Dec 03 2008
The New York Times Reports Scott Speed will race with Red Bull in the Nascar series full time next year. The team will change the Toyota to No. 82 from No. 84 to accommodate Speed, who has been training for Nascar since his release from Red Bull’s Formula One team in the summer of 2007. Jimmy Elledge will be his crew chief.
Nov 19 2008
RallyScott over at RallyBuzz has a great post about WRC superstar Sebastien Loeb testing in an F1 car.
I can’t even imagine the difficulty making a transition to that type of car. For those that don’t know World Rally cars supped up versions of compact street car. They are then driven on closed roads that are made up of dirt, gravel, tarmac or all combined. Car travel down these stages one at a time to see who can set the best time.
F1 cars are like complicated space ships with wheels. They race on smooth tarmac but they race wheel to wheel with other spaceships at the same time.
Loeb is used to driving a car at it’s limit and in time I think he will be able to adapt drive the an F1 car at it limit. He is going to have to reach deep and quickly learn to drive wheel to wheel in his space ship F1 car. Some drivers can drive a great lap on a track by them selves, but it takes a great driver to pt down a great lap thru traffic.
Nov 05 2008
Lewis Hamilton has a flare for the dramatic and it is intoxicating. Hamilton won the F1 world championship by just one point. If that wasn’t close enough, he only managed to get that one point because of a miraculous pass of Toyota’s Timo Glock in the last seconds of the race. In a coincidence, Hamilton lost last year’s world championship by just one point.
Lewis Hamilton is now the highest paid person in sports across the world. He will bring in a total of 160 million dollars this year. Tiger woods come in second with about 120 million. Hamilton states that he would race for free and the money is just a bonus on top of doing the hobby that he loves. Hopefully his boss doesn’t find out. Only time will tell if there is ever a contract fight for him. Will he stay with his mentor team at McLaren.
Oct 28 2008
The athletes themselves along with their fans claim that car racers are the fittest and healthiest on earth. How can this be when the only thing they do is grip the stick and steering wheel?
In a race, the driver must stay composed and focused. There should be a continuous contact with technical team while in control of the race car driving around the track. On top of that, the driver has with him dozen of competitors that with unwise decision, he can collide and lost life with. And who on earth can manage decision-making in split of seconds on a speed of 300 kilometers per hour? Only guys at the peak of their physical and mental stability can do that.
Car racers spend a lot of time in the gym. They know better when it comes to taking care of themselves; physical health including the heart, neck, and diet, and the mental health.
Normal heart rate of a human being is 60 beats per minute, rising to more than 100 depending on the activity he is doing. A car racer’s heartbeat could reach more than 150 per minute during a race, the same of that of runners on field. Mental stress causes the difference. Car racing requires extreme concentration, pumping tremendous amount of adrenalin, same way the physical stress causes the high heartbeat rate.
To be able to deal with such extremities, drivers should indulge to intense cardiovascular workout for up to few hours a day. Doing so helps in weight maintenance as well.
Car racing is one of the sports that greatly demands neck strength. The neck has to support a head with helmet heavier than regular, combined with G-Force during a race: a total of more than 20 kilograms, making it the most important muscle in a driver.
Large elastic bands are used to simulate the demands of high G-Force during training. Drivers also incorporate resistance work into their exercise regime – rowing and weight lifting. But since Formula One cockpits are very small, no racer is allowed to weigh like a lifter.
Like track and field athletes, F1 drivers should carefully regulate their carbohydrate and protein intake. Pasta and bread are what they eat, for carbohydrates.
Before the race and throughout, drivers absorb huge amounts of water. This prevents driver to dehydrate. Heat in F1 cockpit is enough to make someone sweat off few pounds of body weight during course of a race.
Physical health stability alone is not enough for car racers. Mental health as well is very important, too. Teams usually have sports psychologists to make sure that a driver is capable of mind control during a race. They make the driver review track maps, visualize a route and a lap, so that he would feel familiarized as though he has driven the course already.
Breathing technique is a plus factor. Drivers do need to stay calm at crucial moments. He needs not to be distracted by the people around him: medical team, technical staff, and screaming fans and members of the press.
May 20 2008
*Bonus site — http://www.YOUTUBE.com - You want some great in car shots of the next race your going to, your thinking about driving in a new class, do a search on YouTube and you can find out what the view looks like from behind the wheel. Check out the close racing action, Search for “Spece30”
May 09 2008
Do you have the need for speed or the desire to prove that you are the best driver? I have a series of posts for you!
This is the first installment in a series of posts related to getting started in auto racing. In this series we will cover the following:
We will be posting this series in installments and we may not always go in order.
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Did I miss anything in this list? Give us some feedback and we will be sure to write about it.
