Kenneth Waller
http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/kennethwaller
----- Original Message -----
From: "Larry Colen" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: OT - When a NASCAR champ meets Mt Panorama in a V8 Supercar
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 suspect part of D W's issues may have been that he was on a road course he
had never been on, there were many blind corners and alot of elevation
changes. In Nascar, for the most part its down a straight, turn left, down
another straight, turn left, ad infinitum all with no elevation change and
all turns being visible.
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
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