The nerd in me loves all of the data acquisition going on in modern racing. The spectator in me kind of hates it.
A few years ago, I started following Supercross/Motocross pretty heavily after a ~15 year absence. It still surprises me how far behind they are with regards to this kind of technology. In a way, it's almost impossible to collect quality data because the track itself changes so frequently.
Those Speedvision touring car races were some of the most entertaining I’ve still seen to this day. Saw one in person at Texas Motor Speedway, and loved the aggression of the drivers and how they just let ‘em race.
Anecdote that backs you up: One of my co-workers' father has been building race engines for karts and mini stock cars in central Virginia for ages. Twenty+ years ago he raced and built engines for some of the competitors. It was his hobby essentially. This was at the time that Denny Hamlin was coming up racing karts and mini stock cars in central Virginia. My coworker told me that at the time he was a name and people recognized him as a competent driver but he was nothing special in the race series. When other racers were trailering home to go to work and building their cars after hours, Denny's parents sold their family home to buy their kid the best of the best to push his career.
The "heroes" in racing excel because they have well-financed dedicated backers, whether corporate or parental, that gives them every advantage possible. They're nothing heroic in and of themselves. Strip them of the benefits of such backing and no surprise they rarely exceed a competent average Joe.
And that is exactly why the women of that dreadful W series who keep doing well will never graduate to a higher level is because of....
ding ding ding.... financial backing!
There are so many instances of this in motorsports that it is very overplayed by now. Yet, tons of people think guys or gals just get the short end of the stick for rides.
It's all about money. Always has been. I have yet to see a poor race driver in the current era. If they didn't have money, someone behind them did.
My oldest flirted with karting and fully agree. The dollars spent on 8 year olds chasing wins at New Castle Motorsports Park could easily operate a super-midsize jet. A bastard like me with no mechanical skill and an F-150 didn't have a chance.
And that's why you have to decide as a parent. Are you going to join the arms race? If not, don't even bother. If you are and you're anyone under the local rich guy, you literally have to find a rich guy to finance your kid.
The same is also true of MANY kids sports right now. It's a giant business. Makes my wife a little peeved that I don't want to encourage the kids to do any sports later on. I'd rather they just find something to be passionate about and learn to be happy with less. *shrug*
Can't wait for the day Jack gets into a real analysis of Formula One and the money structure there. So much to dive into. It's just all money all the time. There is no grass roots structure there.
Fully agree. I think we have just as much fun screwing around at K1 karting from time to time than we would trying (and likely failing) to compete in competitive karting, and the unspent money went towards their future so they can hopefully start adulthood debt-free.
I worked closely with a guy who had 3-7' tall sons, all of whom won D-I NCAA championships and went on to the NBA. He said repeatedly that there's no hope now of any semblance of a normal childhood for kids who want to play at an elite level, and so many of those who sacrifice childhood will have no hope of earning a living actually playing sports.
It is DISGUSTING the amount of time and money is spent on children to play sports and attempt to push them to an elite level when the KIDS DON'T EVEN CARE ABOUT THE SPORT.
Kids get one childhood.
Could be wrong, but perhaps that is why there is a prolonging of childhood after college amongst 20 somethings as the realization sets in that the adulthood they were told to embrace as an early teen isn't the one they ended up with?
It is a tough choice to make as a parent. Some kids need more pushing than others. Given that I don't think my parents or I had ever even heard of karting at the appropriate age for beginning participation, I can't fault them for that. However I do regret (my decision to quite) but them not pushing me more to keep going with (baseball in my case) when I turn 13 and tried to quit everything because I was slow to hit my growth spurt. I am under no impression I would have even been good enough to walk on D1, but I still would have had more fun than not playing.
Now my daughter is about the same age, going through her own stuff, and it is not easy to know how hard to push her.
I am sure you are thinking of the worst cases and excesses, but each choice on how to help is a slippery slope into those things. It is a struggle each day, so as much as I do despise those parents, I see how I could get there.
It’s true not just of this hobby but most professions. Those who are backed and pushed from a young age to a higher degree than others will near always have that advantage.
My friend who was d1 ROTY is like that. When you get the gold key you can focus it all on honing talent if not just letting the machine do the work. I know it’ll come
off a bit jealous but it was annoying to watch his success with the “corporate backed” c6 completely eating up kids with home brewed Nissan 240s etc.
