Watching yesterday’s 107th running of the Indianapolis 500 brought back some memories, some of which were great, some not-so-great.
I still don’t know whether Dick Simon picked me out of the other rookies during early days of practice at the ’93 Indy 500, or if he did what he did for every rookie. But what he said made a huge impact on my driving and coaching… to this day.
I had gone through Rookie Orientation (RO), which was at the time (and it’s similar to this, now) where new drivers to the 500 go through four phases: drive ten laps within a speed range, then move to the next range, then the next, and finally the last range. Because that entire month of May thirty years ago was a wild mix of emotions – up, down and sideways – there are details I don’t remember, such as the exact speed ranges RO required. I think I had to drive ten laps between 195 and 205 MPH, then ten between 205 and 210, then 210 to 215, and the final phase was ten laps above 215. I zipped through these without too much effort; I was driving one of the last of the Buick turbos that were allowed more boost than the Ford-Cosworth and Chevy-Ilmor (because the 500 was sanctioned by USAC, not CART, and they wanted to give the stock block pushrod engines a chance against the pure race engines), and it got down the straights REALLY fast.
Walking back from pitlane through Gasoline Alley to our team’s garage, Dick Simon – a rival team-owner – stopped me, introduced himself to me (although I certainly knew who he was and his accomplishments as a driver and team owner). He then said to me, “Every driver struggles to take turns one and three flat, so don’t worry, you’ll get there. But here’s how you approach it so you feel comfortable and get fast quicker. Go out in your next session, drive down the front straight at full throttle, lift at the Start/Finish line, coast until you’re just before Turn One, then go to full throttle and drive through there flat to the floor. On each of your next laps, lift at the same place, but coast for less time – until you’re no longer even lifting and you take Turn One flat.”
The idea behind Dick’s approach was twofold: First, it got me into the habit of driving through Turn One with my foot flat to the floor on the throttle. And second, because I was at full throttle from the instant I turned in (in fact, from even before turning in), the car was better balanced, and therefore had more grip. The worst thing you can do in a fast corner, whether at the Indy Speedway or on a road course, is lift off the throttle in the middle of it and unbalance the car. Actually, even worse than worst is trailing into a very fast corner, and by “trailing” I may mean trail braking, or simply lifting off the throttle. Again, unbalancing a car in a fast corner is not a nice thing to do to it – or to yourself.
This approach to learning to drive a fast corner is something that I’ve applied to road courses, as a driver and coach, ever since. And it’s works like magic.
“At the beginning I have to be honest, the right foot, how do you say, had a mind of its own and was not connected with my brain, so I wanted to be flat out, but the right foot has its own life.” - Fernando Alonso (after his first day of driving at Indy)
I’d like to say that Dick’s advice made the ultimate difference to me being able to flat Turn One at Indy, but it didn’t. It almost did, but a lap or two before I was going to eliminate the lift of the throttle at the yard of bricks on the front straight, I got “Buicked.”
I won’t mention the name of the builder who was supplying teams with the Buick turbo engines back in those days, but what became obvious during that month of May was their quality control was lacking. And that led to the throttle linkage inside the plenum chamber sticking. As in wide open, full throttle. That’s when I flatted Turn One for the first time! Unintentionally.
Okay, I have to admit that I didn’t really flat it, because I’m pretty sure my foot lifted slightly off the throttle pedal. But the engine didn’t know that, and I turned into Turn One at full throttle. And made it.
Lesson learned.
After switching the engine off on the backstraight and coasting into pit lane, I now knew that I could flat Turn One.
It was typically at this point when teams would trim out the car (reduce wing angles) for a driver who had learned that they could drive the entire Speedway at full throttle, and the search would begin to find the ultimate balance between aero downforce and straight-line speed. I got a taste of that, but not much more….
A couple of days later, I found myself in the ICU at Methodist Hospital with serious burns on my face, neck,and hands. No, I didn’t crash, but I did get Buicked again, with a fuel regulator that cracked and sprayed methanol into the cockpit, which lit me on fire while I was traveling at over 220 MPH between turns Three and Four.
But that’s a story for another day.
I see what you did there Ross. Catchy title. Let me know your email open rate on this one compared to average. 😂
When I attended your group at the Ring yeats ago one of the things my instructor ponted out was to forget trail-breaking in most turns. I guess the same applies to the fast turns at the Ring.