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Why TT and not racing?


hagakure

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I think David's(very well put) comments reflect my biggest gripe with what I see in Amatuer, and in many cases, pro racing. There is not enough incentive for people to race quickly, closely, but cleanly. there is MUCH that sanctioning bodies can do to improve this, and they are just not doing it. Randy Pobst has written pretty eloquently on the topic here:

 

http://www.randypobst.com/index.cfm?template=magazine&mag_id=14922

For the most part this isn't an issue here on the East coast. Everyone has massive amounts if time, money, blood, sweat, tears, etc. into their cars and we all know the next guy is in the same position. With the exception of one or two truly loaded individuals, I don't know of anyone who can really afford to ball up their car (other than the guys racing tuna can Miatas and e30s) and not be hurt by it. Everyone races hard, but does everything they can to stay clean. However mechanicals can and will happen.

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^ I was wondering when the Miata bashing would happen

 

 

I don't want to have body damage on my Spec Miata but I also got tired of being the meek one afraid to pass for fear of getting the door closed and hit so I take calculated risks now and sometimes you get rubbed doing that.

 

But if you are someone who is afraid to get bumped and doesn't ever want to deal with possible body damage, w2w is not for you because if you can't accept that possibility, you shouldn't be out there in all honesty.

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I'm not afraid of getting bumped...I'm annoyed at the lack of skill and judgement I see in the race groups all too often, and the lack of a uniform philosophy/response/strategy from NASA and other sanctioning bodies to ENCOURAGE and incentivise close, competitive non-contact racing. There is a difference. That being said, I will race this year and accept whatever consequences, good and bad, come with that. I was just interested in other folks views on the subject.

 

 

 

^ I was wondering when the Miata bashing would happen

 

 

I don't want to have body damage on my Spec Miata but I also got tired of being the meek one afraid to pass for fear of getting the door closed and hit so I take calculated risks now and sometimes you get rubbed doing that.

 

But if you are someone who is afraid to get bumped and doesn't ever want to deal with possible body damage, w2w is not for you because if you can't accept that possibility, you shouldn't be out there in all honesty.

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^ no worries.

 

I think it is just the way it is though... that just about any group anywhere seems to have at least 1 or 2 people out there who either don't know the line, are overly aggressive, more money than sense, etc (the list doesn't really end)

 

You just have to learn about who you run with and how to react in those situations with those unpredictable people.

 

Overall, however, I feel safer on the track than out in normal every day traffic (rules tend to be followed more, you are surrounded by more people who actually know how to drive and aren't texting AND you happen to be wearing a bunch of safety gear with a nice cage to protect you.

 

I've been 'hit' on the track and off.. and have less soreness and recovery time from track incidents than out in the street. Case in point is getting rear ended at a red light is much harder on the body than getting rear ended on the track in a race! (of course in a w2w race we call that bump drafting...haha)

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You give me 30 guys in a race group and I can tell you without hesitation which 15 of them skipped TT.

 

Give me 30 guys in a race group, let me pick the 15 I want to race with, and I'd race a lot more

 

 

Amen...

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I feel TT is a great stepping stone from HPDE (where you are really only racing yourself for a better lap) to competition driving (where you are racing someone elses time). It's a safe and effective way to learn how to cope with the pressure, deal with close traffic, and build some comradery between your competitors. TT can also be, for the right person, an end goal. It's like watching Senna qualify, always going faster and faster, I can see why so many stick to TTing. To best their times. To best ALL THE TIMES.

 

W2W is, even at its lower levels, more expensive. There are more required "1 time fees", safety equipement, trailering costs, ect... That being said, TT and W2W can be as expensive as you make it. If I were to compete with my SM, spending the most I could, I could actually argue that TT would be more expensive $/track time. And $/track time is really what I rate my entertainment value at. That will be different from person to person, however.