It’s not that I wasn’t happy to see him to do well, but I’ve been on that underdog side before. Not being able to afford the “right” tools and fighting with less took me right back to HS and college - which always seems to have a life parallel somewhere.
Jacks comment of races won in the garage/shop is pretty spot on. I obviously get into more drag racey type stuff merely due to cost and time restraints. Its a HUGE commitment to run open track. Even as a weekend warrior or some sort of annual semi annual warrior like my dumb ass was/is.
At any rate, the ability to “hot rod” can offset money but only to a point. In the straightline business the fastest way to the top is through your wallet. Even the fastest home brew just isn’t consistent enough or reliable enough to go rounds without substantial parts investment.
As of late our little weekend warrior “team” has been cleaning up the stick shift no-prep stuff for almost 2yrs now. Sounds cool, but the classes are smaller and rich friend likes to funnel in the money. Mindset doesn’t change though. We’ve been seeing growth and the attraction brings out other pockets. You can guess which ones are competitive.
So in closing I mostly just need a backer so I can stop working so much and concentrate on being as fast as the others 😁
Until then I’ll clutch my bronze star outlook of “impressive for what it is!” - be that vehicle or personal talent 🤪
We get to go out there. Weekend after weekend. And just... just go for it.
We get to spend our only fuckin' lives, while the rest of our cohort is jerking off to anime, binging TV, and reading Tweets, or whatever - out there living. Racing. Training. Traveling. Living. Making decisions that have immediate, permanent consequences.
The stick's short on both ends, but between choosing this life and "knowing a lot about which IPAs are good" - I'll break every bone, bleed every drop of blood, set every dollar on fire, and go blind looking for every last tenth.
The thrill of agony. The glory of defeat. Long live racing.
I do have a few racing heroes, in no particular order...
1. Jesse Lazare, both for agreeing to drive in an AER endurance race and for doing so after having been given a quick lesson in driving a three-pedal manual because he'd only ever driven paddle-shifted cars.
2. DangerGirl, because she's taken to racing in such magnificent fashion. She is an inspiration to me and especially to my wife.
3. Kimi Raikkonen, both for his general attitude ("Leave me alone, I know what I'm doing," deciding to eat ice cream after a DNF, telling Martin Brundle he was "having a shit" when asked why he missed Schumacher's celebration after his last race, etc.) and because he always struck me as being someone who only ever wanted to race and had no time for or interest in any other part of F1. I always got the sense that if Kimi hadn't been paid to drive, he'd have been racing for pinkslips somewhere.
4. The team that spent the *entire* weekend of an AER endurance race at Mid-Ohio combining the best parts two engines (after having bought a parts car from a junkyard) to get their glorious E30 shitbox running again and finished with just enough time to complete one full lap before the checkered flag.
I bought a seat for a WRL race at COTA in 2020... I got about 20 minutes of practice (had never driven COTA) before the car broke. The next day we started the race late waiting on the part to show up, and each driver got about 2 hours before the end of the race. Each stint resulted in the fastest lap for the team.
For the Sunday race, in cool morning weather and on fresh tires, I set the fastest lap at I believe 1:40.1 (don't laugh... the car was a Civic). That afternoon, the owner sold a seat to a NASCAR Cup driver who wanted to drive COTA since NASCAR was scheduled to run there in 2021. In his first session, the pro ran 139.6...
On one hand, I was impressed. It had taken me 3 sessions to run my best lap, but the pro jumped right in and ran half a second faster... on the other hand, Jack's right. I ran within a half-second of a pro, the two other guys were within a second.
Gee, I wonder who that mook driving for Motor Trend and the other conspicuously-unnamed corporate You Tube channel is...
What's funny about "The Stig" is that the original premise was they needed somebody less hamfisted than Clarkson/Hammond to set consistent lap times and they didn't even care what his real name was. Because, according to Jeremy, "Racing drivers have tiny little brains and therefore worthless opinions and they're very dull."
I'm curious to hear more about the world challenge parts incident mentioned. If we're talking about the guy with the penchant for blue sunglasses I've interacted with him a fair bit both through track events and national autocross before he moved into racing. He's always has been super helpful both as an employee/volunteer at events and giving ad hoc coaching for driving, so I'm surprised to hear he was involved in something like that. Especially since I never got the feeling from him that he would have the technical ability to fabricate parts, let alone pass them off as oem.
