78 replies to this topic

[OnceMoreChamp07]

Ok. For some stupid reason i ended up reading a list of left handed famous people and as a surprise i found out that many of the greats of motor sports are/were left handed.

 

Ayrton Senna, Sebastian Loeb, Valentino Rossi and Terry Labonte, all of them are left handed and legends of their sport.

 

I don't know much about NASCAR(Labonte), but Senna, Loeb and Rossi are arguably the greatest drivers ever in F1, WRC and MotoGP.

 

If all those greats are left handed and only 5-15% from all the people are, that made me wonder is it somehow an advance to be left handed driver..?

 

  

 

 

[StanBarrett2]

Depends on what you do with your left hand ?

 

Not motor-sport related at all, but darter Raymond van Barneveld is left handed when he writes and signs autographs.

 

He throws right handed though !!

[nicanary]

The whole thing is a bit sinister............

[RogerFrench]

Left-handed people are good at anything.

[E1pix]

Left brain is logic, right is creativity, and they control their body-side opposites. Perhaps creativity is a bigger part of driving than often considered, per adaptability for example.

I'm ambidextrous, throw left, most else right. I was a top tennis player in my state, and one day threw a ball to my coach. He looked surprised and told me to throw another one, saying "If you're left-handed, this is why your serve is the weakest part of your game." I served leftie but played rightie there on out and moved on up, but low overheads were a quandary in what hand to use.

So Ambis got it all, though in my case I'm half-witted and have wasted the gift. ;-)

[opplock]

 is it somehow an advance to be left handed driver..?

 

That would make me the exception that proves the rule. Apart from mastering the art of spun and continued my years of club racing were undistinguished.

[Michael Ferner]

Perfect average, I say. 5 to 15 % of all people. so you would expect one of the top ten in each category to be a lefty.

[kayemod]

Left-handed people are good at anything.

 

True.

[FLB]

Dario Franchitti is a leftie as well.

[Lee Nicolle]

Is there an advantage either hand? I doubt it. I am right handed, my brother left. But we both tend to be ambidextrous in everything but writing.

As I write here I use the mouse left handed but sip my coffee with my right.

Driving my old Classic Supermodified I tend to favor my left hand, turn left only though I pull tearoffs with my right. Yet right handed friends do it the other way.

Road race cars really makes no difference though as much for space and convenience I have the switches and brake bias to my left. To steer both hands. Though the one left hook one I have driven I probably if anything drove left  hand top. And from memory  both the Vee and FF the same as right hand shift

I do feel in the last 50 years it is education as well, teachers forced kids to be right handed in my school days, my 5 year younger brother was never forced however.  Though he was taught to use a pen the 'right' way unlike these days where some seem to hold in their fist. I could never write like that,, though again education and training.

[E1pix]

You raise interesting points, Lee. For me turning left always seems more natural, but I think part of that is we sit on the "inside" of the turn here.

That said, I raced about 25 kart heats before having a driver's license and I noticed right handers immediately struck me as more "against the grain" -- but little as it may seem, the engine was on the right and I was left of center. Or it was left brain vs. right brain and which side had cleaner plugs.

It may come down to feeling "closer" to an approach line visually if not physically, or it could be that us racing lifers since Kindergarten were brainwashed by Indy only having left turns. ;-)

[Terry Walker]

Many people have some degree of ambidextrousness (is that a word?). Probably half the population. I'm a rightie in everything except two-handed sports such as cricket, baseball, and golf. And in tennis, I have been a two-handed backhander, using my cricket grip, since I was an early teen, much to the despair of my then tennis coach. My backhand was essentially a left-handed forehand. I simply can't control a backhand shot with my right hand alone. (Note that all that sports stuff except golf is from my schooldays in the late 1950s).

 

I've driven quite a few RHD cars with right-hand shifts (mostly Bentley Mk 6's) , and never had a problem, nor a problem with left-hand shifts in anything else. 