 

That being said, I always found myself racing anyway, it was a logical step for me

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You want $$ to track time go to a Chin event. More GT3 Cup cars there then most races. I can get more Seattime then I have tires anytime I want it. I have about 10 seasons of w2w and 6 or so of NASA TT. Fewer boneheads in TT. W2W does not have the patent on them though.

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^ actually, I'm most concerned about being predictable (keeping your line, etc.) and see many TTers who still don't seem to know the line and it makes me wonder how they managed to get to that point

All that goes out the window in W2W though. You've got to get used to passing people on the inside, the outside, or with two wheels in the grass. CCR only requires a half car width ...

 

You give me 30 guys in a race group and I can tell you without hesitation which 15 of them skipped TT.
Give me 30 guys in a race group, let me pick the 15 I want to race with, and I'd race a lot more
Amen...

The slowest 15?

 

TT is not a stepping stone to W2W, as much as some people would like to believe it. They are two completely different animals. TT is nice and polite - especially once the grid is sorted later in the day. W2W is a stellar opposite of that. You will probably touch, rub, or slide into someone at some point during a year of W2W racing unless you are taking it easy mid pack... I don't care if your car cost $1k or $100k. My favorite quote is from Dave Royce at one of our pre-race drivers meetings, who said it's a "sport of aggression". And it's true, if you want to run at the pointy end of the field, you have to be aggressive - unless you're going out against 15 slow cars.

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The slowest 15?

 

TT is not a stepping stone to W2W, as much as some people would like to believe it. They are two completely different animals. TT is nice and polite - especially once the grid is sorted later in the day. W2W is a stellar opposite of that. You will probably touch, rub, or slide into someone at some point during a year of W2W racing unless you are taking it easy mid pack... I don't care if your car cost $1k or $100k. My favorite quote is from Dave Royce at one of our pre-race drivers meetings, who said it's a "sport of aggression". And it's true, if you want to run at the pointy end of the field, you have to be aggressive - unless you're going out against 15 slow cars.

 

And yet they wonder why we want to ban Miatas...

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You want $$ to track time go to a Chin event. More GT3 Cup cars there then most races. I can get more Seattime then I have tires anytime I want it. I have about 10 seasons of w2w and 6 or so of NASA TT. Fewer boneheads in TT. W2W does not have the patent on them though.

 

Im not interested in HPDE $/track time, but competition $/track time. This is a thread about why people TT or W2W right? I dislike going out for a TT session for three laps, run a time, and come back to the paddock.

 

I agree also that w2w is agressive.

 

If you banned the miata, you'd see half your entrants bail

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You want $$ to track time go to a Chin event. More GT3 Cup cars there then most races. I can get more Seattime then I have tires anytime I want it. I have about 10 seasons of w2w and 6 or so of NASA TT. Fewer boneheads in TT. W2W does not have the patent on them though.

 

Im not interested in HPDE $/track time, but competition $/track time. This is a thread about why people TT or W2W right? I dislike going out for a TT session for three laps, run a time, and come back to the paddock.

 

I agree also that w2w is agressive.

 

If you banned the miata, you'd see half your entrants bail

 

In the SE most miatas end up in sand or on their roof. I would miss them....

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The slowest 15?:

 

No actually they'd probably be the fastest 15, the guys that have cool heads, have excellent judgement, good car control...the ones I trust running 2" away from.

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And yet they wonder why we want to ban Miatas...

Please expand, why does the SE TT Director want to ban Miatas?

 

Sounds like you have a TT (aka "nice and polite" on the track) mentality, which makes sense given your position. The TT mentality in a W2W race means "you lose". Two different worlds... I've done both, I know.

 

In the SE most miatas end up in sand or on their roof. I would miss them....

Funny, I've seen as much broken fiberglass here in Ohio as bent Miata metal. Maybe a little more, last year was rough on Corvettes around here.

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And yet they wonder why we want to ban Miatas...

Please expand, why does the SE TT Director want to ban Miatas?

