I've enjoyed many years of enjoying wheeled motorsports (chainsaws being an example of non-wheeled motorsports?), and thru those years I've benefited from the published work of experts and the personal assistance of great friends.

One of those friends was Smokey Yunick. I'm really stretching this one - I met him at his shop when I was a little kid. We were at the USRRC at Daytona, and we went to his shop for something that couldn't be had anywhere else that day - just an exhaust piece to replace something damaged on Denny's TR4. Anyway That's how personal a friend he was. He became my friend in the same way he became a friend to so many - thru his writing in Circle Track.

Sure, Smokey did it for money (not enough from what he said), and because he was a natural teacher and a decent person who liked to share I think. That comes thru to me in reading his book. He says things like "Why am I telling you this? Because that's the way it was!" It's very human to want to tell stories. And Smokey had some good ones.

His expertise was not universal, and he deferred when appropriate - like when Bruce McLaren said "mind if we handle the chassis?" That said he was a student of the whole thing, and his eyes were usually open and his mind working.

I finished all three volumes a week or two ago and now I'm rotating them thru my friends. We are all reading different books because we're all bringing different experiences to the read. That's just the way it is with such things. That doesn't hold true with the physical laws of nature, and Smokey alluded to this as well as anyone somewhere in those books.

One of my friends has developed the habit of responding to technical questions of fundamental nature with "the task is to find the sweet spot on the curve". I've got this down myself, and you may recall my representation of chassis performance as a multidimensional topography with multiple relative maxima and minima - and no direct path necessarily from any of them to the single absolute maximum and minimum. It's on this basis that I've criticized the "one step at a time" approach to experimental change as an absolute rule.

I've also criticized Carroll Smith's writing recently insofar as I've found his treatment of Differentials in his book, and the version one of the race engineering magazines published, to be Lacking in rigor.

And I find that I'm not alone in being underwhelmed by Paul Van Valkenburg's treatment of FWD dynamics.

But each of these men made staggeringly huge contributions to the understanding of many of us. They deserve something more than mere gratitude, though something less than reverence. They are just men after all, and they make mistakes. I'd venture that directed onto a problem with sufficient resources all three would be capable of rapidly advancing on the solution to the problem.

I have friends who have provided me practical opportunities for learning over the years, and without those I'd pull less from the works of my "book friends". There is no bifurcation between the two worlds - they go together in my life just as they originated in the lives of the writers. There is only one world. The very best experimenters will arrive at the same place as the very best theoreticians. And the Best are both.

The thing that comes to mind is that thinking is relatively low cost. Experimentation is as expensive you want to make it. Alot can be done when a decent brain takes on a modest program.

Most of our problems are relatively simple when examined methodically - it's the method that makes the difference. To the credit of my book friends they are usually at their strongest here - they had to be, they were writing for a broad market.

It's in the nature of people to have problems with self esteem. Some rate themselves too low, others too highly. The paddocks are full of people brimming with confidence....but not all of them really know what they are doing. Some of them win races....for a variety of reasons. They stand little chance of being forced into meaninful learning under those circumstances. Others may really know their ****, but their results don't amount to ****. How would you know who to listen to?

You're stuck. If you want to learn about this stuff, you have to do your own homework. If you want to know what to use, you ought to do your own homework - but if you're going to follow an example you ought to have the sense to choose an appropriate one. Like a Pro racing team. Not some nincompoop on this board.

You know how when an employer shows you a new complex compensation plan that you can't figure out the bottom line is you are getting screwed? So it is with information on this board - if the writer can't explain themself clearly and logically then they don't command the subject. My favorite history professor said it like this: "if you can't write it out clearly, then it isn't an idea...it's something else".

Scott, who is tired of reading something else...

 

This is certainly not confined to racing. In fact it's almost a universal constant, which could apply just a easily to religion, politics, economics, square dancing, or dog grooming. There are people who will always defer to the "expert", and even vehemently defend that expert's method or philosophy against others. Then there are people who will use the information provided by experts, and their own experience and knowledge, to form their own ideas or opinions.

I sometimes think that the folks who always accept someone elses word as revealed "truth" are just not willing to expend the effort required to make up their own minds.

 

They're called lemmings.....

 

And scott's avitar looks like the guy from the Adams Family TV show... fugg, whats his name....

 

Of all that you said, this resonates the most for me. The whole "student - eyes open - mind working" thing is one of the attributes I admire most in people, and one that I aspire to myself. In fact, I recently used almost those exact same words in a job interview, when asked "what would be your top three priorities if you were to be selected for this position?" Basically, it acknowledges the importance of being a life-long learner, and that no matter how much you *know* there's always a lot left to learn...

Casey, who's old enough to have developed some finely honed instincts about knowing who truly knows their **** and who is full of it.

 

http://www.imdb.com

 

Gomez Adams...

 

RR98ITR, reading your post about Smokey and other legends was timely. Last night I took a friend to drop off his Miata for a rollcage at LNA garage in the one stoplight town of Franklinville, NC. LNA's founder, owner, fabricator, tubing bender and accountant is a legend by the name of Sam Neave. SCCA racers in the central North Carolina area know him well. Sam is one of these closet geniuses that could have designed the Golden Gate Bridge if someone had asked him! Instead, he focused his talents on sedan based race cars, engines, suspensions and the best custom roll cages money can buy. Sam is the club racer's "Smokey". Some of us have witnessed how well his work holds up again and again...like when David Rhoades flipped his IT car numerous times in the old dip at Road ATL and walked away from it. After we left Sam's place last night I commented to my friend how lucky we were to have access to a guy like Sam, and who will we take our cars to when Sam gets tired of welding upside-down under the dash of a car? Any other Honda-Techers heard of Sam?


[Modified by Track rat, 1:45 PM 1/16/2003]

 

I disagree.
Ummmm...

Nevermind.

 

But I still disagree.

 

Hyperbole??? Don't they import JDM stuff?
I think there was a banner here a few months ago.

And thanks for explaining the Scott's post for me. I was lost.
I'm all better now.

 

More like this:

If you cannot adequately express your idea, there's no evidence that you actually have one to convey.

I suggest that just as my dog likes to bark, so to do many like to speak.

He was speaking generally about communication and argument. It's about who's saying what (if anything), and has nothing to do with who's listening (or not).

For example he had no time for incoherent babbling from agitated students ("...the proletariat must push aside the bourgeoisie in the march to utopia..."). You either make sense or you don't.

I personally experimented with this zone in a mid term classroom essay in which I spontaneously saw an opportunity to do a shootout between the underlying philosophies of Wilson and FDR which briefly revealed themselves to me (says I). I lost track of my argument halfway thru and there was no way to finish and no chance of starting over. With my own words I confessed and acknowledged this, and signed off with "....God Bless America!". I got back a note reading "Hail Columbia!" and a very poor grade - well deserved but for the memory of the flash of brilliant insight (says I) that led me to it. I never returned to the effort of building the alleged idea.

Scott, who says the burden is on the person making an argument...if the words don't add up to an identifiable idea, the argument is a zero from the start.


[Modified by RR98ITR, 10:05 AM 1/16/2003]

 

Hijack.

fear the froggy.

Hee hee.

3 more months for the rest of you basterds til racing season, who knows how long for me...

 

I can't believe I'm going to miss all this stuff.

"bark like a dog!"

 

hmmm.......perhaps its a guilty concience, but i can't help but feel this is slightly directed towards me.

nate-A.D.D. ownz me

p.s. who is Paul Van Valkenburg and what book did he write? since debate is clearly not my strong suite perhaps i'll just stick with reading.