Has technology ruined racing? It certainly has changed it....

....but for the good of the sport?

As I am sitting here enjoying a cup of Kopi Luwat coffee courtesy of a ferrel cat (must think it was a civet in one of its prior lives) that discovered my stash of Community hotel blend beans, I pondered a recent stint in a friend's well prepared Porsche Cayman track beast.

No doubt the little P-car was stupid fast. Even driving 5/10s I turned a lap as fast as my best in a dedicated SCCA F/P race car. But the modern Teutonic masterpiece practically drove itself with all the traction control and ABS and whiz bang voodoo fuel injection gizmos. And now we have Audi prototypes that actually drive themselves within milliseconds of "a professional driver on a closed course."

Maybe I'm just an old curmudgeon. Although technology continues to produce better lap times, the human element is rapidly being pushed aside.

What say the brain trust?

The only tech produced thus far that has increased fun is ABS because flat spots on the tire that stops when that corner of the car gets light... are not fun. All the rest of that stuff interferes with the signal to noise ratio and I don't want it on my track or race cars because it's really not about raw speed for me. It's about applying skill to control the equipment at it's limit while beating the snot out of fellow competitors and how you can push your own limits while doing it.

I'd much rather be fighting for position in a tight pack at equestrian speeds than letting the computer do it for me at plaid.

There's 2 different styles of racing. You can have races that reward the guy who built the better car, or you can go towards spec racing and reward the better driver.

Personally, I like driving, not piloting. Other than ABS (and only if it's a good system), I don't like any of the driver assists much, even on the street.

When Sebastien Loeb reset the record at Pike's Peak a few years ago, he was faster than the fastest time predicted by the simulations.

We have LMP1 cars with 1000 hp to the ground, all wheel drive and able to race for 24 hours flat out. According to Webber, they're fastest with some slip. So the drivers are driving them effectively in a four wheel drift the entire time.

The technology has increased speeds, but there are still limits. And the best drivers will still push past those limits. Sure, pootling around at 5/10ths isn't engaging. It never really is on a race track. How did that Cayman feel when you lit your hair on fire and tried to find out what it could really do? I'll bet it was like every race car, you found the limits of the technology in the car - because face it, a car is nothing but technology of some sort - and you had to dance with them on the edge.

Tech hasn't just given us fast cars. It's given us slow cars that are reliable. And that's a big boon for racing as well. It's also given us the ability to ride along with an ex-F1 driver in the rain in the middle of the night, live on a laptop. No complaints there.

Tires. Really good tires and cars that can effectively use them are a bigger issue. Put 205 poly belted street tires on pretty much anything and it becomes way more engaging.
A lot of the people I personally know that complain about electronics 'ruining' driving don't drive hard enough to get a car on the hairy edge of grip more than onece or twice a lap, and that one time electronics intrude they're saving the driver from their own stupidity.
The idea that the only cars that one can enjoy are the ones that behave a certain way is really close minded. There's a hell of a lot of cars between a 1960 Beetle and a new GT-R,and most of them can be fun in their own way.

Ovid_and_Flem wrote: As I am sitting here enjoying a cup of Kopi Luwat coffee courtesy of a ferrel cat (must think it was a civet in one of its prior lives) that discovered my stash of Community hotel blend beans....

I am not sure what you were trying to say, but this creates an image of a grown man collecting the poo of a feral cat and then making drink out of it.

I'm sorry, what your question?

Might want to look up Kopi Luwat...

I do find it completely uninteresting to drive a car that has too much computer control. When I put the car in a situation where I know it should slip a little and it doesn't, it is lame as all heck. Many cars still have a decent amount of computer safety under accel, decel, braking, turning, or a combination of all even when in T/C off and in "Sport" mode. It makes too many interesting cars vanilla.

There is nothing more annoying to me than having a car yawn at you before doing what you ask at any given time. I guess that is why I am building a car with and engine controlled by a pedal, steering controlled by a wheel, gearing controlled by a shift lever, and brakes with nothing but hydraulics between the pedal and the calipers.

As for racing? I think it was mentioned above, it depends on the racing. It is about the car being built or the driver's control of the car?

If you want to post a "modern automotive technology is bad" screed, this is a good audience for it

Funny, even the lowly Focus will electronically aid in turning the car more efficiently.

When autocrossing, my recollection is it leads me to better times. I hate it. I expect one thing from the car, and it decides differently.

I usually remember to turn the TC off on my last timed run, and then take my fun runs with it off.

By my last fun run, I can usually get close to or equal the best timed run, but I don't think I best the EA run.

I should think the modern racers can use it to their advantage.

I hate it though. I wasn't the one driving the car, in a sense. I had help, and it plays to my biggest weakness, the idea that I can do it all myself.

Technology isn't the bad guy. The rulebook is. By this rational, Can-Am might have been the pinnacle of a race series. Almost no rules.

Personally, I despise driving vehicles with electronic doodads, so for the most part I don't.

However, technology absolutely belongs on the track. I would love to see the major series's of racing get away from their spec race formats and turn the tech guys loose. I would love to see a series with a rule list that would fit on a page or two, rather than an epistle.

I had a friend that ran Outlaw 10.5. The rule list was simple. Stock firewall, stock-style front suspension, mufflers, and all in a 3,000-pound package, riding on 10.5-inch rear slicks. Any engine size and any power adder or combination of power adders was allowed, though nitro always remained a no-go for insurance and safety reasons. There were some amazing cars that showed up for those races. Turbos, superchargers, nitrous, all of the above. Great racing, and the guys that lost would search for speed.

