Exactly. The lungfish developed a lung before it went on land, not after. Girly lungfish liked the fact that their man (fish) could be a badass on the beach, and sexed his brains out.
Something random happens. If the happening is beneficial, it tends to stay.
It would have taken him all of 30 seconds to find that track if he tried. F1 outdoors is a premier facility. The Jetta TDI cup holds karting qualifiers there. Good place to build a reputation - people will see you, and it will lead to other opportunities. They even do cheap as chips arrive and drive (in slow karts, albeit).
Bud, if your parents are uninterested, you're basically screwed unless you can convince them or you have a really, really kind God/grandparent. It is understated how much young racing drivers rely on their parents. Try your best to get them excited about it, or find a really good paying job pronto and save your ass off (not sure exactly how old you are, less than driving age I presume, so the job bit may be hard).
You serious? He killed a few corners by jumping on the throttle too much. He needs to be gentler with it - give it a good one-onethousand as you roll it on.
You need to be aggressive *enough*. He's too timid.
The most important corner is a setup question. Every corner is important for a driver - a driver can be good at all of them, a setup only good at some of them. The important corners are dictated by mile per hour and how many of them share similar MPH determines which ones to focus on. On a track with 3 30-60 MPH corners and 8 70-110 MPH corners, the faster corners are the important ones from a setup perspective, because you spend the most time in them. In fact this is the only time when mile per hour as a measurement is useful in racing. Force India had the highest trap speeds at last year's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Look where it got them - 17th and 18th on the grid, 15th and 17th in the race. They geared/setup for the hairpin coming onto that massive straight, and they lost.
He does need to carry more speed. We all do.
Anyway, Rooster, simply based on what I'm seeing in the video, a couple things:
Rev match those downshifts, if your pedals will let you. Just give the throttle a quick little stab as you pull the downshift paddle. It will make your braking zones feel smoother.
You're not using the brakes enough. Those tires need to be talking. Rev-matching will help you get closer to the limit of the brakes - your front wheels won't be snatching, which is what I think is keeping you cautious on the stop pedal.
Rotate, rotate, rotate. Practice that car control, get out there and just do a bunch of balls out laps, getting sideways, throw it around, get a feel for the limit and beyond. I want to see every corner look like that last corner (entry), without the adding the throttle and inducing crazy understeer. It's front wheel drive, but that doesn't mean the throttle is a light switch - you're still working with a traction "circle", you still need to roll it on so as not to overload the tires. Still, that last corner entry was nice, right on the edge, you just came out of it by jumping on the throttle.
Do you have a steering wheel, or are you using the keyboard?
The clutch is a double friction plate used to dislocate the engine from the transmission. Any time the engine RPM needs to deviate from the road speed (ie, when shifting, or stopped) the clutch needs to be disengaged (pushed down) so that the engine can revolve independently of the transmission and wheels. I recommend using the automatic clutch option, until you get used to the game.
I've been spending too much time on LFS with my new Fanatec and going back to Forza 3 after about a week is kinda depressing. It's such a pretty game and it's got so many great cars, and the simulation engine itself is sound, but there are so many annoyances with the physics it makes me sad. It's very annoying that 20+ year old cars feel like they have supercar levels of grip, and all the new models feel like they're racing car stiff, the way they gain and lose grip very digitally, like the tires are granite. Understeer and oversteer are very fake and forced feeling, not really dynamic at all. And then we get to the game steering for you in drifts... this makes me want to pull my (quarter inch long) hair out.
In so many ways so awesome, and in just as many ways so disappointing. I hope GT5 does better. I'm not a fanboy, I don't even have a PS3, but I hope they can do better. I hope it's not dumbed down.
Oh, I was going to recommend some books earlier, but I forgot.
I found these quite helpful:
Top o the list is Drive to Win. Carroll Smith was probably one of the greatest men in motorsport - he left a wonderful legacy in his no nonsense books, all of which are must-reads. If I had to choose one to start me off, I'd choose this one.
Tied for second are all of the Speed Secrets books. I don't always agree with Ross Bentley, and his writing style is a bit strange at times, but there is plenty of useful advice in there. Sadly, it's mostly an advertisement for his coaching business.
Going Faster, the Skip Barber curriculum is probably also worth a look, though I've not read it.
And then I always also recommend Flat Out, Flat Broke: Formula 1 the Hard Way! because, in addition to being side splittingly hilarious, it illustrates the kind of drive you're going to need to make people pay for your racing, and a bit of insight into how to woo them.
You might also check out The Karting Manual. Again I've not read it, but I've flipped through it in our pro shop and it seems fairly definitive.
You may not understand some of the things in the driving books without a decent amount of real life experience, especially Drive to Win, which is quite technical - sim racing doesn't really prepare you for the mechanical aspect very well, but it's good to get that knowledge into your head. That way you'll be able to employ it right away.
Practice sessions, online or offline, never affect the safety rating. Only time trials, qualifying, and races affect safety rating, so you have nothing to worry about! It's weighted too. Time trials only affect your rating a little. Qualifying affects it a bit more, and races affect it the most.
Absolutely. Learning to drive in the rain should be on the top priorities for any driver, especially an American. We don't get as much rain out here, and when we do, it seems like most of the drivers have very little experience in it. So the sooner you learn rain and low grip driving the better.
