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Originally Posted by Tsar
not to be a dick but how do they stand about? and what are thet recignized for? if they were so good i would think they'd go to formula 1 or something.  |
you can see that they have skill when it comes to seperate events or the occasional press event.
about 2 years ago jeff gordon had a chance to drive the williams F1 car around the road course at indy. with in 3 sessions he was dropping times good enough to have made teh field, i think it was his 5th session that he drop a few laps that would have been in the top 10 of the previous years field. that is some damn quick adaptation to an unknown car that acts completely difference than a nascar tank.
also we have all the guys that hit up the daytona 24hour race each year. although daytona is not considered a challenging track in itself, the constantly changing conditions of driving through teh night and very unique manners of the cars have shown that people like kyle petty, dale jr., tony stewart, and robbie gordon all have the skills to adapt to very different circumstances quickly. a few years ago tony stewart actually held fastest lap of the weekend at daytona for about 7hours, and he dropped that lap at night.
the other credit that nascar/oval track drivers get is from thing like when colon mcrae took a stab at a european oval event. he drove well, qualified in the top 15 the second day he was ever in the car, late in teh race tagged teh wall and finish around 20th. he was all about giving those guys credit cause they "have it on the edge the whole time". when competing in rally or major road course racing there are moments where you have to cruise basically, oval racing is too competitive to get away with that.
the skill to control a car on the edge is there in any of the top forms of racing, it is a matter of being able to adapt/define the skills required for a particular discipline. i can tell you from the days i used to autocross all teh time, jumping into an unfamiliar car with only a few words of advice from the owner and being expected to go fast can be very tough. some cars have huge attitude problems, some cars can pull themselves out fo trouble with pure power, some cars need smooth and momentum, and some cars you have to force to rotate. the best guys can figure all that out in a lap or two, it is amazing to watch.