When race drivers get scared...
 

I am involved in a discussion (which is a slight off topic branch of the original topic) over some place else..

The gist of it is that a certain race driver took a certain street car around the Nurburgring in a certain time.

Much joy was expressed by many, some gnashing of teeth displayed by some, and yet others buried their heads in the sand and sang the Italian national anthem - to the tune of Taps. ;)

Now after the fact - a certain person whom claims to have very good inside contacts, claimed that said race driver scared himself silly while setting the laptime in this certain car.

They then held this "rumour" aloft as if it bestowed some special bragging rights on this certain car and it's legions of fanatical followers.

I, on the other hand, ever the one willing to play satan's barrister, says "Nay - if a race driver had to scare himself shitless to set that time, it might be an indication of a problem with the car".

As you can imagine - I am about to be dragged before the high priest and excommunicated for uttering such blasphemy.

So - I throw open to the floor for discussion exactly what YOU would read into the results posted by a pro-race driver of a car on a challenging track.

Does an easy drive to a good time show lazy driver, well sorted car - and would a hard, tough drive to a good time indicate an awesome driver making proverbial satin from pigs ears etc etc.

The Conch is up for grabs....

i know, from personal experience, that one's mind and body is never unanimously focused onto one task unless you feel there's an element there that forces one or the other into submission to the other.

in racing a car, i believe you need a strong mind. believing both in your skills, your ability to carry them out and your mechanical counterpart (the car) to accept your imputs.

for any manufacturer, the goal is to produce a machine that eliminates the perception of interactivity between you (mind and body) and the car.

in theory, a car that would be able to do that would have to be perfect, 100% tailored to a single driver.

according to this thoery. not a single car currently being produced is capable of doing that. so...

not matter what car you drive, whether its on the limits or out to go get the groceries. you would need some sort of fear to negate your bodies mechanical imputs to allow your focused mind to control the car with your physical body.

to say a driver was scared is completely understandable, however it doesn't necesarily dictate that the car had any unintentianal flaws in its design, mechanical structure or electronical components.

Was it the first time around the NS for the "said racing driver"?

If not ... then the car must be really poor handling or set up wrong - E.g. too stiff and not enough wheel travel to take the many bumps and yumps.

No - this race driver has piloted winning Panoz LM cars at the Northloop before. ;)

This was my standpoint, if in fact the car did scare the driver.

Which is why I called BS on the story that the driver scared himself going so fast with the car, but rather offered that perhaps the comment was in reference to the way the car handled the scary parts of the track, for example.

:)

Well there are cars that while running good times are especially harry to drive.. *cough* viper *cough*
and can be damn near scary at times.

Id say its a mix.. Its not bad, its just another trait some people will prefer and some people wont.(the perfect car is the one that matches the driver best). Some people would find a difficult car entertaining. Some sick individuals would even find a challenge in a car with snap over steer..

you just insulted all (classic) porsche 911 drivers :P

anywayz, you'd have to ask the driver, was the car so fast it scared him, or were the limits of the car easily reached? if he's won races in a Panoz, its kinda hard to imagine the car being that much faster, so yes it wouldn't be unlogical to think the car was just not very suited for driving on the limit...at least in his style/liking. But plz tell us all, what car is this about?

Well i think a car that inspires confidence in the driver is a great thing...

And on one side you can say that the "certain car" :wink: is just so good that the driver felt he could trust it, EVEN if it scared him to bits. Now that's just the makings of a great car...it's awesome to drive, you can be confident, but yet it's still so good that it manages to scare you...pretty tempting combination.

On the other hand...the man is a professional racing driver, obviously not the first time 'round the ring, and for a car to "scare him shitless" perhaps it's an indication of a serious flaw...

If it's the former...then...well...i think that's awesome :D

If it's the latter, it could just be the skill of the driver overcompensating for serious design flaws, and its just happenstance that the car didn't fall apart

This however is unlikely IMO, so i'm gonna go with the first option...if a car is good enough to inspire confidence, while scaring a race driver shitless...ain't nothin' wrong with that :)

edit: gucom, i don't think RC wants the make of the car revealed publicly, because people tend to have a lot of prejudice toward that car...

Bingo... ;)

;)

Actually the car I am refereing to is the C6 Z06 and Jan Magnussen - I was trying to keep the "Corvette" part out of the discussion so people wouldn't get off topic.

Any reference to WR was because the guy with GM contacts says that it's not unusual for race drivers to be scared, and he cites the WR was "scared white" incident as proof.

I doubt either driver was "scared" in our context of "scared". hehe

;)

So what was the lap time?

I think the time is important wrt this issue.

Walter Rohrl mentioned that doing a 8:00 lap of NS in 911 GT3 was easy but getting a 7:53 lap required serious commitment.

So for example a Z06 is capable of 7:50 easy if Jan was trying to get to 7:45 it might be much tougher

IMO for a pro driver, to get scared it has to do something with the car, or he has to be driving off the car capabilities.
Or its just barely pure bragging.

I agree with you, mostly cause its a Z06 and we know how this topic might get.

The time set was 7m40s.

question is, how much time was he given to get a feel for the car? Obviously you don't just run to a car and belt out a flying lap on the worlds most difficult course.

If he did push his flying lap before getting completely used to a car then i could see him getting a bit nervous. But i think the scared comment was referring to a certain section of the track. Quite possibly the final straight if the Z06 gets a bit light as it approaches it's top speed, but i can think of many other corners that would be pretty nerve racking to fly through.

Haha, yes 7 hours 40 minutes is an amazing time :lol:

I think RC would say, and i would agree, that 7m40s is an awesome time for _any_ car...not just a vette :P

There is no reason to be scared shitless no mater how fast your going. The faster your going the better the car is behaving the better its responding. You dont set a fast time by driving a nervous car that your scared of.....

I dont really get the "scared" part.

Maybe he got scared because the car didnt react well when he was on bumps etc...which would be a car issue.

I think both WR and JM are consumate pros who are really good at what they do... make cars go really, really fast.

I am still struggling to process "scared" in their context :)

JM has many thousands of laps in C5-R's, C6-R's and produciton C5's and development C6's.

Couple that with his many, many laps at the Northloop and you have a great candidate for exctracting the most from the C6 Z... :)