what i recall from riding with andy is how he almost never drives in a
straight line, but sees all the places to connect maximum cornering
semi-circles together so they fit through all the cones. none of this
road-race late apex crap. this sometimes left my brain behind when i
thought he was turning left and he would turn right instead.
it was an eye opener for me to drive the awesome bong solis car- quite
seriously it resists being driven in a straight line, although you have a
selection of different sized circular arcs to choose from. choose wisely.
:)
katie always seemed to me to drive the course first and the car second. a
lesson i try to remember, and one my car car enforces on me anyway.
>I'm thinking that MAYBE, instead of getting on the gas hard I get
>on it just a little bit earlier
a long soft throttle can be more effective than a repeated stabbing one.
-james
OSP - On Some Pace
----- Original Message -----
From: "Thana, Peter {High~Palo Alto}" <PETER.THANA@ROCHE.COM>
To: "Ms Katie Kelly" <aceontour@yahoo.com>; <ba-autox@autox.team.net>
Sent: Monday, December 02, 2002 2:53 PM
Subject: Riding in cars with girls (was: RE: In Car Footage)
> > What I learned from this is that the
> >fastest way through a slalom, and you can see this
> >visually, is to hold a constant speed through out.
>
> Okay, but being a wise ass I would add that this is assuming you can get
to that steady state speed by the first gate. Really the fastest way is to
be accelerating flat out on the throttle all the way thru, but on most
slaloms you can only do that in a really slow car, or maybe a Boxster.
>
> >I had no idea just how slow I looked in the car. This
> >was disappointing.
>
> Well having experienced your driving both in car and on film (in my car),
I can assure you that "you had to be there", it was plenty exciting in real
life! I think there is a natural order to how fast autox runs seem or feel
(no matter how fast they really are), and it goes sorta like this (from slow
to fast):
>
> -Watching yourself on video
> -Watching somebody else on video
> -Driving your car
> -Driving someone else's car
> -Riding with somebody else
> -Watching Andy on video
> -Riding with Andy
>
> What I have also learned from 3 years of begging rides off people with
names like Andy and Teresa and Derek and Randy and Katie and Ben to name a
few, is that there are many different driving styles that can all end up
being *really* fast. Just as fast. Some people have slow hands while
others make quick movements but the sum of all of them combined with a big
whallop of gas is still a smooth motion. As you have pointed out in the
past some people take tight lines and some are a bit swoopy but it can all
work out the same in the end. The one thing I can find in common is a very
high level of committment that comes from not being surprised by anything
(looking ahead, thinking ahead) and a refusal to relax, coast, or give up
speed anywhere on course if there is no reason to.
>
> Now if only I could do that consistently... but that is why I keep doing
it!
>
> Peter
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