[ensign14]

Left-handed people are good at anything.

 

Not polo.
 

[RCH]

Speaking as a left hander I think the chief difference between left and right handers is adaptability. We live in a generally right hand world so left handers sometimes have to adapt to things which seem the wrong way round, probably without it even registering. Hence an enhanced ability to adapt.

 

Probably for similar reasons left handers are more likely to be ambidextrous, I hold a cricket bat or golf club, items which need both hands, right handed but throw left handed, I believe that many "left handed" batsmen are actually right handed. Knife and fork I use right handed but then it seems to me that right handers are using those the wrong way round for them. Driving wise I think right handers are playing into our hands with the conventional RHD car layout but I can confess to trying to change gear with the window winder on a LHD car.

[2F-001]

... Knife and fork I use right handed but then it seems to me that right handers are using those the wrong way round for them.

Interesting... I'd never thought about that; but I suppose the nature of the food one is eating might dictate whether knife or fork activity was requiring the greater dexterity (or strength, in the case of very tough meat...) - and thus what might be deemed
the 'correct' (or most appropriate) way round.

Edited by 2F-001, 14 August 2018 - 10:26.

[ensign14]

The American way of doing it is to cut the food up and then eat with a fork in the right hand.

 

As practised by Terry Gilliam at the Gleneagles Hotel, Torquay, to the eye-popping rage of the proprietor Donald Sinclair.  "We don't eat like that here!"   Unbeknownst to Sinclair, he was under close scrutiny from John Cleese...

[Sterzo]

A slightly different explanation of the American use of knife and fork here:

https://www.smithson...spork-64593179/

 

I do think it true that lefties (which I am not) are more used to developing ambidexterity (never used that word before), but I doubt it has a significant effect on lap time.

[Michael Ferner]

Many years or even decades ago, there was a surfeit of lefties in the top ten of Pro Tennis, and it was explained that it was probably down to the unfamiliarity of the right-handed players with rebounds and spin from left-handed players. While that appeared to make sense, over longer periods there has been no statistically relevant deviation from the norm. Just google tennis and lefties today, and you'll find one man and two women in the respective top ten, or 13 men and nine women in the respective top 100 - perfect average.

If there's no evidence that a tennis player holding the racket in either of his hands makes any difference, I can't imagine a reason why a lefty should be (dis)advantaged in motor racing - you usually hold the steering wheel in both hands, don't you? Changing gears could have made a difference when it was still being done with a lever, but it's not really a tricky thing - millions of people have learned to shift with the other hand w/o too much trouble.

Statistically, about eight WDC should have been won by a southpaw, so Senna's probably not alone.

[OnceMoreChamp07]

Left-handed people are good at anything.

Well   Most lefties i know, my self included have awfully bad penmanship

[OnceMoreChamp07]

Statistically, about eight WDC should have been won by a southpaw, so Senna's probably not alone.

He is not. At least Button is also leftie.

[E1pix]

Well   Most lefties i know, my self included have awfully bad penmanship

What, didn't quite catch that...? ;-)

I can say that left-handed shifting on left-hand-drive cars seems disadvantaged...

The American way of doing it is to cut the food up and then eat a fork in the right hand.

Fixed it for Ya. :-)

[Tom Glowacki]

Many years or even decades ago, there was a surfeit of lefties in the top ten of Pro Tennis, and it was explained that it was probably down to the unfamiliarity of the right-handed players with rebounds and spin from left-handed players. While that appeared to make sense, over longer periods there has been no statistically relevant deviation from the norm. Just google tennis and lefties today, and you'll find one man and two women in the respective top ten, or 13 men and nine women in the respective top 100 - perfect average.

If there's no evidence that a tennis player holding the racket in either of his hands makes any difference, I can't imagine a reason why a lefty should be (dis)advantaged in motor racing - you usually hold the steering wheel in both hands, don't you? Changing gears could have made a difference when it was still being done with a lever, but it's not really a tricky thing - millions of people have learned to shift with the other hand w/o too much trouble.

