On 10/11/2011 4:05 PM, John Francis wrote:
On Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 05:16:05PM -0400, Doug Franklin wrote:
On 2011-10-10 15:39, John Francis wrote:
On Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 11:55:56AM -0700, Larry Colen wrote:
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.
Allow me to second that recommendation.
I'll offer a third. It's even more enlightening when the more
experienced driver takes /your/ car out there. It's sometimes
really shocking just how far from the edge you were when you see the
"pro" nonchalantly blast right past your highest speed, lap time,
corner entry, whatever.
You don't need to be out on the track for this, though.
Thanks for the compliments.
One of the interesting things from the K-5 shakedown cruise out to
Yosemite was getting to be a passenger in my own Z4 - an experience
that was new to me. It was fascinating to observe how his driving
changed as Larry got to learn how to read the signals from the car.
At the beginning he was driving well within the performance limits,
but it wasn't too long before he was putting the car through the
twisty bits at least as fast as I was.
I was trying very hard to always keep well within the limits of the car.
It's terribly embarrassing to wreck someone else's car. But learning a
new car is always a fun process, finding out how far some of the limits
stretch, and trying to glimpse others well before you exceed them. The
Z4 has a very impressive amount of acceleration on tap, and I could tell
that injudicial use of the accelerator could lead to a very premature
introduction to the car's limits of handling.
And that was on unfamiliar
roads, where neither of us were really trying particularly hard.
(He was also better than I was at always being in the right gear).
What I was doing was *not* worrying overmuch about being in the right
gear. The car had so much more torque and power on tap that playing with
the nifty sequential shifter just distracted me from the far more
important tasks of watching the road and using the gas and brakes to
place the weight on the proper tires. Going into a turn slow enough that
you can adjust the handling by shifting the weight onto the right tires
allows you to get on the gas much, much earlier, which makes the car
more stable, and also a lot faster down the following straight.
Having just read the lesser photographer manifesto, it's interesting to
bring this discussion back to photography and the question of technique
or equipment. When taking photos, it's so easy to get so wrapped up in
the gear, what lens to use, whether to use a flash, polarizer or not,
that you get distracted from taking the photo. Sometimes the lens that
is on your camera is not going to work for the photo that you are trying
to take, and you need to change lenses. But far more often, I think that
people spend more time trying to decide what's the best lens, when it
really doesn't matter that much, than they spend thinking about what's
the best picture.
Likewise, when I'm teaching on the track, I have students always
worrying about gear to be in, where to shift, when to shift, when they
would be far better off just leaving the car in third gear and learning
how to use the gas, brakes and steering wheel.
But anyways, driving the Z4 was a lot of fun. I was rather disappointed
that my opportunity to play with it ended so soon, and need to figure
out how to convince John that what he really needs is for me to show him
what his car is capable of on a racetrack. :-)
Either that, or finish up my home repair projects so that I can get
Jasmine running again, so I'll have something fun to drive whenever I want.
--
Larry Colen [email protected] (from dos4est)
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