At 09:47 PM 11/7/2003, Bill Babcock wrote:
>Oh, one more thing, a late apex is safer, a slightly earlier one is
>generally faster if you're putting the car close to the limit.
That's funny and convey's what I always tell students that show an
appititude (those without ability I don't waste the time telling) "you want
to late apex as early as you can". It is hard to describe and even harder
to do but the first time you actually "do it" it is like a little light
goes off. Sometimes it is really only a way of visualizing a corner and
how you want to drive through it (notice I did not say around it).
For example: If you ever drive the road course at Phoenix International
(which I don't really like myself - it is boring) you will be told that T2
is a late apex corner, and it is. You need to go so deep into the corner
that you think you have driven right past it and could never get the car
rotated. Going into that corner I am looking so far through it and at T3
that I can imagine seeing a "channel" magically appear as the curbing of T2
on drivers left falls away to reveal the second bit of curbing of T3 on
drivers right (I completely look past the first bit of the curbing of
T3). I have walked the track and from no vantage point does it really
"look" like that, but in my minds eye I can visualize that it does exist
and I feel like Moses parting the Red Sea. This lets me bring the power on
earlier than other guys can and like Bill mentions I feel I can "hustle"
the car though the corner faster.
I tried to help a fairly new Spec Racer Ford guy look at that corner that
way and he could only see it with his eyes not with his brain. He came
back in and said "I thought you said the corner opens up". It does, but
you have to have the ability to imagine and view the geometry of how the
corners work together to "get it".
So my advice would be to look at the track and it's corners as a whole to
see how they work and then find the lines that tie the track
together. Those lines are often times very different than what the
"obvious" layout of the track is. Another saying I use with students is to
"drive the line not the track".
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