tourenwagen

For me, the best part of racing is the dice — two drivers in hot competition for position. This can be a quick thing — draft, tuck, see ya — or it can last for laps. One of my favorites was from the 2000 French Gran Prix, which is the only F1 race I’ve seen in person. I was in the grandstands overlooking the biggest speed transition on the track — a hairpin at the end of a monster straight. David Coultard tried over and over to get past Michael Schumaker in that corner. Each time, Michael shut him down. Finally Coultard dove into the corner at a speed that clearly sent the message, “Your call Michael, I pass or we crash.” That was what it took to cause Schumaker to give room.

In contrast with that elegance, let me present a video. I’m going through a level of indirection, and linking to a thread that features a link to the video. That thread also has some discussion of driving skill and etiquette, some links to some street racing video by the same guy, and a link to another thread discussing the video. All kinds of fun.

Without further ado: “Where’s my point-by?!?!?!?!?!?!?!”.

This video helps explain why I’m very picky about who I run with.

Update

The S2K guy’s canyon “racing” videos got some attention on a motorcyclists’ forum. They don’t have kind words.

A co-worker used to run in DSR, and finished just behind this guy at the Run-offs.

2008 SCCA National Championship Race, DSR from Mark Jaremko on Vimeo.

- In heavy rain, Infineon has really bad drainage — rivers and lakes deep enough to cause hydroplaning with full tread wet tires.

- Hoosier DOT wets are insanely awesome.

- Infineon is still awesome, and still kinda scary. There’s more runoff is some areas (compared to 10 years ago), but there are still many places where one really wouldn’t want to leave the pavement.

- Even after the track drys out, some of the alligator teeth burms at Sears hold water, and can be treacherous. I had an interesting twitch at the apex of turn 6.

- Turn 7 is a great place to work on threshold breaking, throttle steer, etc. Lots of asphalt, escape routes and run-off.

- A three day weekend really strains my stamina — gotta work on that. Off-track I need to be more like Mark Martin, and less like Fangio — keep the driver tuned up.

- If I’m going to run on rainy weekends, I need a method of drying out the car — Sunday morning I had huge drops of condensation on all the windows, and the roof. Oh, and I need to add “do the wipers work” to the pre-event tech.

- I enjoyed running with Speed Ventures (on Friday, as a warm-up to two days with BMW CCA). I still don’t understand the transponders and posted time sheets. Either it’s an open track, or it’s a race. Pick one.

- I need to tighten up my prep. There were several small things that cumulatively wasted too much time, energy or opportunities. Functional wipers come in handy. If I buy new wheels before an event (even if they are designed for the car!), I need to test fit them ahead of time. I need a power tool to do faster tire changes. I need to have a full day off on the day before. (So what if I miss a monthly department review, they’ll have another one next month.)