fluids you billowing butt draggers have bequeathed us over the years.

Our Pleasure!

Larry Herman

Pretty much sums it up, but there is a split in Camp A between those who can catch the car when it is going and those who cannot. I have ridden with very talented drivers who can put the car on a knife-edge, but when it goes over they are in trouble. Then there are the few who can hang it way out, and bring it back.

2BWise

I think you're missing Camp C.

Camp C: Your luck has run out. Just happened to a friend of mine last week. Skill level pretty much didn't matter.

He had a wheel fail (although predicated by a bump with another car). All ten spokes broke and the rim separated from the hub and left him three wheeling into the outer wall. Not much could have been done to avoid it. Now, at a track like Putnam Park where there are miles of runoff it wouldn't have been much of an incident, but at Waterford where the walls are close or any other track without much runoff it was inevitable that he got into the wall.

Bryan Watts

Sort of, but the implication seems to be that in order to be "fast", one must spin and or crash due to pushing the limits, which is such an absolute load of BS. The "fast" guys who are often spinning or crashing are doing so because they really have no idea where the actual limit is and no idea how to balance the car there with precision and control.

race911

Kind of changing directions, but this thought came to me. Bias ply slicks, or maybe more correctly tire characteristics. (Not to mention the overall stiffness we run cars now v. 20+ years ago.) I didn't have a lot of time on them when I initially started driving, but I can't help thinking it sure taught me a lot about that knife-edge. Maybe a dull knife for what I was able to drive (crappy 914/6's), but after running the 910 a couple of weeks ago for the first time in a year plus it's pretty mind blowing how different those Avon's are from the Dunlop radials on the Radical.

Or it could all be in my mind............

Bryan Watts

Definitely a huge difference between radials and bias-plys. I think a good driver can transfer his skills to either one, but they certainly have a different feel and different break away characteristics.

TrackDays247.com

12 years:

Went off track in a friend's car - excessive front lockup, an unhappy surprise
Drop link/bump steer bolt BROKE into a corner, 500 feet of skid marks - should ahve been extremely bad, wasn't.

Matter of time.......eh?

Giacomo

As far as racing goes I agree it is just a matter of time. A good friend of mine, who races very conservatively, simply had another car run into him from behind going into a corner.

As for DE, you could putter around for a lifetime and not get into trouble if you chose to.

Bryan Watts

There's still nearly the same chance for mechanical failure of your car or another car at a DE...maybe even more since DE cars are generally less well taken care of than race cars. An oil or coolant spill resulting in an off into the wall doesn't discriminate between race or DE.

ajcjr

how about the ones that will crash the other ones!!

Giacomo

Every club race weekend that I have attended (since 2003), as spectator or driver, has had much greater carnage than any typical DE weekend. That would suggest to me that the odds of crashing are far greater in a race environment. In a race the cars are closer (less time to react), faster (greater forces) and being pushed much harder (increased mechanical failures). Just my $0.02.

gums

The original expression was coined by Mario: "there are two types of drivers at Indy; those who have hit the wall and those who are about to".

As for me, one big one in all these years, and I was totally taken out innocently. Just a matter of odds....
Of course, dirt bikes and karts were other matters entirely.