On 11/10/11 5:55 AM, Larry Colen wrote:
On Oct 10, 2011, at 9:49 AM, Ken Waller wrote:
I saw D W's ride during the Speed TV live telecast of this fantastice race - my
wife& I wondered if D W's reactions were real or was he hyping it for the
audience.
I know I don't feel real comfortable being a passenger when someone else is
driving.
I wondered that too. They say that doctors make horrible patients. I know
that I don't tend to be a very good passenger. For many years most of my
passenger seat time was while teaching on tracks, so when I'd be riding with
someone on the street and they'd do something that on the track would cause
unhappy levels of excitement, the little lizard in the back of my brain would
freak out.
Now, consider that Waltrip has spent decades pushing a particular type of car,
right up to its very limits of handling, on a particular type of track, and
that when those limits are exceeded expensive and unpleasant physics lessons
would happen. Now, he's in a car, sitting in the position where he's
*supposed* to be in control (on the left side), but has no control of the car.
So, already his brain lizard is telling him that he's in trouble. Then put him
in a car with handling that makes his car seem like, well, like an American
family sedan. When they hit the point that decades of experience are telling
him that he has to hit the brakes *now*, they're still full on the gas. Even
after the driver slows down, they are going into turns at speeds that if he
tried it in his car, he'd probably land in New Zealand or something.
I expect that the video was edited for the best parts. I also know how hard it
can be to talk coherently when under stress, so he probably played things up a
little bit, but I wouldn't be surprised if what he said was a pretty good
expression of what he felt. Now, I'd love to see a video of him going for a
ride in a pro-rally car. I bet that his commentary for that would be extremely
colorful. For the people who have never been for a ride, at speed, on the
track, with someone who knows what they're doing driving, I highly recommend
the experience. It's a great way to recalibrate your understanding of the laws
of physics.
A couple of weeks ago, I was driving home on highway 9 from Santa Cruz in my
girlfriend's Civic. The friend that we bought it from did an excellent job of
upgrading the suspension. She commented that she was curious what I could on
that road. I wasn't pushing *that* hard, especially on the straights, even so,
she said her reactions were torn between smiling and peeing her pants. At the
other end of the spectrum, years ago, one of my students did offroad racing.
He was used to being a passenger in events like the Baja 1000. Judging by his
reaction, you would have thought that we were driving down the Interstate to
grandma's house, not pushing a Cortina to the threshold of adhesion on Sears
Point.
--
Larry Colen [email protected] sent from i4est
The bit I saw on you tube was heavily edited as the corners were not
shown in sequence and some were repeated - sort of like the movie Bullet.
But Mt Panorama is still an extremely challenging and spectacular circuit.
The run up the mountain is daunting, but nothing compared to the run
from Skyline down to Forest Elbow and the start of Conrod straight.
Image the corkscrew at Laguna Seca then multiply by four.
--
Philip Northeast
www.aviewfinderdarkly.com.au
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