17 replies to this topic

[Roger39]

After reading about Gordon Smiley's accident in the Nostalgia thread I'm left puzzling about correcting a slide coming out of a turn. Do you ALWAYS turn with the slide and does this almost always commit the car to a spin or does it have the effect of aiming the car for the inside wall and thus giving you more time to get everything sorted out?

[Ross Stonefeld]

The engineers can explain it better, but with the biased setups when you correct (especially a modern Indycar) it tends to over-correct and shoot you head-on into the wall. You spin to the inside because you've got the apron/grass to save you before you hit something and if you're really lucky and have your moment on corner exit you might do a complete 360 degree spin and continue on your way much slower, embarrassed, and with ruined tires, but in an intact racecar.

Sometimes you can save a 'death wiggle' on a restart but very very rarely, in a formula car at least, can you reliably opposite-lock your way around the track. About the only person that was able to do it was Juan Montoya in a Ganassi Lola-Toyota at Gateway in 2000 and everyone was stupified by it. He was literally crashing every corner but staying out of the wall. And he won!

[Lukin]

I would thing that with that much speed and that much aero, once it's finished sliding it will tend to point the car in the direction the front wheels are facing. If you've over corrected that's pretty much the nearest wall!

[McGuire]

After reading about Gordon Smiley's accident in the Nostalgia thread I'm left puzzling about correcting a slide coming out of a turn. Do you ALWAYS turn with the slide and does this almost always commit the car to a spin or does it have the effect of aiming the car for the inside wall and thus giving you more time to get everything sorted out?

The classic warning to Indy car rookies, especially to road racers, goes like this: never turn into a slide. While that is the intuitive reaction, here the car is going too fast -- much faster than on a road course, which is easy to lose track of -- and the wall is too close. In chasing the slide, you are actually steering the car toward the wall. Chances are very good you can hit the wall before you arrest the slide. And this adage was formulated at a time when hitting the wall meant you were probably not walking back to the garage under your own power. Ignoring this advice could make you dead, as in the case of Gordon Smiley.

Of course there is considerable subjective judgement involved, and different skill levels as well. A tiny slide can perhaps be caught with an equally tiny correction but at the risk of initiating a tank slapper. So rookies are instructed not to chase the car up the track in a slide, but to turn left and let the car spin if it must. There is no real strategy involved beyond avoiding the outside wall, thus a better probability of saving the car and driver for another day. (In NASCAR there is a similar theory -- once you truly lose it turn hard left, spin to the bottom and stand on the brakes so you do not run back up the track and get hammered by 42 other cars. Not followed so much anymore.) This is also why plenty of push (understeer) is dialed into the chassis for Indy car rookies -- to keep them out of trouble until they develop enough feel to know what they can/can't get away with in terms of correction. The line can be very fine.

[OfficeLinebacker]

In NASCAR, which runs almost exclusively on ovals, the drivers correct their slides by steering into them all the time.

The most common type of "great save" is TTO where they get into the gas too hard coming off the corner. I'm trying to remember the last time I saw a NASCAR pull an overcorrection and hit the wall with the front before the back and I can't remember, but I'm sure it happens.

Happens sometimes in the middle of the corner and that's usually exhibited by the car washing up the track.

[McGuire]

In NASCAR, which runs almost exclusively on ovals, the drivers correct their slides by steering into them all the time.

Sure, it's all relative. In NASCAR the cornering speeds are 30 to 50 mph slower. The driver has a lot more time and distance to get the car back before he runs out of track and runs into wall. Also, the steering and dynamic response are laughably slow compared to an Indy car. A Cup car can be steered into a tank slapper (ever-increasing yaw followed by ever-increasing correction) but the driver really has to work at it.

Thought experiment: You are on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with an inch of snow on the pavement, doing 45 mph in a pickup truck. You can throw the thing all over the place, sideways through Sunday, and you still have plenty of time and distance to get it sorted out and going straight again before you come anywhere close to the wall. Compare that to 230 mph in an Indy car, eating up nearly 340 feet per second. Far less room for error or correcting same.

The classic NASCAR driver's meeting instruction was: Once you have calculated that you have lost the car and are not likely to be getting it back, you are supposed to turn hard left and spin the car down to the inside to get the hell out of the way -- then stand on the brakes with both feet so you don't run back up onto the track and in the way of everyone else. That is still the rule of thumb but is seldom done anymore. There used to be several distinct levels of driver ability in NASCAR -- essentially, a third to a half of the field was semi-pro when you get right down to it -- and the instructions were directed primarily at the dull end of the grid. All that is gone today. When these guys get a car out of shape, they can and will drive 'em all the way to the infield care center. They never give up, and sometimes they gather up a few other cars in the process. Some of the old timers don't like this and have been very vocal about it at times... Kyle Petty being one. Earnhardt Sr, too, but I think really he just wanted everyone out of his way.

[Fat Boy]

Ignoring this advice could make you dead, as in the case of Gordon Smiley.

That crash is just about enough for me to look for a different job. It's just about as destructive and violent as anything I've ever seen.