The pressure that would-be "pro" drivers feel is truly immense. In order to make a living in the business, you need to be both skilled and immensely lucky. Even the best, kindest people need an extra edge.
I happened to be at the PWC tech shed when the whole thing went down, and I recall hearing an official say that "they finally caught him", or something to that effect. The car in question was nontrivially faster in a straight line than every other car at the event, something that happens to be a pattern for the driver in question in multiple series. It's also a pattern for Honda cars that appear in amateur and entry-level pro events, when those cars are supported by the Ohio-based Honda team.
I'm not saying the dude can't wheel; he obviously can. I'm saying that a majority of the field can wheel like that. It doesn't help that there is an unpleasant acceptance of and tacit encouragement of cheating in the sport, largely because nobody wants to be uncool about anything and because Smokey Yunick used to cheat. Very few people appear to be willing to think about the difference between Smokey cheating in NASCAR and someone cheating in GridLife or SCCA.
As for me, I have immense contempt for cheaters. Most of us in amateur racing can't even afford to optimize to the rules. If you need to go out and do more than that, you should seriously reconsider your choices. I was also around for the infamous Second Andy Hollis Cheating Incident, where Jim tore his head down and found the shims. It makes me want to go back to BMX, where I'm no longer competitive but at least I know everybody is on the same playing field.
Interesting, I hadn't heard that about the HART guys. I was around for the valve shim incident as well, if not in his class. I think I was doing something stupid like running a shifter kart at that point. At least that case was more explainable than the *other* cheating incident he was involved in years prior. I wonder if that person was the main instigator here for the issue instead of the driver.
I'm of the same mind with cheating, especially in amateur motorsport. No one is impressed that you do it, let alone if you win. Trying to be 'creative with the rules' just means you're being an asshole to everyone else. This is also why I've just moved to TTs Max category and XA in autocross - not many rules to break, just show up on 200tw and don't be a dick.
This answers some questions I've often wondered about. One of the things I have been curious about all my life is the process of humans learning new skills. One thing I have seen time and again, with most disciplines, is once you get started and maybe have some coaching and education to start, there is a period of time where you just need to "do it", simply spending time doing the thing, internalizing the basic lessons and getting comfortable. You can't advance skill level without it. I've attributed that to many things, like why I refuse to golf, and I'm no good at skiing. Auto racing has always seemed like that to me, it's a sacrifice to spend the time and money to get regular seat time, either you give up a lot else to get it, or you get rich first then free up your schedule. There will be some like me, content to just dabble in it non-competitively.
I did upgrade to the Paddock Club though! I wasn't sure how to schedule with you and when we could do it, but I figured I got a year membership to work it out, if it might have to wait for next spring. I got some ideas though. Is there a preferred way to reach you to work that out?
Thank you for this and confirming my decision to up for the Trackday subscription. Now I just hope this 47-year-old can fulfill these corollaries come September at Mid-Ohio…
I've never raced, beyond a NASCAR PC video game, but came to the same conclusion about drivers being "about the same" when I noted so many family members racing in NASCAR. I reasoned that if you had to be truly gifted, as opposed to well-trained, it would be unlikely that a driver's kids or sibling would ALSO be able to compete at that level. I mean, what are the odds, right?
I’d draw exactly the opposite conclusion from that data set. To whatever degree that genetic predisposition affects one’s success in racing, one would expect that the children of successful racing drivers would have an advantage.
There are several dynasties in Major League Baseball as another example.
Those kids are also likely to be exposed to motor sports at a very tender age as well, which certainly can’t hurt.
Are do geniuses run in families? Are there example of that? Remember, we're talking about truly "gifted" drivers. I'm more inclined to think that racing runs in families because of the "connections" and training they receive because of their exposure to it. Nothing wrong with that, of course.
We’ll not soon solve the question of nature vs nurture. My personal sense is that both are required for success at a high level.
As to your question, do you mean genius-level intellects? If so, I’m not sure how to even trace such a thing. Intelligence testing is only a few generations old now, and results aren’t generally revealed publicly.
Certainly, there are a multitude of families that have shown high achievement over generations.
Qualifying is about speed. Racing is about position. And to your point, yes, if you narrow the parameters. But there's so, so much more to it than just laying down a smoking lap.