Statistically, about eight WDC should have been won by a southpaw, so Senna's probably not alone.

 

I'm right handed, and had absolutely no trouble adapting to left handed shifting during our trips to England.  Looking the appropriate direction at intersections occupied much of my attention, however.

[kayemod]

Well   Most lefties i know, my self included have awfully bad penmanship

 

I'm a leftie, and my writing caused problems at school. In the mid to late 50s, my school expected everyone to write using a flexible nibbed pen dipped in an inkwell, we were made to write in a thankfully now dead style called copperplate, where hand pressure has to vary to splay the nib and widen downstrokes, it's probably the way that Charles Dickens used to write before he got an early Amstrad. I just couldn't do it, my handwriting was terrible. In those unenlightened days, the school tried to get me to write right-handed as well, but that was worse. My parents had long before accepted I was left-handed, dad bought me a book on italic handwriting, made me practice, and I never looked back, style, neatness and legibility at last. My school didn't like it though, and kept on trying to 'convert' me. Eventually, due to parental pressure, the school backed down and allowed me to write the way dad taught me, my handwriting is still pretty good today. As someone said though, some lefties are painful to watch, pen clamped in a bunched fist etc. I still use a fountain pen most of the time and hold a pen much as any rightie would, can't see why some find this so difficult. Fellow leftie Barack Obama was painful to watch, no idea what his writing is like, but it looks very awkward.  You can criticise Trump for many things, but at least his handwriting is better.

[Lee Nicolle]

In my primary school days left handed kids were forced to write right handed,, and then were treated as slow. And in case I can remember being caned for writing left handed

As I said above my brother did not get that 5 years later, or if he did it was very little. A newer generation of  younger teachers,, and as I remember his primary teacher had a left handed brother who was around the same age. Which probably helped.

And said brother went to become a politician so was not very usefull!

Edited by Lee Nicolle, 16 August 2018 - 02:13.

[Stephen W]

I would have thought it would be an advantage if Formula One teams had at least one left handed mechanic on the payroll.

[E1pix]

Answering your earlier question Lee, pretty sure it's Ambidextrousosityismness.

[Jim Thurman]

The American way of doing it is to cut the food up and then eat with a fork in the right hand.

 

As practised by Terry Gilliam at the Gleneagles Hotel, Torquay, to the eye-popping rage of the proprietor Donald Sinclair.  "We don't eat like that here!"   Unbeknownst to Sinclair, he was under close scrutiny from John Cleese...

 

Really? Odd, I've never once eaten that way, so another "American thing", that isn't an "American thing." I'm a left forker all the way    And, I haven't cut the food up beyond the next bite since I was a small child.

[Bloggsworth]

It is an advantage to be left-handed in any sport requiring short reaction times as the neural pathways to the relevant part of the brain is shorter, or so I read several years ago.

[Allan Lupton]

I would have thought it would be an advantage if Formula One teams had at least one left handed mechanic on the payroll.

Yes, judging by experience at a lower level of mechanicing - a group of us helped a work colleague assemble his Lotus Elan kit and I remember starting a difficult minor job around the back of the (installed) engine and recognising I should hand it over to our one left-hander who was able to do it easily.

 

As for gear-changing, that most of us can do it with either hand is recognised by modern car designers who only provide central gear levers for RHD and LHD. Historical point is that although many early to Vintage RHD cars had RH gear and handbrake levers I've never seen an early LHD car with a LH lever of either sort.

Edited by Allan Lupton, 15 August 2018 - 07:47.

[Michael Ferner]

Really? Odd, I've never once eaten that way, so another "American thing", that isn't an "American thing." I'm a left forker all the way    And, I haven't cut the food up beyond the next bite since I was a small child.

 
But you do agree that many Americans refer to your way of handling the eating tools as the European, or even Continental style, do you?
 

