Block-passing; Cool, or nah?
 

Didn't want to jack the quote thread. Great stuff.

This interview got me thinking. I'm just a couch enthusiast but I used to race motocross. We called this block-passing and it was one of my favorite moves.

To be clear, I'm not talking about track day but for those of you who have participated in wheel-to-wheel, if the forward driver apexes late, is it legit to dive underneath like that? Where would you draw the line?

For NASA, if you pulled a move like that and the outcome was the forward person got punted, you'd be in for a penalty as you did not have enough of your car alongside to "earn" a gap. NASA requires your front bumper to be alongside the door to earn a space alongside another car. If someone dove under me like that in a club race and punted me off, I'd protest that person.

I went back to look more carefully at the first clip. If it's a matter of visibility without having to rely on the mirrors as one is focused on turn entry, it makes sense.

It took me a few views because of that long lens but yeah, nowhere close.

Martin Brundle's interview on TG about the Senna/Prost Japanese Grand Prix crash for the championships is dead on, Senna had zero intention of making that corner, he charged as if Prost did not exist everything after (interviews, scrutiny, reconciliation with Prost) was a minor pain in exchange for being the man on top at the end of the season. 7:40 in the video below, also a good discussion with Brundle about aggressive passing however I disagree with his views about how Senna was the first with the "psychological warfare make you back down" mentality and that it was something special, maybe it was a new level for F1 in particular but it was old hat for circle track racers for decades at that point.

https://vimeo.com/89217406


Now in regards to aggressive position taking and defending, I'm of the opinion that I'd rather be a gentleman than bump someone out of the way but that's how I was raised, I'd rather win a fair fight than take a cheap shot (bending the rules when it comes to the technical aspects of the car excluded of course). A clean slide job or going deeper on the brakes or making your car 3x as wide all are considered kind of 'cheap tricks' but if you do it clean, no contact, they all have their drawbacks and leave you open to be taken advantage of.

Spent three years racing competitive as a kid, Quarter Midgets if that means anything to you, raced against Alex Bowman if anybody follows NASCAR, and a couple other names trying to break into the big leagues.

I want to be rich so I can hit the dirt track again :(

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvJqm93DI60"]The Slide Job - YouTube[/ame]

I raced open wheel dirt and off road cars for 6 years. It was usually bad if you tangled wheels making a move like that. Having said that, if you did not go for an opening like that when you had the opportunity then you were usually relegated to mid or further back in the pack. A "slide job" was a thing of beauty when executed right. If executed wrong it would put you on your lid or in the fence and result in fisticuffs in the pits later. Dirt track racing was like that.

I would like to think that I would show more restraint on a road course where speeds are usually much higher and the consequences of contact may be more dire. But I am also still a competitive individual. If we are racing wheel to wheel and you leave me an opening then you had better expect that I am going to stick my nose in there and go for the pass. I am not out there to follow you around and finish second even when you make mistakes.

Great watch. Thank you. I understand now it was purely a strategic move. His intent was to take out Prost; period. Just as the CEO of a public corporation is charged with maximizing profit by doing whatever it takes within the letter of the law, it was coldly logical and I dare say, the correct choice. I also agree with you in that he did not invent checkered-flag-or-crash but given the consequences at much higher speeds, it was a new level.

Motocross was fun. I see dirt track the same way. In any motorsport where ridiculously high slip angles lead to a win, tangles are inevitable. I'll be out on the track more with my FRS but only to compete against myself for fun and building skill.

BTW, they do push. Like you, I'm also searching for that sweet spot. Just spreading out the money and time spent. I like being happily married. :thumbsup:

What do you mean by 'they push'?

Yup, life is all about compromises.

Oh and there is a little backstory to the Suzuka event in the Senna movie where Senna had pole position but was gridded to the inside line going into turn 1, he felt that was a sleight against him (as this was the dirty line traction would be compromised giving the outside starting position a traction advantage) as Prost was known to be very chummy with the rulemakers of the FIA, notably Jean Marie Balestre who had a bit of French pride going for him...

Push, tight, in a steady-state turn, our cars <wink> understeer which makes it impossible to effectively use the engine to modulate F/R weight bias. Who, at the traction limit, wants to slow down just to get it to turn? Extremely frustrating.

Felt? Yeah, I'd say that was a pretty obvious dig. I thought pole position meant you get the best spot. Obviously out of my league here. That's why I only lurk in the F1 thread. :thumbsup:

...unless the punter had 2 tires off track. Seriously.. a lot of serious racers refer to this as the "NASA Punting loophole". Basically in NASA, you only have to leave someone 3/4 car width of room, which is asinine. Most other groups require you to leave them 1 car or 1 car+1 inch. So in NASA if you have 2 tires off when you make contact you are considered to be trying to avoid the incident but really, any driver really knows that if they need to punt someone they just need to have 2 tires off to do so without repercussions. Read those rules closely, this is one of the many things NASA gets really wrong.

However, none of this applies to the Senna/Prost incident but I wanted to put it out there anyway.

Oh yes, absolutely 100% agreed that the FRS understeers if driven ideally at the limit.
(Edit: yeah push is the term I grew up with, now I resort to describing what the car is doing, I've been saying the front end lets go first, washes out, etc.)

I believe I fixed that this weekend though: camber plates

:happyanim:

I'm going to babble on about what I've done in another thread I just have to process what I know of the car's setup.

Most racing classes in NASA have added a "leave 1car width plus 1 inch" rule now. I haven't checked if it's in the GCR yet.

Seems like a step in the right direction but it doesn't address the punting loophole.

You only need to leave 3/4 IF the person has a right to be there, aka your front bumper is at the driver position.

We actually had a side-side incident in Spec86 Cup last weekend and it was ruled a racing incident because the passing driver had his nose actually ahead of the outside driver but they incidentally had contact.

-mike