On a semi-related note: what in your opinion is the most difficult task in motorsports? My guess is winning on an Indy car street circuit from any starting position outside the top five. The "track" is a bumpy public street, the cars make a ton of downforce and have minimal suspension travel, and there's a concrete barrier at each corner with no margin for error, so every attempted pass is a near-collision while you're trying to brake and turn with a tire or two in the air and the car beating the living hell out of you.
I'm not 100% certain that digital racing is like real racing, but I do know much of the theory applies across the two.
In the course of 7-8 years worth of Forza Motorsport racing in a club(yeah, yeah... I'm that lame guy), I went from being potentially the worst racer to one of the upper tier guys. On a good day with a weird car I can get into the top 10 times in the world for hotlapping.
How did I do it? I broke down every track and just did tons of analysis just like Jack said. I researched and visualized and ground out tens of thousands of miles worth of digital laps. When I got bored, I practiced things I needed to improve like being tailed for laps. Now I'm fast enough to overtake and the set of skills I need to place higher in races is completely different. Work ethic almost matters as much as pure talent.
Attitude and wanting to learn is more than half the battle. The rest is the need for large amounts of time or money. Which, the more that I think of it is why my window is closed... for now.
I don't think you're lame at all, for two reasons.
First, as you note, real-world racing requires a lot of time and money, which not all of us have. If online racing provides something approaching the same level of excitement and enjoyment, great! Embrace it!
Second, as the hardware and software involved in esports motor racing grows more sophisticated, I think we'll see more crossover from the digital realm to the physical one. Online racing can't replicate the physical and mental demands of a real car, but I do think it can provide a foundation by honing the attitude and some of the fundamentals.
That’s true. I use a nice rig and parts of having a good race is having good muscle memory too. That does translate somewhat. Gotta stay sharp somehow, right?
The nerd in me loves all of the data acquisition going on in modern racing. The spectator in me kind of hates it.
A few years ago, I started following Supercross/Motocross pretty heavily after a ~15 year absence. It still surprises me how far behind they are with regards to this kind of technology. In a way, it's almost impossible to collect quality data because the track itself changes so frequently.
"So you're telling me there's a chance!" Lloyd Christmas, I'm off to find a brief case full of cash
Those Speedvision touring car races were some of the most entertaining I’ve still seen to this day. Saw one in person at Texas Motor Speedway, and loved the aggression of the drivers and how they just let ‘em race.
Anecdote that backs you up: One of my co-workers' father has been building race engines for karts and mini stock cars in central Virginia for ages. Twenty+ years ago he raced and built engines for some of the competitors. It was his hobby essentially. This was at the time that Denny Hamlin was coming up racing karts and mini stock cars in central Virginia. My coworker told me that at the time he was a name and people recognized him as a competent driver but he was nothing special in the race series. When other racers were trailering home to go to work and building their cars after hours, Denny's parents sold their family home to buy their kid the best of the best to push his career.
The "heroes" in racing excel because they have well-financed dedicated backers, whether corporate or parental, that gives them every advantage possible. They're nothing heroic in and of themselves. Strip them of the benefits of such backing and no surprise they rarely exceed a competent average Joe.
And that is exactly why the women of that dreadful W series who keep doing well will never graduate to a higher level is because of....
ding ding ding.... financial backing!
There are so many instances of this in motorsports that it is very overplayed by now. Yet, tons of people think guys or gals just get the short end of the stick for rides.
It's all about money. Always has been. I have yet to see a poor race driver in the current era. If they didn't have money, someone behind them did.
My oldest flirted with karting and fully agree. The dollars spent on 8 year olds chasing wins at New Castle Motorsports Park could easily operate a super-midsize jet. A bastard like me with no mechanical skill and an F-150 didn't have a chance.
And that's why you have to decide as a parent. Are you going to join the arms race? If not, don't even bother. If you are and you're anyone under the local rich guy, you literally have to find a rich guy to finance your kid.
The same is also true of MANY kids sports right now. It's a giant business. Makes my wife a little peeved that I don't want to encourage the kids to do any sports later on. I'd rather they just find something to be passionate about and learn to be happy with less. *shrug*
Can't wait for the day Jack gets into a real analysis of Formula One and the money structure there. So much to dive into. It's just all money all the time. There is no grass roots structure there.
Fully agree. I think we have just as much fun screwing around at K1 karting from time to time than we would trying (and likely failing) to compete in competitive karting, and the unspent money went towards their future so they can hopefully start adulthood debt-free.