[Fat Boy]

Sometimes you can save a 'death wiggle' on a restart but very very rarely, in a formula car at least, can you reliably opposite-lock your way around the track. About the only person that was able to do it was Juan Montoya in a Ganassi Lola-Toyota at Gateway in 2000 and everyone was stupified by it. He was literally crashing every corner but staying out of the wall. And he won!

Ross,

It was '99 and he finished 3rd to Mikey and Helio. By 2000 he had realized it was faster to have the car under you a bit more. In '99 he was still the new kid on the block and no one really knew what to expect from him.

You're right about the overall gist of things, though. It was a hell of a display.

[Ross Stonefeld]

Yeah I was wondering how he would have won driving that way, it wouldn't have really 'worked'.

I just re-watched the Motegi 99 practice incident. I don't know which was funnier, Montoya's sheer ignorance of Michael Andretti on an oval, or Carl Haas slapping Chip Ganassi.

And there he goes hitting a parked car while leading at Houston...

[rondavejr]

Turning into the slide is pretty much what killed Earnhardt Sr.

[McGuire]

That crash is just about enough for me to look for a different job. It's just about as destructive and violent as anything I've ever seen.

Hardest hit I ever saw, I think.

But oddly, not the scariest. There was a definite air of finality about it. Like well, he's dead, that's it. Everyone somehow knew it, too. The whole place went dead quiet.

Dr. Steve Olvey has said it was the worst crash trauma he ever witnessed. Nearly every bone apparently broken.

[OfficeLinebacker]

Sure, it's all relative. In NASCAR the cornering speeds are 30 to 50 mph slower. The driver has a lot more time and distance to get the car back before he runs out of track and runs into wall. Also, the steering and dynamic response are laughably slow compared to an Indy car. A Cup car can be steered into a tank slapper (ever-increasing yaw followed by ever-increasing correction) but the driver really has to work at it.

Thought experiment: You are on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with an inch of snow on the pavement, doing 45 mph in a pickup truck. You can throw the thing all over the place, sideways through Sunday, and you still have plenty of time and distance to get it sorted out and going straight again before you come anywhere close to the wall. Compare that to 230 mph in an Indy car, eating up nearly 340 feet per second. Far less room for error or correcting same.

The classic NASCAR driver's meeting instruction was: Once you have calculated that you have lost the car and are not likely to be getting it back, you are supposed to turn hard left and spin the car down to the inside to get the hell out of the way -- then stand on the brakes with both feet so you don't run back up onto the track and in the way of everyone else. That is still the rule of thumb but is seldom done anymore. There used to be several distinct levels of driver ability in NASCAR -- essentially, a third to a half of the field was semi-pro when you get right down to it -- and the instructions were directed primarily at the dull end of the grid. All that is gone today. When these guys get a car out of shape, they can and will drive 'em all the way to the infield care center. They never give up, and sometimes they gather up a few other cars in the process. Some of the old timers don't like this and have been very vocal about it at times... Kyle Petty being one. Earnhardt Sr, too, but I think really he just wanted everyone out of his way.

Good point. The slower you're going the more risks you can take.

[Fat Boy]

Montoya's sheer ignorance of Michael Andretti on an oval

Or the other way around. Michael's ignorance of Montoya if you ask me. Al Jr. played the same game at Indy in 2000.....He only ended up seeing Juan while getting lapped.



From what I understand, at Motegi, Michael was playing all sorts of head games with Montoya through the session. He'd intentionally screw his laps up, and do brake-check type (although not that serious) of maneuvers to show the new guy who the boss was. It never crossed his mind that Montoya was perfectly comfortable writing both cars off to make the point that he was not to be messed with. Watch the crash on Youtube. Juan turned right up on him after taking a couple feints at him. It was completely on purpose. Crazy and Dangerous? Yes. Effective at communicating the point? Completely.

Apparently Michael Schumacher didn't get the memo on Juan as he tried playing the brake check game at Monaco under yellow. He didn't care much for the results.

[Ross Stonefeld]

That's an entirely different angle then, the way it was presented on TV was that Montoya was driving relatively ignorant of the highway code of ovals, since you only saw as much footage as covered the main straight on the lap they tangled. What I meant by ignorance was knowing Andretti was there, but perhaps not knowing he's as much of a bastard as anyone else.

I do like the 'first day at prison' mentality about it. In hindsight it's a good thing Montoya was slightly brittle in 99, and the car even more so in 2000; otherwise he'd have slaughtered people in the points and it wouldn't have been near as much fun to watch.

[blkirk]

Getting back to the original topic, spinning to the inside of an oval has its own problems. Just ask Kevin Cogan and a host of other drivers.

[OfficeLinebacker]

Getting back to the original topic, spinning to the inside of an oval has its own problems. Just ask Kevin Cogan and a host of other drivers.

Yeah if you ask him, he'll say "I not only survived, I walked away from it."

[blkirk]

Yeah if you ask him, he'll say "I not only survived, I walked away from it."

Mark Dismore and Greg Moore weren't as lucky.

[Ross Stonefeld]

Greg Moore didn't make a conscious decision to spin to the inside or outside, that accident happened way too quickly and simply wasn't surviveable (in the then-current configuration of the infield) so try another example to make your point, or try explaining it yourself.