Race Cars and Motorsports

BlownMGB-V8
On a course that short there is no straight and with only lefts they might as well be in a full time power slide all the way around the track. Have to be right on the edge of traction all the way around.



Not sure which driver you're referring to with that. Although it doesn't really matter. Stenhouse was the only driver having this 'problem'. And to such an extent, that all of the announcers and even Speed and his spotter were commenting on it.

Part of the reason why I posted this was, even though Speed wasn't making an outside pass, Lil Dicky demonstrates the primary problem with attempting it:
If the driver on the inside just keeps his foot in it a teensy bit too much ( or leaves braking too late ) he can 'accidentally' slide up the track into the outside lane and 'accidentally' bump you ( slowing you down enough to prevent the pass ) or even wreck you.

You'll notice that these drivers typically don't have any problem holding their line UNLESS you're outside of them. Once or twice may be nerves or adrenaline. But if they don't stop, you KNOW for certain that it is deliberate and malicious.

You'll notice that Lil Dicky never once made any attempt at a top side pass or even tried running a half lane higher. He just kept dive bombing the end of the straights and punting Speed all through the corner.

Just for reference, Toledo is a fairly flat 1/2 mile. It's not a very small track. Slinger is a high bank 1/4 and 3/8s are common.



BlownMGB-V8
Looks to me like somebody is playing fast and loose with the safety and lives of everyone on the track.


*shrugs*

If that's with reference to Speed, I'd have done the same. Only, I'd have waved the fast cars by in the bottom lane and I'd have taken Stenhouse in the LR when he went by.

And yes, I certainly would mean to destroy his car. He did, after all, try to destroy Speed's.


That's the other problem here though. The failure of race direction. ARCA decided that they didn't want to 'interfere with the points race'. What they should have done was to park Lil Dicky as soon as he put Speed into the wall.

I haven't watched many ARCA races, so I don't know if this is a common problem for them or not. But this race was a major error on their part.

Using the chrome horn is one thing, just wrecking the hell out of the guy you're racing for the points championship is completely unacceptable.

MadMarx
Date: April 05, 2015 05:46AM
I'm a friend of smooth driving, handling the tires with care:


Hah, nice race. You're clearly head and shoulders above the rest of the class. And you had loads of fun starting at the back, didn't you?

I have a question though, what are you using for top gear? An electric OverDrive unit? It looks like you're making your ~160 kph shift with your left thumb.

Hi Todd,

yep, I like racing from the back of the grid.
Gives me the most pleasure and fun.
I don't care much about the finish result, any place is good for me but often I finish first with the TR4.
The Moggy +8 is a hard nut to crack :-)

I run a 4.55 final drive with a dogbox and a J-OD controlled by a switch on the steering wheel.
I run the OD only as top gear.
The car can do about 203 kph.

On the Nordschleife I use a 4.1 final drive which is good for in excess 215 kph.

The IMSA TR8 is not on that level on performance. Engine yes - very strong engine, but handling - a catastrophe at the moment. I hope the new springs and dampers will help.
Next weekend racing the TR8 at Hockenheim F1 track.

Cheers
Chris

Handling is better now:

[www.youtube.com]

From the world of jet fighters comes ... OODA loop theory.

What is "OODA", you ask? It's a heuristic to analyze the 'How' of what the most successful dogfighters and racers do to win.

1 - Observe
2 - Orient
3 - Decide
4 - Act
5 - goto 1

The object being, to process this loop 'faster' than your opponent and thereby to put him back on his heels and always be responding to you.

There are, of course, hard limits on this theory. You can't just take random actions and pretend that because you are 'confusing' your opponent that victory is yours for the taking. For an aircraft, you can't allow the wing to stall, you can't fly into the ground and you don't want to put yourself directly into the Red Baron's crosshairs. Because it doesn't really matter whether the Red Baron 'understands' the action you're taking, if you're in his crosshairs he's probably going to figure out that he needs to pull the trigger.

For racers, we are severely restricted by the width of the racing surface, how much damage we will do to our own car by running into his car and the stewards rulings regarding rough driving.

Here is a very good story on 40 Second Boyd and the development of the theory:
[ejectejecteject.com]

Here's the wiki page:
[en.wikipedia.org]

Great stuff, Todd!

Certainly applies to any traffic situation, whether the other drivers are watching you or not, but more especially if they are. Oddly enough, I learned this tactic walking down the hallways in high school. At that time, to me it seemed intuitive and a single process, although breaking it up into discrete steps certainly gives definition and helps to identify which steps may be weak.

Jim

This video demonstrates two of the points I've made earlier:
1 - outside passes are viable, even on road courses. Perhaps even more so on a road course, where the first part of an 'outside' pass becomes the inside on the next corner.
2 - a well fought 2nd can be far more exciting and satisfying than winning the race by a mile. You tell me, have you ever been this excited to *win* a race? Even the winner was busy watching the race for 2nd on the trackside big screen.