I worked closely with a guy who had 3-7' tall sons, all of whom won D-I NCAA championships and went on to the NBA. He said repeatedly that there's no hope now of any semblance of a normal childhood for kids who want to play at an elite level, and so many of those who sacrifice childhood will have no hope of earning a living actually playing sports.
It is DISGUSTING the amount of time and money is spent on children to play sports and attempt to push them to an elite level when the KIDS DON'T EVEN CARE ABOUT THE SPORT.
Kids get one childhood.
Could be wrong, but perhaps that is why there is a prolonging of childhood after college amongst 20 somethings as the realization sets in that the adulthood they were told to embrace as an early teen isn't the one they ended up with?
It is a tough choice to make as a parent. Some kids need more pushing than others. Given that I don't think my parents or I had ever even heard of karting at the appropriate age for beginning participation, I can't fault them for that. However I do regret (my decision to quite) but them not pushing me more to keep going with (baseball in my case) when I turn 13 and tried to quit everything because I was slow to hit my growth spurt. I am under no impression I would have even been good enough to walk on D1, but I still would have had more fun than not playing.
Now my daughter is about the same age, going through her own stuff, and it is not easy to know how hard to push her.
I am sure you are thinking of the worst cases and excesses, but each choice on how to help is a slippery slope into those things. It is a struggle each day, so as much as I do despise those parents, I see how I could get there.
Saw this in motocross and it blew my mind. Like these parents are all Jamie Spears hoping that one of the lottery tickets, i.e. kids, hits.
Josh, are you suggesting Lance Stroll wouldn't be racing in F1 if his father hadn't bought a team? :-)
It’s true not just of this hobby but most professions. Those who are backed and pushed from a young age to a higher degree than others will near always have that advantage.
My friend who was d1 ROTY is like that. When you get the gold key you can focus it all on honing talent if not just letting the machine do the work. I know it’ll come
off a bit jealous but it was annoying to watch his success with the “corporate backed” c6 completely eating up kids with home brewed Nissan 240s etc.
It’s not that I wasn’t happy to see him to do well, but I’ve been on that underdog side before. Not being able to afford the “right” tools and fighting with less took me right back to HS and college - which always seems to have a life parallel somewhere.
Jacks comment of races won in the garage/shop is pretty spot on. I obviously get into more drag racey type stuff merely due to cost and time restraints. Its a HUGE commitment to run open track. Even as a weekend warrior or some sort of annual semi annual warrior like my dumb ass was/is.
At any rate, the ability to “hot rod” can offset money but only to a point. In the straightline business the fastest way to the top is through your wallet. Even the fastest home brew just isn’t consistent enough or reliable enough to go rounds without substantial parts investment.
As of late our little weekend warrior “team” has been cleaning up the stick shift no-prep stuff for almost 2yrs now. Sounds cool, but the classes are smaller and rich friend likes to funnel in the money. Mindset doesn’t change though. We’ve been seeing growth and the attraction brings out other pockets. You can guess which ones are competitive.
So in closing I mostly just need a backer so I can stop working so much and concentrate on being as fast as the others 😁
Until then I’ll clutch my bronze star outlook of “impressive for what it is!” - be that vehicle or personal talent 🤪
What I always like to remind myself:
"We _get_ to do this."
We get to go out there. Weekend after weekend. And just... just go for it.
We get to spend our only fuckin' lives, while the rest of our cohort is jerking off to anime, binging TV, and reading Tweets, or whatever - out there living. Racing. Training. Traveling. Living. Making decisions that have immediate, permanent consequences.
The stick's short on both ends, but between choosing this life and "knowing a lot about which IPAs are good" - I'll break every bone, bleed every drop of blood, set every dollar on fire, and go blind looking for every last tenth.
The thrill of agony. The glory of defeat. Long live racing.
Hear, hear.
I do have a few racing heroes, in no particular order...
1. Jesse Lazare, both for agreeing to drive in an AER endurance race and for doing so after having been given a quick lesson in driving a three-pedal manual because he'd only ever driven paddle-shifted cars.
2. DangerGirl, because she's taken to racing in such magnificent fashion. She is an inspiration to me and especially to my wife.