My first time in the wet was in the middle of last year and I turned out half a second faster than anyone else, and that was only because I'd started reading about rain driving so much.
If ya wanna race tin tops on road courses (professionally), then your two options are Grand Am (Rolex or Sportscar Challenge) and American Le Mans, usually Grand Am leads to ALMS (Grand Am was constructed with cheapness in mind, and an ST class ride in Sportscars is only about 100 grand per year). GT cars is a good goal, because other than Stock Cars, America does it really well.
Nevermind the fact that most of society in America views racing drivers as lunatic freeloader playboys with no personality who don't live in the real world.
Me, I always get a positive response to karting when I say "I race 100 MPH karts". You need to get the reference in there right away that they're not 4 stroke carnival karts.
Anyway, Logitek, the reason why karts are good is simply to get perspective. It behooves every young driver to drive as varied a selection of cars as he can. A developing Formula driver can learn a thing or two driving GT cars. A GT driver can learn something by driving touring cars. Et cetera. So as long as you can afford it, try to do test days in cars you might drive after karts. This year I'm making the jump to cars, and after I get my race license from Skip Barber I'll be driving a number of different cars to find which one I should go for next, and to get the experience.
And you still haven't told us where you want to end up! (unless you did, and I'm an idiot)
In America, he's got a lot more time than if he wanted to get to F1. You can still transition to IndyCar in your late twenties, and for tintops the sky is really the limit. I might not get to ALMS till I'm 30 (but I'll probably get there before then if my career succeeds).
When I started at 18, I took 2 years in karting. Might take a 3rd "half year" in karting as well, while I test and transition to cars. If I had jumped straight into cars, I would've needed those 2 years or more to develop my skills anyway, and I would have spent a ton more money doing so. Of course, I had a team of professional coaches helping me. So take from that what you will.
Yes. It is for karting. Karl reinforces that many times. It'll still make you fit, and karting itself is the best way to do that, but it is slightly different demands than single seaters.
^ karting's a bit different since you don't have belts or a form fitting seat. Lots more core work. Since he's planning on jumping straight into single seaters where he'll probably have a cockpit that holds him better than his mother's womb ever could, I'd recommend trying to get ahold of a fighter pilot training manual. Fighter pilot and racing driver fitness are not so different. I've tried quite a few things and the things that seem to work best are low impact, high repetition routines. Yoga is also REALLY good. But I'm from California, and that's just how I am. The best way is still just to drive a lot.
PS, weren't you planning on doing Formula BMW like 2 years ago? What happened to that?
If you've got the chops you'll find a way to make it. If you don't you won't. Simple as, just with everything else in life. Only way to know is to give it your all.
As far as requiring funds go it's just about perseverance. If you can take a thousand companies saying no before one says yes then you'll make it financially (obviously you have to be fast enough and/or marketable enough to keep the interest). But generally if you can't afford the first few rungs on your planned ladder then just race what you can and maybe something will happen to get you moved up the rungs. For instance, to get me to a level where I might be paid (might) in US tintop road racing, I'm looking at an expenditure of between half a million and 1 million dollars over the course of 6-8 years and possibly more. That's the hard way, and assuming I get no help, to propel myself through club racing, semi pro and starting pro levels. If I have to pay to race in say, Grand Am Rolex, I won't be competitive anyway.
There are a lot of drivers who've made it in US road racing without any cash. Randy Pobst I believe is one, Scott Pruett I know is another. Study them, emulate them, and you may attract the same people.
It's good not to look ahead too much, but you need an eventual goal. Where do you want to end up? That will give you the basic latticework for possible paths. But don't limit yourself. Sometimes you'll need to professionally drive something that you didn't expect. See Nelson Piquet and stock cars (though the professional bit is in question). "I want to end up in X, but I will drive the balls off anything" is probably the right attitude.
Generally Legends leads into dirt track and ovals. There are extremely few official lader systems in the US, but which crowd you hang out with will influence your networking and subsequent contacts and possibilities as a result. If you wanna go stock car racing, skip karts and get yourself on dirt tracks. If you wanna go road racing, go karting. IMO, Legends isn't the best starting point for either. They look like a blast, but there are just better options available from a developmental point of view. But there are no real universal bad choices - just ones that are slightly better for certain people. It's up to you to decide that for yourself. Could very well be that Legends is exactly what you need. Only way to know is to get your race license and do a test.
Also don't listen to people who say karting is useless for cars. It most definitely is not, provided you have a certain understanding of how to drive a kart. There's a reason why Skip Barber awards national seasons to karter qualifiers, and why Jim Russell's programs start in karts and lead to F3 cars. When I drove a car fast on a track for the first time, I found 80% of my karting knowledge directly applicable, and I was instantly fast. My butt was still being used just like in karting, the same smoothness was required, the same footwork and muscle memory was being utilized, and the same things applied with regard to mental attitude and what to do with your eyes. I see tons of kids come out of karting, get sayings like "cars are nothing like karts, a whole new ball game" drilled into their heads, and they psyche themselves out and end up slow, because they're looking for differences that aren't there.
Meanwhile, institutions like Jim Russell and Skip Barber are consistently able to pluck drivers out of karts and into cars with great results. You won't hear any instructor in either school telling people that cars are vastly different - in fact they encourage the similarities, which are numerous.