Jeremy & Greg,
Concerning Road America...
Been racing there 5 years... 3 times a year minimum, sometimes 4.
Not a technically challenging track, but certainly a horsepower track,
as the slowest turns exit to uphill portions of the track. You can make
tea on the front straight in a 948cc Sprite.
It's a fairly easy track on brakes, as there's a decent amount of time
between hard uses.
I think Road America's challenge is that it's terminal speeds are so
much greater than most road courses due to it's overall length. When you
do come fling downhill into 5 or into Canada Corner (you're in
Wisconsin... you're going north... you miss the turn at speed, ya hey
'der, you're in Canada...), you are braking from top gear redline, which
is difficult to achieve at many tracks for such sustained periods. Many
of the turns...1, 6, 7 the carousel, the kink, and 14 are faster than
most think, or at least faster than their pucker factor will allow.
When you get into a rhythm at Road America, it's easy to let your
concentration slip. It's also possible to be racing all by yourself with
no one else in sight, even in a 40 car field if things spread out.
To sum it up, Road America is easy to drive at 95%... it's the last 5%
that'll make a man out you.
My .02.
WST
Team Thicko
Jeremy Braithwaite wrote:
> Greg
>
> <<I guess the people who did the rating never got to Road America...>>
>
> <snip>
>
> The reality is not that they are other than great drivers, but rather
> that
> you simply can't learn Bathurst in the usual 20 laps. To quote BTCC
> champion Alain Menu this year in the Williams Renault Laguna "You
> can't
> learn Bathurst in 3 hours"
>
> Others perhaps can do your comparison with Road America ... or why
> don't
> you all come over and have a race with us?
>
> All the best
>
> Jeremy
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