He will be missed!

http://www.carrollsmith.com/

 

That is so sad... His books are awesome and incredibly helpful.

Thanks for the notice,

Jon

 

RIP Carrol... You will be missed...

I guess now I have to go finish reading some of his more technical books that lost me halfway through...

"All Porsches are shitboxes" - Carrol Smith

lol... maybe I should use that as my new sig...

 

 

Over on Corner-Carvers there's a nice piece on Carrol Smith in the General Discussion forum.

Besides his books, there are some audio tapes you can get of Carrol from some symposium. A local vendor/trailer (Armadillo Racing) has had them in the last year.

Scott, who benefitted greatly from the work of this man, and who thinks that we shouldn't overlook his accomplishment as a writer...it wasn't just what he wrote, it was also very much the way he wrote it...among the ones I remember best were the ancient sword-smith saying "**** on it", and the way he described how the last words of too many of his friends were "oh ****". He left alot behind for us.

 

So sad. He was not present as head judge at the Formula SAE competition this year for the first time that I can remember, one event coordinator got choked up talking about him.

 

It's too bad I never met the man. He will be missed.

aj

 

nice but brief 2 page write up/tribute in June/July's Race Tech magazine on Carroll Smith...


Modified by Michael Delaney at 4:25 PM 8/13/2003

 

he was a staff column writer for that mag, i tihnk ill miss that column even more... always good insight. at least we have his books.

 

Goodbye Mr. Smith. You will be missed.

But who will write the next set of books????

 

Something somewhere said he was working on "Design to Win", and that it might be published yet. Sure hope so.

Scott, who thinks Smith doing Costin & Phipps would be GREAT.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by descartesfool &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">But who will write the next set of books????</TD></TR></TABLE>

John Barnard (F1 designer and has a tech analysis column for one of the F1 magazines) ?

Sergio Rinland (designer of the Sauber)?

Tom Walkinshaw (former Arrows owner and successful LeMans and road racing teams owner)

Joe Ramirez (in F1 since the 70's and used to be manager with McLaren Mercedes)?

Steve Matchett (Speed Channel Technical Engineering Analyst and former Benetton mechanic)?


It would have to be someone who was recently in F1 or FIA WRC or Touring Car who could give you the latest engineering from an engineer's perspective for that next series of books to be the same caliber as Smith's books in his era...which has stood the test of time.

I guess nowadays, we just have to go to the SAE website and purchase their papers on the relevant topics or use Race Tech/Racecar Engineering magazines for sources, since the info is so specialized and detailed..not to mention the volume of info released.

Carroll Smith will definitely be missed.

 

Thing about it is that there's not alot of money to be made from such books as some of us would like to see written. Smith himself didn't profit greatly from the books themselves, and to what degree they served to increase demand for his consultancy is probably debatable.

The other thing is that most of these guys "only know what they know". Was it Rinland that just did a stint with FWD Touring Cars in Europe? The blurb I read suggested that he went thru the same learning curve other transfers had before him, and that he didn't do anything remarkable really.

The French(?) guy that ran the Nissan Primera BTCC team a couple years back gave an interesting interview, but it just left you wanting to know more - which you definitely weren't going to get.

Smith had a special gift for communication that went beyond the technical matter. That isn't something just anybody can do.

Gordon Murray has written some columns over the last couple of years that have been interesting, but again, who's going to go to how much effort and for what purpose and reward?

Re the SAE, I've spent a lot of money on the Motorsports CD and alot of downloaded papers. Few of them are balanced between depth and comprehensibility - though maybe after reading so many of them I'm jaded.

Scott, who finds that the more I learn the harder it becomes to learn more...but the biggest secrets are often just doing the basic things right.