3. Kimi Raikkonen, both for his general attitude ("Leave me alone, I know what I'm doing," deciding to eat ice cream after a DNF, telling Martin Brundle he was "having a shit" when asked why he missed Schumacher's celebration after his last race, etc.) and because he always struck me as being someone who only ever wanted to race and had no time for or interest in any other part of F1. I always got the sense that if Kimi hadn't been paid to drive, he'd have been racing for pinkslips somewhere.
4. The team that spent the *entire* weekend of an AER endurance race at Mid-Ohio combining the best parts two engines (after having bought a parts car from a junkyard) to get their glorious E30 shitbox running again and finished with just enough time to complete one full lap before the checkered flag.
#4 is a large part of the reason I like cheap car racing.
How the sausage is made indeed. Awesome article Jack.
I bought a seat for a WRL race at COTA in 2020... I got about 20 minutes of practice (had never driven COTA) before the car broke. The next day we started the race late waiting on the part to show up, and each driver got about 2 hours before the end of the race. Each stint resulted in the fastest lap for the team.
For the Sunday race, in cool morning weather and on fresh tires, I set the fastest lap at I believe 1:40.1 (don't laugh... the car was a Civic). That afternoon, the owner sold a seat to a NASCAR Cup driver who wanted to drive COTA since NASCAR was scheduled to run there in 2021. In his first session, the pro ran 139.6...
On one hand, I was impressed. It had taken me 3 sessions to run my best lap, but the pro jumped right in and ran half a second faster... on the other hand, Jack's right. I ran within a half-second of a pro, the two other guys were within a second.
Hope springs eternal! guess I can race cars if I get too banged up for bikes. Travis pastrana was on to something!
When you age, get a cage! It happened to me.
Gee, I wonder who that mook driving for Motor Trend and the other conspicuously-unnamed corporate You Tube channel is...
What's funny about "The Stig" is that the original premise was they needed somebody less hamfisted than Clarkson/Hammond to set consistent lap times and they didn't even care what his real name was. Because, according to Jeremy, "Racing drivers have tiny little brains and therefore worthless opinions and they're very dull."
I'm curious to hear more about the world challenge parts incident mentioned. If we're talking about the guy with the penchant for blue sunglasses I've interacted with him a fair bit both through track events and national autocross before he moved into racing. He's always has been super helpful both as an employee/volunteer at events and giving ad hoc coaching for driving, so I'm surprised to hear he was involved in something like that. Especially since I never got the feeling from him that he would have the technical ability to fabricate parts, let alone pass them off as oem.
The pressure that would-be "pro" drivers feel is truly immense. In order to make a living in the business, you need to be both skilled and immensely lucky. Even the best, kindest people need an extra edge.
I happened to be at the PWC tech shed when the whole thing went down, and I recall hearing an official say that "they finally caught him", or something to that effect. The car in question was nontrivially faster in a straight line than every other car at the event, something that happens to be a pattern for the driver in question in multiple series. It's also a pattern for Honda cars that appear in amateur and entry-level pro events, when those cars are supported by the Ohio-based Honda team.
I'm not saying the dude can't wheel; he obviously can. I'm saying that a majority of the field can wheel like that. It doesn't help that there is an unpleasant acceptance of and tacit encouragement of cheating in the sport, largely because nobody wants to be uncool about anything and because Smokey Yunick used to cheat. Very few people appear to be willing to think about the difference between Smokey cheating in NASCAR and someone cheating in GridLife or SCCA.
As for me, I have immense contempt for cheaters. Most of us in amateur racing can't even afford to optimize to the rules. If you need to go out and do more than that, you should seriously reconsider your choices. I was also around for the infamous Second Andy Hollis Cheating Incident, where Jim tore his head down and found the shims. It makes me want to go back to BMX, where I'm no longer competitive but at least I know everybody is on the same playing field.
Interesting, I hadn't heard that about the HART guys. I was around for the valve shim incident as well, if not in his class. I think I was doing something stupid like running a shifter kart at that point. At least that case was more explainable than the *other* cheating incident he was involved in years prior. I wonder if that person was the main instigator here for the issue instead of the driver.
I'm of the same mind with cheating, especially in amateur motorsport. No one is impressed that you do it, let alone if you win. Trying to be 'creative with the rules' just means you're being an asshole to everyone else. This is also why I've just moved to TTs Max category and XA in autocross - not many rules to break, just show up on 200tw and don't be a dick.
