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Markers
Originally Published by Auto Racer's Monthly, December 1993
"Brake at the oil spot on your left, then start your turn-in at the patch, and track out to the tire mark on the wall." Drive by numbers. Sounds simple. We've heard instructions like this from drivers and teachers galore, but let's give this old war horse a second glance.
Racing is a sport of inches. "You missed the apex by a good six inches!," your first instructor roared. Six inches?, you thought to yourself. The spread of your hand for heaven's sake. How can something that tiny really matter?
Later, we were to find out why the guy was shouting so. A mere six inches really does make a difference. And a rather big one at that.
Think, now, about the turn-in point. You're flying down the straight at a rather insane rate of speed. Looming up ahead is the braking zone for that hair-raising hairpin. Blow the entry to the turn and you're off line or apexing too early or too late or something.
Back up a bit. The braking point. That's even more critical isn't it? Too soon and you're too slow through the corner; too late and you're too fast toward the wall, brakes alight.
Yep, racing really is a sport of inches.
Now, ask yourself what the real likelihood is of that oil spot being right where you should get on the brakes, or that new patch of track being exactly where you should start cranking the wheel, and that accidentally-placed rubber smear being precisely where you should be exiting off the turn? What are the statistical chances of things like this? All of a sudden the state lottery looks more promising.
"It all began," explains a freelance racing coach from Illinois, "with drivers happening to notice something on the track, or close to the edge, just coincidentally being right where they usually braked or turned-in. It was all after the fact. Not any more, though." Right. We see drivers out there looking for references, rather than happening to notice them.
The difference, of course, is that in searching out those pavement patches you're now running up against the law of odds. However, after you've found the optimum braking point, then is the time to glace around for the odd crack in the track surface or spot on the wall. Not before.
© 2007 Triad Z Club
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