Well, i figured since i have to write a cause/effect paper for my arguments class, i figured: why not make it about Road Racing?
Basically, i will take the stance that roadracing will make you a better driver on the street. I will make the progression from: Racing-->learning/understanding limits of yourself (driver) and your car--->develop "car control".---->you become a better driver on the street.
I need some reliable sources that i can use. (ie defining "car control" and maybe even some articles where professionals take the stance that racing does indeed make you a better driver on the street.)

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Talk about everyday things like reaction time, accident avoidance, concentration, etc. Give examples of how accidents happen and how good reaction time and being cognicent of your surroundings can prevent accidents from happening.

You could ask members here to give their 2 cents and use it as a quote. Or go to the next autox or track day with a notepad and tell the guys what you are doing and see if they will give you their insight that you can use as evidence.

 

Copy this lady: https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=1386433

 

Rather than good reaction times I think road racing does one better. That is anticipation (which beats reaction). You learn to look ahead and anticipate. Your steering inputs are increasingly for where your car will be much farther down the road and you learn the slamming on the brakes is not always your buddy.

Barry

 

MaxQ, thanks a ton, that one site on that other thread was absolutely amazing.
keep it coming guys

 

Maybe include autox in your thesis, because it provides a slightly different set of learning opportunities. In autox, you can (and should) push your car to the limit of traction in cornering in order to be competitive. If you wash out or spin, all you will hit is cones, and lose a few seconds; at worst, the guy behind you gets red-flagged and reran and the event is held up 2 minutes. Ideally, you recover the car from lack of control and learn to do this reflexively whenever you exceed the car's ability to hang on.
On the street, this translates to accident avoidance through a kind of car control that you cannot learn in normal road driving. You cannot safely spin your car out and bring it to the limits of traction at 50mph on Wisteria Lane, but you need to do this in order to react properly if you swerve to avoid a road hazard. Now that you've raced, if you lose control, it will not be the first time; you will recover the car reflexively, rather than panicing and making the situation worse. You are a safer driver now because the limit of control is already familiar territory.
Autox also teaches you how much you can brake going into turns without losing the rear end, and how much this is influenced by steering angle.
Autox comes into play here because you don't normally spin your car on a racetrack going 90mph. The track is important for high-speed car control, but it doesn't give you much experience steering in the direction of a slide induced by lift-throttle oversteer.
Never having driven at a track (although I will soon), I cannot go into an articulate description of how it will improve your driving skill.

This should not be a hard case to make. Good luck with it. Maybe you should be more ambitious and argue that light, nimble cars that can steer and brake quickly are actually safer than big retarded unmaneuverable cars, if only people knew how to drive. Avoiding an accident in the first place is always safer than surviving one.

Dan

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by LudemanDan &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Now that you've raced, if you lose control, it will not be the first time; you will recover the car reflexively, rather than panicing and making the situation worse. You are a safer driver now because the limit of control is already familiar territory.
Dan</TD></TR></TABLE>

I think this is the key. Autocross teaches you how to keep thinking when the stuff hits the fan. You learn how to drive through situations instead of freezing and locking up the brakes. It's like the BMW ads say, the best way to survive an accident is to avoid it in the first place.

 

Citations are going to be a beeotch but add to your thesis that there's a chance racing helps us realize that driving on the street is just about getting from Point A to Point B - without caring about "performance." The change in priorities -&gt; better judgement -&gt; fewer stupid mistakes.

K

 

I would try to find statistics of accidents on avg and try to compare it to those who have racing experience or licenses or something. Some insurance companies offer discount for those who have passes a driving class based on racing principles. You could also use anecdotal evidence such as anyone you know who's been in an accident that could've been prevented with knowledge of car control ie not letting go of the steering wheel, etc.

One of fundamental techniques of being smooth on the track could translate to better safety - executing emergency maneuvers without going into spins, and just being more predictable on the road.

 

Nothing scientific to back this up, but I can certainly give you annecdotal evidence that racing/autocrossing makes one a safer driver by being aware of your surroundings and understanding car control even over the limit. Twice I've avoided serious incident due to actions that were strictly second-nature.