This answers some questions I've often wondered about. One of the things I have been curious about all my life is the process of humans learning new skills. One thing I have seen time and again, with most disciplines, is once you get started and maybe have some coaching and education to start, there is a period of time where you just need to "do it", simply spending time doing the thing, internalizing the basic lessons and getting comfortable. You can't advance skill level without it. I've attributed that to many things, like why I refuse to golf, and I'm no good at skiing. Auto racing has always seemed like that to me, it's a sacrifice to spend the time and money to get regular seat time, either you give up a lot else to get it, or you get rich first then free up your schedule. There will be some like me, content to just dabble in it non-competitively.
I did upgrade to the Paddock Club though! I wasn't sure how to schedule with you and when we could do it, but I figured I got a year membership to work it out, if it might have to wait for next spring. I got some ideas though. Is there a preferred way to reach you to work that out?
I'll email you tonight.
Thank you for this and confirming my decision to up for the Trackday subscription. Now I just hope this 47-year-old can fulfill these corollaries come September at Mid-Ohio…
I've never raced, beyond a NASCAR PC video game, but came to the same conclusion about drivers being "about the same" when I noted so many family members racing in NASCAR. I reasoned that if you had to be truly gifted, as opposed to well-trained, it would be unlikely that a driver's kids or sibling would ALSO be able to compete at that level. I mean, what are the odds, right?
I’d draw exactly the opposite conclusion from that data set. To whatever degree that genetic predisposition affects one’s success in racing, one would expect that the children of successful racing drivers would have an advantage.
There are several dynasties in Major League Baseball as another example.
Those kids are also likely to be exposed to motor sports at a very tender age as well, which certainly can’t hurt.
Are do geniuses run in families? Are there example of that? Remember, we're talking about truly "gifted" drivers. I'm more inclined to think that racing runs in families because of the "connections" and training they receive because of their exposure to it. Nothing wrong with that, of course.
We’ll not soon solve the question of nature vs nurture. My personal sense is that both are required for success at a high level.
As to your question, do you mean genius-level intellects? If so, I’m not sure how to even trace such a thing. Intelligence testing is only a few generations old now, and results aren’t generally revealed publicly.
Certainly, there are a multitude of families that have shown high achievement over generations.
Qualifying is about speed. Racing is about position. And to your point, yes, if you narrow the parameters. But there's so, so much more to it than just laying down a smoking lap.
You're preaching to the choir, I have podiums in STU using a 137hp Neon! I'll talk about the other stuff in another article.
On a semi-related note: what in your opinion is the most difficult task in motorsports? My guess is winning on an Indy car street circuit from any starting position outside the top five. The "track" is a bumpy public street, the cars make a ton of downforce and have minimal suspension travel, and there's a concrete barrier at each corner with no margin for error, so every attempted pass is a near-collision while you're trying to brake and turn with a tire or two in the air and the car beating the living hell out of you.
As a driver? I think you're on to something with the Indy example.
I'm not 100% certain that digital racing is like real racing, but I do know much of the theory applies across the two.
In the course of 7-8 years worth of Forza Motorsport racing in a club(yeah, yeah... I'm that lame guy), I went from being potentially the worst racer to one of the upper tier guys. On a good day with a weird car I can get into the top 10 times in the world for hotlapping.
How did I do it? I broke down every track and just did tons of analysis just like Jack said. I researched and visualized and ground out tens of thousands of miles worth of digital laps. When I got bored, I practiced things I needed to improve like being tailed for laps. Now I'm fast enough to overtake and the set of skills I need to place higher in races is completely different. Work ethic almost matters as much as pure talent.
Attitude and wanting to learn is more than half the battle. The rest is the need for large amounts of time or money. Which, the more that I think of it is why my window is closed... for now.
I don't think you're lame at all, for two reasons.
First, as you note, real-world racing requires a lot of time and money, which not all of us have. If online racing provides something approaching the same level of excitement and enjoyment, great! Embrace it!
Second, as the hardware and software involved in esports motor racing grows more sophisticated, I think we'll see more crossover from the digital realm to the physical one. Online racing can't replicate the physical and mental demands of a real car, but I do think it can provide a foundation by honing the attitude and some of the fundamentals.
That’s true. I use a nice rig and parts of having a good race is having good muscle memory too. That does translate somewhat. Gotta stay sharp somehow, right?