 

Sounds like you have a TT (aka "nice and polite" on the track) mentality, which makes sense given your position. The TT mentality in a W2W race means "you lose". Two different worlds... I've done both, I know.

 

In the SE most miatas end up in sand or on their roof. I would miss them....

Funny, I've seen as much broken fiberglass here in Ohio as bent Miata metal. Maybe a little more, last year was rough on Corvettes around here.

 

NASA SE ST2 2010 Champion. NASA SE CMC 3rd place season in 2009. Those are recent. Been racing since 1975 (started in MGA makes a Miata look powerful) or so. Raced BMW 320, 911S and Ferrari 308 in Europe. Silverstone was my home track. I am pretty sure I have more laps in competition then most.

 

It is hard to separate aggressive from stupid sometimes. In other cases the attitude makes it easy to tell.

 

Tell me again what you "know". Polite driving does not mean you lose. Physics says my 3400 pounds can punt almost any car a long ways. Racing with the blokes taught me a lot about when to rub and when to race.

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The slowest 15?:

 

No actually they'd probably be the fastest 15, the guys that have cool heads, have excellent judgement, good car control...the ones I trust running 2" away from.

 

And I have...and will again.

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Tell me again what you "know".

That sounds like some fun times. I know I was the 2008 TTD National Champion, and I also would have won PTD that year had I not been punted into China Beach with 2 laps to go (the punter was DQ'd for that move). I got 2nd in PTD 2010 in Utah, and would have won PTD last year but for an unannounced pro entry in our class that skipped all the qualifying races and registered at the last minute just for the champ race. Like I said, I know both TT and PT. If you drive like you're racing in TT you'll get yanked within the first few laps. Why is this even being debated?

 

One thing I will say, I think it would be great if TT recognized past national winners by giving them a waiver to compete for the championship without doing the required number of TT sessions during the year. I can barely make it to the track for PT any more, and TT is just a wish. But I'd love to go for the title in both. My PT lap time was within .1 sec of the TT winner this year...

 

Polite driving does not mean you lose. Physics says my 3400 pounds can punt almost any car a long ways. Racing with the blokes taught me a lot about when to rub and when to race.

Aggressive driving does not mean you rub. If you put a TT driver in W2W he would freak when someone closed the door on him and back off. A real W2W driver will recognize a chump move, say "F YOU" and pass 'em with two off in the grass. Try explaining that mentality to someone having fun in TT and their eyes get glassy real fast. It's like two different worlds... IF you're out there to win.

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I'm one of the few guys that completely skipped TT and went straight from HPDE 4 to W2W. I was still really green in Nasa even at the comp school last year at CMP in February. I know the instructors probably kept a close eye on me to make sure I would do ok and not do something stupid out there. It was a big learning curve because I went from getting point-by’s and blowing past slower cars to trying to figure how in the world I’m going to pass this guy in my class that’s equal weight/hp. Took me awhile to feel comfortable to stick my nose of my car in places where you just don’t do in HPDE. I know it’s a totally different aspect of racing, but I felt like my autox experience played a part in me feeling comfortable with my car control out on the track. The wreck at Road Atlanta though will forever be a reminder just how quickly things can go wrong on the track.

 

I have nothing against TT… at one time, I had my sights to go into TT with an eventual move into W2W. I had a close to stock C5Z and was about to start prepping it for TTA. But I still owed money on it and decided to just sell and save up for a race prepped car. Once I found the one I wanted, I just decided to skip TT and just work my way up to W2W.

Something that I’m sure TT would’ve helped me would’ve been how to qualify better. Its hard to find a good, clean lap in race qualifying especially if the track is crowded. With some TT experience, I might’ve benefited from that a little more in the beginning. I’m starting to get the hang of it now… but I still have quite a bit to learn especially when I see guys like Scott, Mark and Jason setting some really blistering laps out there.