It is an advantage to be left-handed in any sport requiring short reaction times as the neural pathways to the relevant part of the brain is shorter, or so I read several years ago.

This whole thing about brain halves and dexterity is a red herring. Yes, the two halves of our brains do work differently, but whether you're left-handed or not has nothing to do with that.

[Sterzo]

It is an advantage to be left-handed in any sport requiring short reaction times as the neural pathways to the relevant part of the brain is shorter, or so I read several years ago.

Which explains why I was beaten by the office girls in indoor karting. I'm too tall. Neural pathways too long, you see.

Edited by Sterzo, 15 August 2018 - 10:57.

[Jim Thurman]

 
But you do agree that many Americans refer to your way of handling the eating tools as the European, or even Continental style, do you?

 

Are there Americans that would probably refer to it that way? Perhaps?    But, I can't agree with something that's never once happened to me though     It's a big country, with a lot of people, who don't all do the same thing or behave in the same manner    One wouldn't think that something so obvious would have to be continually re-explained, but...here we are! 

Edited by Jim Thurman, 15 August 2018 - 17:04.

[E1pix]

Which explains why I was beaten by the office girls in indoor karting. I'm too tall. Neural pathways too long, you see.

Yes, Yes, but you're leaving out the part that they were also the basketball team. ;-)

[E1pix]

This whole thing about brain halves and dexterity is a red herring.

Not so fast, Rightie! ;-)

Okay, so it's your fave -- Wiki! -- regardless some interesting reading consistent with a fair bit out there:
https://en.m.wikiped...wiki/Handedness

Sadly, when I comes to brain research, our societies are mostly dumb as rocks. Even the obvious gets buried in "We just don't know."

I've dealt with more Neurologists than anyone really should have to, and unless there's money to be made the studies and indeed knowledge itself are short indeed.

Edited by E1pix, 15 August 2018 - 16:56.

[JacnGille]

The American way of doing it is to cut the food up and then eat with a fork in the right hand.

 

I'm a rightie. When I eat food which requires cutting with a knife I cut with my right hand and fork with the left. If I don't need a knife I hold my fork with my right.

Go figure.

[2F-001]

I'm a rightie. When I eat food which requires cutting with a knife I cut with my right hand and fork with the left. If I don't need a knife I hold my fork with my right.
Go figure.

Me too. I'm guessing this is not uncommon...

[Collombin]

I'm a rightie (a northpaw) and I stir my coffee anti-clockwise. I am told this makes me highly unusual ("freak" was the actual word used). Any other freaks here?

[Gary Jarlson]

I write right-handed, I bat...golf left-handed, I throw left-handed...play pool right-handed. All parts of a  curious mix. The weird one for me is racing (single-seaters): I always felt more comfortable in rights than lefts.

[E1pix]

Interesting, Gary!

 

And blows my above theory clean out of the pool, being we're both Yanks and drive on the correct side of the cars and roads. 

 

(PM me if going to Sears for the Runoffs...)

 

I'm a rightie (a northpaw) and I stir my coffee anti-clockwise. I am told this makes me highly unusual ("freak" was the actual word used). Any other freaks here?

 Yes, but perhaps not for the same reasons. 

Edited by E1pix, 15 August 2018 - 19:50.

[Charlieman]

We are talking about racing cars and old cars, aren't we? How do ergonomics affect drivers?

 

For old cars and lorries, I recall a UK government subsidy scheme pre-WW1 for commercial vehicles with "standard" controls (clutch and accelerator pedals, steering wheel, logical levers). No Model Ts.

 

For racing cars, I'm thinking about C-A-B pedals on some Italian velocipedes. Stirling Moss has been honest enough to say that he never liked racing cars with the accelerator in the middle.

[E1pix]

We are talking about racing cars and old cars, aren't we? How do ergonomics affect drivers?

