Gage wrote:caseydog wrote:<snip>
Is she in IRL cars now? Going in circles for 500 miles? She was doing well in ALMS and then in Rolex Cup. She had talent. What is she doing on a circle track? What's next, Nascar?
Most likely there's more money in IRL than LMP or ALMS. Plus it's a stepping stone to even more money if she wants to go that route. Me, I'll stick with road racing (of any kind as long as it's got 4 wheels). 
Yeah. The racing I most enjoy watching is sportscar, or aka road racing, and World Rally Championship (WRC). I like left and right turns, and don't get much entertainment from crashes.
WRC drivers are amazing to watch. Blasting down paved roads, dirt roads, wet, dry snowy -- whatever. Drifting sideways through hairpins, and always right on the edge of control.
Of couse, the big daddy of all races, the 24 Hours of Lemans is just a few weeks away. 8.5 mile course.
Here is a one-lap summary of Lemans:
You pass the start/finish line at close to 190 mph (depending on your choice of wheels, of course), scream past the pits, and enter Dunlop Curve flat out in 5th.
Just after you enter the corner, you lift off the throttle, and change down to 4th, to take the corner at over 160 mph.
You then crest the hill under the Dunlop Bridge, and move over to the right-hand side of the track, to prepare for the braking for the Esses.
The Esses are taken in 2nd gear at around 85 mph. The left-hander is banked quite considerably, while the following right-hander is banked less, and you go over a difficult "hump" on the exit of it.
After this, you have a couple of seconds of full throttle acceleration, before braking again for Tertre Rouge. This 60 mph corner is on a crest, and the car gets light as you go over it, making you struggle for traction on the all-important exit.
Now you're on the Mulsanne Straight, and can relax a while, 'cause you have a full minute of full-throttle driving ahead of you. But beware - if you have a car in your slipstream, he *will* have time to pass you. And then you will have time to get into his slipstream and re-pass him, and then... Well, you get the idea! ;-)
Coming up towards the rise before the Mulsanne kink, you place the car on the left-hand side of the track. If you are in the Eagle, you will have reached well over 200 mph by now, and if you had a slipstream, and a long enough 5th gear, you might even have reached as high as 215 mph! The kink is on the crest of a little hill, and flat-out. The line is all-important here - screw it up, and you are in SERIOUS trouble!
The straight goes on for another few hundred meters, before the track rises up, and then steeply down again on the other side. This is the Mulsanne hump, and it is a good sign to *concentrate*, 'cause you are just about to brake for the very, very slow (35 mph) Mulsanne corner. You brake just after the 300 meter sign, and go all the way down from 5th (or even 6th, if you are using the big "thing") to 1st, before carefully turning in to the corner. Careful is just the right word here: The exit is slippery, and your tires will probably have cooled down quite a lot on that long straight!
Well out of Mulsanne corner, a new straight looms in the distance. You go through two easy right-hand kinks on your way down towards the Indianapolis section. The second kink has a nasty bump in it. The bump sent two of the very aerodynamically unstable 1999 works Mercedes cars airborne in practice sessions! They withdrew from that year's race.
The Indianapolis section consists of two bends. The first is a short and fast 3rd-gear right-hander, which you take at slightly over 110 mph. You place the car on the right-hand side on the exit, to get the correct line in the the second corner: A steeply banked 90-degree, 65 mph left-hander, which gave this section its name.
Next up, just 200 meters down the road, is a very tight 35 mph right-hand corner named Arnage. This corner is very much like Mulsanne corner, but with a much shorter braking-zone.
Now you're on another "straight", though this one is really quite twisty for a straight! :-) First, you go through an easy left-hand kink. Then you have to time your turn-in to perfection, to take the following left-right combination flat-out. Over a hill you go, and then down towards Maison Blanche. You brake and shift down to 3rd, before turning right, and then almost immediately left, taking the S-shaped bend between the houses and farms at slightly more than 110 mph.
Only a sweeping right-hander to go now, and you're back at the pits, after a lap of around 3 minutes and 20 seconds, or 150 mph average speed.
Repeat about 380 times (number of laps last year's winning Audi R10 logged in 24 Hours).
by Gage » Sun May 27, 2007 3:22 pm 