The first incident I was driving on a busy freeway with the ex in the car. She had distracted me with something that caused me to look at her and just in that instant, traffic stopped...I'm talking dead stop, and I'm still traveling at 65. I noticed in time to threshold brake, take my foot off the brake, do a very quick lane change manuever (i.e. don't brake and try to turn at the same time), and then continue braking. It all happened in about a second. Ex was screaming. My heart sped up a bit, but no big deal. Because I was aware of what cars were around me and had a second-nature understanding of what to do in an emergency, everything went by fine. The average joe would have hit the car in front of them.

Lesson learned? Ignore the Ex. (just kidding)

Second incident for me was this past winter. Major snow storm, at night, roads not plowed, dark country roads to get home, can't even see the edge of the road. About 4" of snow on the road, car clearance about 5". I use some superb Hakka snow tires, traction wasn't bad at all. Well, I was probably traveling a little too fast, and hit either a rut or totally dropped a tire off the road. It was enough to upset the car and the backend started coming around. My first reaction is to hit the gas (FWD car), steer where I need to go. It's working, the pendulum effect is slowing, but I realize there are now oncoming cars. I need both lanes to continue to do the correction and actually stop. Chances are slim that the oncoming traffic will be able to stop.

So I have a choice, continue correcting and take the chance they can stop, or save their life and take my chances by driving off the road. I chose to drive off the road, down a 15' enbankment into a ditch.

Knowing how to correct the car when out of control allowed me to most likely save the lives of whoever was in the oncoming lane by taking the car straight off the road (i.e. perpendicular), hopefully avoiding any chance of a rollover.

Just as followup, surprisingly, there was zero damage to the car, and despite there being about 8" of snow on the ground, I pretty much drove it out of the ditch until the car got high-centered about 6 feet from the road (DAMN!). Calling a tow truck to move a car 6 feet really sucked.

Lesson learned? 6" of ground clearance would really have helped.

Conversly to my stories, I have another similar story about my dad, with no autocross/racing experience, that didn't end as well. Two months after my dad had bought his brandy new 2005 Accord Coupe, he was taking a freeway interchange (i.e. 65 mph off ramp) and happened upon a rather large chunk of tire in the middle of his lane. He's on a curve, travling fairly fast (probably faster than 65), and cannot make a lane change. He hits the brakes. Back-end of the car starts to come around so he instinctively stands on the brakes. This of course makes it worse and he ends up facing oncoming traffic in the middle of a busy freeway interchange. He surprisingly hits no one in the spin, but straffic does end up very close. Somehow, some idiot behind decided to continue to push his way through, sandwiching a third car into my dad's. Three cars with metal to metal damage. If dad had known how to react to the car spinning he would have made a better choice to instead of standing on the brakes to try to stop, to hit the gas to avoid the spin. Sure, it would have cause him to hit the tire chunk, but the damage and end results to insurance would have been a lot less.

Lesson learned? Take dad autocrossing.

Finally, I will say that while autocrossing and racing do teach one to look ahead and anticipate what others are doing, I have a big problem with this. I often miss small things happening near the car (like nearby deer or other small animals) because I'm looking much farther down the road. It allows for good reaction time for vehicle accidents, but I've had some very close deer incidents as a contrast.

 

most drivers BARELY know how to handle their vehicles. 3,000 lbs is a lot of rsponsibility. children test limits so that they know where the line is. racing/autocrossing is the same thing. knowing your car and what line to take through a turn can prevent just as much as it can rescue you from.

 

you can also specify things like:

"look where you want to steer...because most people see an obstacle, but instead of looking at a path to avoid it, they look at the obstacle...and well..."

 

All very good points so far.

The very most basic and important thing auto-x/racing teaches you is to think multidimensionally. Most drivers see **** go down in front of them and just stay in their lane and brake, as if there is no other way to go but straight. Racers instinctively go around the object while braking, using other clear lanes or the shoulder/offroad as necessary.

Of course you learn far more skills than this, as already mentioned, but this I think is the most basic difference between us and the 99% of other drivers who've never driven their car on the limit before.

 

I was driving down the freeway with Phateless once, going about 70mph, dense traffic. Someone tried to merge into me, and I swerved to avoid him and started fishtailing. The car fishtailed four times before finding a straight line again, and each time I countersteered just enough to save it. Could have been ugly.

You could use that as an example of skill saving the day, or you could use it as an example of how better-trained reflexes could have prevented that in the first place. I hadn't been racing for very long back then.

Dan

 

yea i remember that. you hung on and rode it out. that was about the only thing to do. that was a good opportunity to wreck. thank god it wasn't my mom behind the wheel.