I mentioned earlier that left-hand turns seemed more "natural" to me, and perhaps that's as Yanks drive on the left side of the car and therefore are closer to the apex visually and physically.

 

Gary's post claimed the opposite and he's a local, so now ponder why some brains seem to think going left is easier while for others it's rights that come easier. I suspect it's got everything to do with which side of our brains some use more.

[Charlieman]

I mentioned earlier that left-hand turns seemed more "natural" to me, and perhaps that's as Yanks drive on the left side of the car and therefore are closer to the apex visually and physically.

 

Most circuits are clockwise so most turns are right handers. Ye olde Listers and Lotuses etc designed for short clockwise tracks are right hand drive, which opposes driver mass to lateral weight transfer. It also means that the driver is in the right place when driving to a UK event.

[E1pix]

Exactly, whereas here Indy is all lefts and I'm curious why both directions feel differently to different people.

 

In my case I don't think I'm any slower on rights, but it does feel different, like steering against a hidden forces. Left-handers feel completely different and easy to me. Strange and curious thing.

 

I put more stock in what Gary Jarlson said than what I did, being his feelings are based on driving in the exact center whereas I never have. With some luck I may get to find out by 2020, hoping to race a Formula Vee by then upon resurrecting my biz.

 

Thanks,

[StanBarrett2]

Was the Colotti gearbox the reason for Jack Brabham's BT3 being a left stick ?

 

macoran

[Lee Nicolle]

I'm a rightie (a northpaw) and I stir my coffee anti-clockwise. I am told this makes me highly unusual ("freak" was the actual word used). Any other freaks here?

Naah, it just depends on which hemisphere you are in!

[Lee Nicolle]

Most circuits are clockwise so most turns are right handers. Ye olde Listers and Lotuses etc designed for short clockwise tracks are right hand drive, which opposes driver mass to lateral weight transfer. It also means that the driver is in the right place when driving to a UK event.

Having driven the Adelaide International bowl turning left and right I have found very little difference.

And about half the road circuits I have driven are predominantly left and the others right it makes little difference.

Years ago talking to a Stockrod driver who had raced for decades turning right said it was going to take him years to unwind to turn left! He did ok both ways though. Luckily he built his last car before changing directions 'neutral' so it was simply changing all the left side stuff to the right.

Others did not fare so well with slightly offset cars

[Michael Ferner]

Are there Americans that would probably refer to it that way? Perhaps?    But, I can't agree with something that's never once happened to me though     It's a big country, with a lot of people, who don't all do the same thing or behave in the same manner    One wouldn't think that something so obvious would have to be continually re-explained, but...here we are! 

Are you... are you saying, that not all Americans are the same????

[Michael Ferner]

Not so fast, Rightie! ;-)

Okay, so it's your fave -- Wiki! -- regardless some interesting reading consistent with a fair bit out there:
https://en.m.wikiped...wiki/Handedness

Sadly, when I comes to brain research, our societies are mostly dumb as rocks. Even the obvious gets buried in "We just don't know."

I've dealt with more Neurologists than anyone really should have to, and unless there's money to be made the studies and indeed knowledge itself are short indeed.

Like you say, when it comes to brain research knowledge is very often spotty.

The left half of the brain controls the right side of the body, and vice versa. Also, verbal processing ("logic") takes place in the left half of the brain, and visuospatial processing ("creativity") in the right half - the core word is "processing" here. Nothing to do with motor functions. We have a saying in German, "Zwei Halbwissen kombiniert ergeben noch lange kein Wissen", meaning that an accumulation of superficial knowledge doesn't add up to real knowledge.

[Michael Ferner]

I'm a rightie (a northpaw) and I stir my coffee anti-clockwise. I am told this makes me highly unusual ("freak" was the actual word used). Any other freaks here?

I don't stir my coffee at all - does that make me a super freak?

[Tim Murray]

Nah - just a coffee snob who never bothers with the instant variety.