{"id":26582,"date":"2020-02-17T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-17T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/?p=26582"},"modified":"2019-11-10T16:39:49","modified_gmt":"2019-11-11T00:39:49","slug":"q-what-should-i-do-differently-when-racing-on-a-street-circuit-rather-than-a-permanent-road-race-track","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/q-what-should-i-do-differently-when-racing-on-a-street-circuit-rather-than-a-permanent-road-race-track\/","title":{"rendered":"Q: What should I do differently when racing on a street circuit, rather than a permanent road race track?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Q<\/strong>: \u201c<\/em>Are there any substantial changes to driving technique, vision focus points, driver inputs, etc., that you would recommend when going to a street circuit rather than a \u201ctypical\u201d racetrack? Obviously, there are walls instead of gravel traps so you don\u2019t want to focus on them, but are there many changes you make to the actual driving?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

A<\/strong>: I love racing on street circuits! I love having the \u201cAttack\u201d mindset that a street circuit rewards. If you\u2019ve skied moguls, it\u2019s the same kind of thing: if you ski cautiously, you\u2019ll probably fall, but if you attack the moguls, you\u2019ll be successful. That\u2019s the mindset difference.<\/p>\n

As for technique, a few things come to mind. First, as you pointed out, your vision is critical. With the walls on the inside of most corners, it\u2019s difficult (or impossible) to see through the corner until you\u2019re into it. A very subtle but effective thing you can do is stretch and turn your head and neck as much as possible, to get a better view through the corners. Even moving your head an inch or so forward will make a surprising difference. When I was racing Indy cars, I noticed the best drivers doing that, and deliberately practiced doing it myself.<\/p>\n

Often, street circuits have a crown in the road, since they\u2019re meant to drain rain water to the sides. This means that as you go from the outside, to the inside, and back to the outside for the largest radius corner, you\u2019re going from negative banking to positive banking and back to negative banking. Depending on how dramatic the crown in the road is, you may want to alter your line. Drive where you have the most grip. That sometimes means not driving what you would think is the ideal line.<\/p>\n

This also applies to the track surface. Because you can experience concrete, pavement, sealer, and paint on streets, you have to search out and drive where there is the most grip. It\u2019s a bit like driving in the rain.<\/p>\n

In terms of your actual driving technique \u2013 braking, turning the steering wheel, and using the throttle \u2013 the differences can be huge, or not at all. It depends so much on the car and circuit. If I had to make a big generalization, I\u2019d suggest you be prepared to brake late, trail the brakes into the corners, and focus on getting back to full throttle as soon as possible \u2013 focus on your exit speed. How is this different from any other track? Mostly just in the emphasis on entry and exit speed, and perhaps a little less on rolling speed through the middle of the corners.<\/p>\n

Racing on street courses are a blast, and so much of how well you do is based on the mindset I mentioned at the beginning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Q: \u201cAre there any substantial changes to driving technique, vision focus points, driver inputs, etc., that you would recommend when going to a street circuit rather than a \u201ctypical\u201d racetrack? Obviously, there are walls instead of gravel traps so you don\u2019t want to focus on them, but are there many changes you make to the actual driving?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ask-ross"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26582"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26583,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26582\/revisions\/26583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}