Suzuki Samurai was Re: [geeks] SPARC proprietary (waaaay

[Phil Stracchino]

On Mon, Oct 20, 2003 at 04:21:42AM +0000, wa2egp at att.net wrote:
> > I'm not sure why you
> > refer to racing as a "treadmill", but if it's because you don't believe
> > it builds skill useable on surface streets, you're sadly mistaken.
> 
> Yeah, but the other drivers on the track know what they are doing (I hope).
> I friend of mine did drag racing on a track but never on the street.  
> His own personal code of ethics.  Of course that's not the same as the oval 
> track.  But he would disagree that it builds usable skill in the manner
> you seem to indicate. They are not the same environment (at least here in
> NJ)

Well, that's because dragracing doesn't really involve any skills that
are of significant use in everyday driving.  This is NOT true of F1
roadracing.  Up to a certain point, any idiot with a heavy right foot
can accelerate hard in a straight line, and I've heard it said even by
professional racing drivers that all an oval-track racer needs is a
heavy right foot and a heavy left hand, but it takes real-world skills
to circumnavigate a track like, say, Laguna Seca at even moderate speed.
Those skills are likely to stand you in very good stead if it all goes
pear-shaped on the street one day.  You will be more aware of how hard
you can brake and maintain control, and of how much speed you need to
shed before you CAN swerve around that jack-knifed semi without spinning
out, and so on.

Please don't tell me at this point that antilock brakes will solve
everything.  A good driver can stop in a shorter distance in a car
without antilock brakes than in one so equipped, because antilock brakes
may let the unskilled mash the brake pedal to the floor without locking
the wheels, but they actually keep the skilled driver from reaching the
limits of braking effectiveness.  ABS hits the ragged edge and releases,
hits the ragged edge and releases, over and over; but a skilled driver
can hit the ragged edge and *hold* it there.

Contests of raw acceleration will not make you a better driver on the
street, and oval-track racing probably won't contribute much either.
F1 road-course racing does.


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