At 07:04 AM 11/12/99 -0600, you wrote:
>> There. That sound better? I'm not saying that CM drivers can't drive,
just
>> that most of us average Joes would stand a better chance of trophying in a
>> real race car that would better mask less-than-stellar driving skills.
>>
>Hmmmmmm. Sounds like you may mean at a local event, as opposed to
>Nationals. If anything, I think a "real" race car accentuates your
>faults, not masks them. No experience in one myself mind you, (yet) but
Since I guess I am one of the few people with direct experience in going
from a stock class (CS Miata) to CMod (in 1997, co-driving with Josh
Sirota) let me put in my two cents...
First off if your skills are less than steller IMHO your going to be worse
off in CM since you are sitting a lot lower and thus cannot look ahead as
far. Not to mention that you are also going a lot faster, thus the course
is coming at you one heck of a lot quicker. If you are not good at course
memorization and at car control you're going to find yourself in trouble
real quick. Not to mention that drop-throttle oversteer in endemic in the
things, thus it is real easy to spin if you aren't careful.
I remember watching Joe Goeke's in-car video at the San Bernardino Pro in
'97 and marvelling at how *slow* he was going. I couldn't believe that he
wasn't flat-out the whole way since he was barely moving compared to how
fast the FF was going (and I was 5th, Shauna Marinus, the winner, was way
faster). At Wendover the speed was even greater, there was one jog that was
flat-out in 4th in the FF! (about 74-75 mph I would guess)
I count myself as so lucky that I even got a trophy at Nationals that year
(10th, the last trophy) after easily trophying (9th of 14 trophies) in CS
the year before. Believe me when I went back to the Miata the next year it
was so much easier! (3rd place) Everything was happening so much slower it
was like the Miata was in slow-motion compared to the FF.
So as you can see I don't think that it is easier in the least to drive in
CM. However I will say that IMHO there is no better way to improve your
driving skills than to spend a season in one of them since it forces you to
learn the important skills (looking ahead, etc) lest you make a complete
fool of yourself. Go ahead and give it a try, it's a blast!
- Alan Dahl
----------
___ ____ Alan Dahl | home: adahl@eskimo.com
/_ / / / Federal Way, WA, USA | work: Alan.Dahl@PSS.boeing.com
/ / _/__/ --- http://www.eskimo.com/~adahl ---- ICQ 52688023 --------
|