[www.youtube.com]


What is the cognition error Whincup made? You don't get any points for saying he got on the throttle too hard ... any fool can see that. The question I'm asking is, 'Why' or 'What did he fail to Observe in the situation'?

And listen to that crowd roar.

People *watch* racing for the passing ( and wrecking ), winning is an afterthought.

Looked to me like maybe he was paying too much attention to the rearview mirror and not enough to the fastest line through the corner. Initially he came in a little shallow then didn't turn in hard enough. But note that McLaughlin (sp?) faked him out by swinging wide and cutting back just as Whincup bit. That let him get inside on the turn. Whincup still might have pulled it out if he'd reacted fast enough to tighten his radius but apparently he tried to power it out instead. A simple error but his tires just couldn't take it. At least that's the way it looked to me.

I used the same tactic just today out on the bike. Coming up to a light behind a SUV I held hard to the left line and encouraged them to edge that way, then when they were moving too slow to change I went right and had enough room to slip by and make a right-on-red. Success! (usually they will ease right just enough to block you, especially if they catch on to your intentions) Didn't occur to me at the time that I was using a racing maneuver, I just wanted out of traffic.

Jim

Posted by: BlownMGB-V8
Date: August 15, 2015 01:41AM
Initially he came in a little shallow


That was intentional AND CORRECT. Whincup is defending out-breaking ( sic ) attacks from the inside. If he allows McLaughlin to attack the inside of the corner you can wind up with that Arnoux-Villeneuve example I linked in the third post/first page. And that's the best outcome. Worst case, McLaughlin locks up his tires on the attack, slides into him and punts Whincup into the weeds. Very rarely does the inside driver get the short end of the stick on these attacks when you're dealing with full body cars ( something like F1 will knock front wings off of the trailing car so it's not so good for the rear driver in those kinds of cars ).

I don't think McLaughlin would do that intentionally, both drivers had been EXTREMELY clean and respectful of each other to this point. But adrenaline is running very high for both and misjudgments are quite easy in these situations.



Posted by: BlownMGB-V8
Date: August 15, 2015 01:41AM
But note that McLaughlin (sp?) faked him out by swinging wide and cutting back

That's not a 'fake', that's the correct response to Whincup's defensive tactic and should be exactly what a veteran / champion like Whincup was expecting to see once he committed to defending the bottom lane. In fact, I doubt very much that Whincup was even looking in his mirror at all.

Whincup's shallow entry / early apex is going to practically force a wide exit on his part. So the best 'counter' to that is a wide entry / late apex so you can attempt to carry speed while exiting a lane down from Whincup. You're not going to be able to carry to the edge of the pavement AND MAKE A PASS because Whincup is going to be there. You'd best know this.

The problem for McLaughlin was that Whincup's car was clearly faster ( why, I don't know. perhaps a 3 stop vs 2 stop strategy ) at this point in the race and no matter what action McLaughlin takes he should not be capable of re-passing ... without a Whincup mistake.

The lesson to learn from McLaughlin is to always put yourself in a situation to capitalize, even if you don't think you're going to get the chance.



Whincup's error was that this corner was not like the previous ~600 corners ( 16 turns * 38 laps ) of the race.

Whincup should not care if he beats McLaughlin to turn 1 ... because turn 1 is beyond the checker.

Whincup has already demonstrated conclusively that he's got a significant speed advantage vs McLaughlin. All Whincup has to do is recognize two things:
a - he only needs 1/2 a straightaway with the lead
b - he only needs ~75% getting off the corner.

Put those two facts together with the knowledge that his car is significantly faster and ... there's really no reason for spinning your tires up on corner exit. In fact, I would give up another bit of exit speed just so I could shade down coming onto the straight. I would still be swinging to the outside verge, but the point would be to confuse the following driver momentarily, perhaps causing him to breath his own throttle while he waits to figure out if I'm going wide or not.

Have confidence in your car and recognize when you DON'T have to get 10 tenths out of it. Use your own positioning to confuse and impede the challenging car *when viable*. I'm definitely not saying to block people into the grass, that kind of thing pisses me off. I'm just pointing out that you don't have to make it easy for the attacker.


This is, of course, quite easy to critique from the Monday morning Thrustmaster racing seat, quite another thing to recognize in the heat of the moment after all the dicing on the razor thin margins they had just gotten done doing.

Heck, I'm sure both driver's spotters were going bonkers in their headsets after all that mess. That doesn't help the decision making either, if you've got somebody screaming in your ear.

Spotters should be calm NO MATTER WHAT. If they can't be calm, they need to shut it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2015 11:59AM by Todd McCreary.

[www.youtube.com]


What did McDowell do differently from everyone in front of him?

What was Kurt Busch ( 41 ) doing that I've already pointed out earlier in the thread should be your practice under yellow?