hf1

Great video and driving, Eric. I didn't see any blocking and I believe the stuff you did would have been perfectly fine at SBRS. Racecraft.

I noticed that you almost never took the defensive line at the main straight (where the green car finally passed you) and was wondering why he didn't get on the inside and attempt that pass sooner.

Veloce Raptor

In many ways, Ron, it depends on how close behind the train's leader the rest of the train is. If there is a decent gap, you certainly can become part of th etrain yourself by moving behind the train leader. if the gap is smaller but there is still racing room, you can maybe inch over slightly in their draft, but not fully...giving the followers racing room but making it much more difficult for them to steamroller by. A classic example you saw recently is on the inside of the main straight at the Glen (pit wall side)...which a lot of folks leave wide open...and which invited the steamroller effect. You can inch right after the trainn's leader if you see him soon enough, and narrow th elane for any followers who want to get by...and also make it much more difficult for them to carry any speed into T1 that way...but you are still leaving them racing room...

rkirshner

thank you. i'll go back over the video and look for this

Veloce Raptor

Ron, we can discuss n person at the Glen next week...

Sterling Doc

The front straight is shorter, and with very little braking into turn one (we scrub off about 10MPH), so getting overlap was harder, and going defensive wasn't necessary. Also, turn 1 leads onto a long high speed straight, and a great passing zone, so you compromise that at your peril. My mistake was not getting over (soon enough) when I slightly overcooked the carousel. I lost a couple of MPH on exit, but it was just enough. When I realized he had a pretty good run on me, I could have closed the door by squeezing down to the wall before he reached my door, but elected not to play that game of chicken. If we were taking the checker right there on the last lap (fighting for the lead in this national championship race) maybe, but I figured there was a lot of racing left. Unfortunately, Tyler ran the next 8 laps under the track record (!), and a spin & melee in front of me later finished any hopes I had of catching Tyler later in the race.

hf1

Doc, that makes sense. Thanks.
I will be racing Mid-Ohio (with Skip Barber) for the first time in September and may reach out to you with some more questions before then. You did an excellent job in that video with a low-power (momentum) car driving against similarly powered cars, which is what I hope to do in Sept too.