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08-29-2007, 05:01 AM
Chris --
The biggest difficulty I had going from DE to club racing was increasing the level of aggression. DE and racing are different basically only for that reason. In DE if you pass me, go ahead and take the apex and lets get on. In racing, its MY APEX! Go ahead and try to take it!
Part of the aggression is also being comfortable driving very close to other cars. In some ways to me, and I've heard others describe it this way also, its almost a sixth-sense. You just know a car is next to you even though you can't see it sometimes. You see this in pro racing all the time, you see guys make moves where there is no way they could actually see the other car (not and drive at the same time!).
FWIW -- at the RTR Summit event there was a BMW racer running with us who was entirely too aggressive for DE. I was mostly ok with it, but I don't realy want to be going that fast with someone 8" off my rear bumper for 6 laps at DE who I don't know, that is entirely missing the point of DE. During a race, however, 8" is nothing unusual.
I mentioned in the Summit Point thread that I entered my 996 in the Time Trial event with NASA during last weekend. I was already there with both cars and wanted some extra track time. The Time Trial would be a great stepping stone for getting into racing, in my opinion. During the timed sessions, it is open passing with no signals. In general, signals are given anyway. TT is a great way to get used to driving close to other cars at near-race speeds. I think you could do that in your GT3 safely.
NASA Mid-Atlantic also allows passing in the turns in DE. I don't like to give the signal for someone to do this unless I'm confortable with the driver/situation of course. And you still need a signal, so it isn't dangerous. I was doing a session in HPDE4 (instructor group) with NASA last weekend and someone gave me a point on the inside of T7. "Oh right, I can do that", so I took it of course. That practice, if you've never passed in a turn, is invaluable to racing.
Before I started racing I remember learning a lot driving with Bob T at RTR events. We were about the same speed, and we'd trade back and forth, passing late off-line as much as possible, often giving a re-pass signal at track-out. This is a great way to learn, in my opinion, if you can find someone to run with.
Passing is difficult to learn because it's not something that is taught in DE. I think I learned a lot about setting up passes (when people don't want to be passed) by going to the go-kart track. Kam helped me a lot with that.
The biggest difficulty I had going from DE to club racing was increasing the level of aggression. DE and racing are different basically only for that reason. In DE if you pass me, go ahead and take the apex and lets get on. In racing, its MY APEX! Go ahead and try to take it!
Part of the aggression is also being comfortable driving very close to other cars. In some ways to me, and I've heard others describe it this way also, its almost a sixth-sense. You just know a car is next to you even though you can't see it sometimes. You see this in pro racing all the time, you see guys make moves where there is no way they could actually see the other car (not and drive at the same time!).
FWIW -- at the RTR Summit event there was a BMW racer running with us who was entirely too aggressive for DE. I was mostly ok with it, but I don't realy want to be going that fast with someone 8" off my rear bumper for 6 laps at DE who I don't know, that is entirely missing the point of DE. During a race, however, 8" is nothing unusual.
I mentioned in the Summit Point thread that I entered my 996 in the Time Trial event with NASA during last weekend. I was already there with both cars and wanted some extra track time. The Time Trial would be a great stepping stone for getting into racing, in my opinion. During the timed sessions, it is open passing with no signals. In general, signals are given anyway. TT is a great way to get used to driving close to other cars at near-race speeds. I think you could do that in your GT3 safely.
NASA Mid-Atlantic also allows passing in the turns in DE. I don't like to give the signal for someone to do this unless I'm confortable with the driver/situation of course. And you still need a signal, so it isn't dangerous. I was doing a session in HPDE4 (instructor group) with NASA last weekend and someone gave me a point on the inside of T7. "Oh right, I can do that", so I took it of course. That practice, if you've never passed in a turn, is invaluable to racing.
Before I started racing I remember learning a lot driving with Bob T at RTR events. We were about the same speed, and we'd trade back and forth, passing late off-line as much as possible, often giving a re-pass signal at track-out. This is a great way to learn, in my opinion, if you can find someone to run with.
Passing is difficult to learn because it's not something that is taught in DE. I think I learned a lot about setting up passes (when people don't want to be passed) by going to the go-kart track. Kam helped me a lot with that.