 

If I did TT, I would have to do it on the side of W2W. Now that I have a taste of W2W, I wouldn’t want to give it up unless I just couldn’t afford it financially. Most fun I’ve ever had racing was this past year.

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I know the instructors probably kept a close eye on me to make sure I would do ok and not do something stupid out there on the warm up lap of the first session of comp school.

Sorry. I just couldn't help it.

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I'm one of the few guys that completely skipped TT and went straight from HPDE 4 to W2W. I was still really green in Nasa even at the comp school last year at CMP in February. I know the instructors probably kept a close eye on me to make sure I would do ok and not do something stupid out there. It was a big learning curve because I went from getting point-by’s and blowing past slower cars to trying to figure how in the world I’m going to pass this guy in my class that’s equal weight/hp. Took me awhile to feel comfortable to stick my nose of my car in places where you just don’t do in HPDE. I know it’s a totally different aspect of racing, but I felt like my autox experience played a part in me feeling comfortable with my car control out on the track. The wreck at Road Atlanta though will forever be a reminder just how quickly things can go wrong on the track.

 

I have nothing against TT… at one time, I had my sights to go into TT with an eventual move into W2W. I had a close to stock C5Z and was about to start prepping it for TTA. But I still owed money on it and decided to just sell and save up for a race prepped car. Once I found the one I wanted, I just decided to skip TT and just work my way up to W2W.

Something that I’m sure TT would’ve helped me would’ve been how to qualify better. Its hard to find a good, clean lap in race qualifying especially if the track is crowded. With some TT experience, I might’ve benefited from that a little more in the beginning. I’m starting to get the hang of it now… but I still have quite a bit to learn especially when I see guys like Scott, Mark and Jason setting some really blistering laps out there.

 

If I did TT, I would have to do it on the side of W2W. Now that I have a taste of W2W, I wouldn’t want to give it up unless I just couldn’t afford it financially. Most fun I’ve ever had racing was this past year.

 

 

TT helps car control, the nuances of the car changing every lap, and the importance of thinking way ahead of the car.

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TT helps car control, the nuances of the car changing every lap, and the importance of thinking way ahead of the car.

 

If you are only running 2-3 hot laps per session, when the car is at optimal adhesion and temperature. When does the car change? Do the A6's change that much lap to lap? Or are you refering to guys that run the full session?

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Do the A6's change that much lap to lap?

 

Yes! For example, at the start of a lap at Road America, they aren't even up to temp yet, then they get happy, but by the time your finish the carousel, you can already feel them getting greasy and slide-y. That's with 225 A6's. Perhaps it wouldn't be as bad on wider tires. After a couple hot laps the tires are completely done, you have to do at least half a cool down lap if you want them to get grippy again.

 

At Mid Ohio last year I did 3 hot laps then pitted and took temps. They were 210 degrees. Hoosier says they make optimal grip at around 185...

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  • 3 weeks later...

I went from DE 2 to 3 to 4 to TT .... to get out of the clusterflop of the combined 3 & 4 sessions at someplace like CMP where, with my 100 hp and 50 + cars on track I couldn't EVER get a clean lap .... TT may be 5 min shorter but still worth it for clear track ... don't plan on going W2W unless I win the lottery ... no way I could afford to do the repairs that W2W would eventually bring ... would like to try it ... but like I said $$$$$$$$

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I went from DE 2 to 3 to 4 to TT .... to get out of the clusterflop of the combined 3 & 4 sessions at someplace like CMP where, with my 100 hp and 50 + cars on track I couldn't EVER get a clean lap .... TT may be 5 min shorter but still worth it for clear track ... don't plan on going W2W unless I win the lottery ... no way I could afford to do the repairs that W2W would eventually bring ... would like to try it ... but like I said $$$$$$$$

Going "back" to an open session after spending time in TT you realize "this is a disorganized cluster-fk" of wildly different awareness, talent, and car levels out there and you quickly miss the (relatively) organized chaos of TT.

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