{"id":7373,"date":"2017-11-06T04:34:40","date_gmt":"2017-11-06T12:34:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/?p=7373"},"modified":"2017-11-03T18:30:13","modified_gmt":"2017-11-04T01:30:13","slug":"q-what-makes-one-track-more-technical-than-another","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/q-what-makes-one-track-more-technical-than-another\/","title":{"rendered":"Q: What makes one track more technical than another?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Q: \u201cI heard a comment that professional racers often remark that VIR is one of the most technical tracks they drive.\u00a0Thinking about this remark my mind came to this question: What defines a \u2018technical track\u2019?\u00a0I really don\u2019t have an answer and I\u2019m curious what makes one track more technical than another, and then perhaps you could address how one prepares for a more and a less technical track.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A: That\u2019s a great question! Funny, but it\u2019s one of those things that &#8220;I know it when I see it\u201d! And you\u2019re right, it\u2019s hard to define.<\/p>\n<p>After putting a lot of thought into this, and asking a few other drivers, here are some factors that make one track more technical than others:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Corners that connect to others<\/em>. A track that have corners in isolation are not as technical as others. The Esses at VIR, most of Sonoma Raceway, turns 12 through 20 at COTA, and turns 11 through 15 at Barber are great examples of technical sections of technical tracks.<\/li>\n<li><em>Elevation changes, as well as corners with camber\/banking<\/em> (negative and positive). Many tracks have corners that you can\u2019t see through \u2013 they\u2019re visually challenging \u2013 and the elevation and camber changes the grip levels. Think Laguna Seca, Sonoma, Road Atlanta, Watkins Glen.<\/li>\n<li><em>Corners that have more than one way to drive them,<\/em> such as many of the corners at Sebring (due to the surface challenges). The line, and how you time the braking, steering and throttle are not necessarily the same. In fact, they all change more than a little, based on the speed of your car.<\/li>\n<li><em>Fast, scary corners<\/em> that require big you-know-whats. Turn 1, 2, 4 and 8 at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (Mosport) are perfect examples.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Tracks that have one or more of these factors are the ones that drivers refer to as being technical ones &#8211; the more of them, the more technical they are.<\/p>\n<p>Having said all that, take a track like NOLA. Most drivers would agree that it isn\u2019t a very technical track &#8211; it\u2019s flat; there are not a lot of surface changes; there are not a lot of fast, scary corners; there are not many corners that lead from one to the other (there are some, but not many); finally, I\u2019d have to say that the corners are not that difficult and challenging. I\u2019m not saying it\u2019s a bad track, but I would say it\u2019s not a very technical track. Of course, it\u2019s relative, as it\u2019s more technical and challenging that a drag strip!<\/p>\n<p>Okay, how to prepare for technical tracks? It all comes down to your homework. I spent hours talking about how to learn a track in a webinar called \u201cHow to Learn a Track\u2026 Fast!\u201d a few months ago (and will do it again next year). It starts with studying a track map, spending time actually drawing or tracing the track map, studying many videos (looking for different ways to drive the same corner) as well as collecting as many references as you can, doing mental imagery, using a simulator, walking or cycling it, reviewing data, more mental imagery\u2026 and on and on. Look for how one corner connects with another, the elevation and camber changes, and building the mental programming to relax as you drive the fast, scary corners. The more you prepare, the better you\u2019ll be\u2026 unless you\u2019re driving a non-technical track (which you can see through the corners because they\u2019re flat, the line is the line, and there aren\u2019t a lot of scary corners).<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s no surprise that the favorite tracks of drivers are the technical ones!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Q: \u201cI heard a comment that professional racers often remark that VIR is one of the most technical tracks they drive.\u00a0Thinking about this remark my mind came to this question: What defines a \u2018technical track\u2019?\u00a0I really don\u2019t have an answer and I\u2019m curious what makes one track more technical than another, and then perhaps you could address how one prepares for a more and a less technical track.\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-7373","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\/7373","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=7373"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7377,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7373\/revisions\/7377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}