Limit something simple, like tire size, and fuel load. Then, let the builders and drivers battle it out with all of the skill and technology they can bring to the track. Then you will have a race where the best team wins.

(The above opinion is worth exactly what you paid for it.)

Hmmmmm, I seem to remember(25+ years ago) Emerson Fittipaldi taking a DMS Talon(or whatever) and being told about ABS... he promptly beat the computer simulation saying what the best possible time was.... in effect Emo delayed braking so late that he depended on the ABS....

oldeskewltoy wrote: Hmmmmm, I seem to remember(25+ years ago) Emerson Fittipaldi taking a DMS Talon(or whatever) and being told about ABS... he promptly beat the computer simulation saying what the best possible time was.... in effect Emo delayed braking so late that he depended on the ABS....

I saw the exact same thing. That program represents a large part of my overall impression of performance driving with ABS. I only recently learned that ABS still doesn't match threshold braking. I'd always thought that it did.

Im not a fan of electronic controls, maybe thats why newer cars have zero interest too me. The only motorsport ive been active in is drag racing though. The only electronics on either of my cars was the msd box and nitrous retard switch on one, the wideband on the other aside from factory ignition.

Mike wrote:

oldeskewltoy wrote: Hmmmmm, I seem to remember(25+ years ago) Emerson Fittipaldi taking a DMS Talon(or whatever) and being told about ABS... he promptly beat the computer simulation saying what the best possible time was.... in effect Emo delayed braking so late that he depended on the ABS....

I saw the exact same thing. That program represents a large part of my overall impression of performance driving with ABS. I only recently learned that ABS still doesn't match threshold braking. I'd always thought that it did.

In classes where ABS is legal with a weight penalty, teams will chose to take the penalty so they can have ABS. So obviously it's faster.

Passenger car ABS should still be able to match threshold braking (of an alert driver who has been practicing regularly, ie, everyone in this forum and no other driver on the road) on a smooth, level surface. But even the best driver can't modulate just one wheel. As a driver, you have to limit your braking so the wheel with the least traction doesn't lock. ABS can have all four wheels braking at the limit of their traction.

ABS should approximately match threshold braking provided it's a well designed system and tuned based on the tires you're running. If it's tuned based on tires that let go with far less slip than what's on the car, you'll be able to out-brake it (provided you don't have a massive traction imbalance between wheels that isn't accounted for in brake proportioning).

I have found in street driving and maybe a little extra. TC,SC & ABS are there if you need them. Most of the time you won't even know they are there. In winter driving, I can simulate traction control but why not just let the computer do it. On dirt roads, I have to make the stability control kick in, it reacts faster than I can. On ice, both wheels slide together, no SC. The only time my ABS kicks in is when it it slippery. I have yet to activate it on dry pavement.

Of course this is not on a race car, just my low powered 2013 Fiesta.

On the technology side of things my experience with adding aggressive pads to my Mazda2 turned into a learning experience when I found out the brake light switch adjustment(simple on-off switch that I thought was just for lights and cruise control) had a MASSIVE effect on pedal feel and brake bias.

Electronic brake force distribution sorcery

So I spend most of my track time in a 44 yr old car on 7" wide bias ply tires and as a driver I have a reputation for being in a constant a constant drift every inch of every corner and I can say old cars are slower and in general much much more work drive.

ABS as mentioned is easier on the tires and it also means your likely to be more consistent. I'm a trail braker so ABS seldom comes into play but I see it as a good thing, especially one there is a melee I front of you.

Stability control is annoying but there are actually two spots on my home track where if I were racing and had the ability to turn on sport/track mode then turn it right back off I would do so because it would be faster.

Shifting for all the blathering on about dbl clutch heal toe blah blah blah, my opinion is this adds nothing from a driver stand point. Note I heel and toe in my street cars, even the old truck. Drive a car with a proper sequential box that you can left foot brake, go up or down through the box without the clutch pedal and you never ever miss the rancid H pattern gear box ever again. Stewart, Clark, Lauda, Prost weren't World Champions because they were really good at heel and toe downshifts. Soft hands and feet make a great driver not the ability to operate a gearbox.

I love flogging my old car because I find it fun, but it's also a lot more work than one with the latest technology. The electro goodies allow you,to be more creative in what you can do with the car.

Technology is great because it allows the driver to 100% focus on what the tires are doing rather than having to put some of that focus into making up for anachranistic contol features and suspension design.

The whole technology is spoiling things is akin to saying an old tank shift Harley (dirt track bike) was better than a MotoGP bike.

Tech like efi, synchronized transmissions, power steering, disk brakes, and turbochargers ruin racing.

Heck, my 85 year old car at 5/10ths will dust my horse anyday, and horse racing is the purest form of the sport.

But honestly here, I see the logic that tech makes cars and drivers faster. I dont see any logic that delineates good tech that makes racing better from bad tech that doesn't.

Downforce and tire wars make bad racing.

I'd love to see a series on a hard spec tire and a rule that you can have zero downforce.

No more dirty air to make passing impossible and lots of slippy antics for the fans.

It would also put the engineering focus things road cars actually need- mechanical grip and low drag. By contrast, rigs with huge downforce, cd of .8 and tires that wear out in 200 miles are precisely NOT where the industry is headed.

If you want to do this with carbureted 800 cubic inch flat fours or electric cars inductively charging off the track it wouldn't matter. Still fun. Still lots of passing, still dramatic to watch.

I prefer electronics off, including abs, in my cars but that's mostly because I drive cars with bad factory electronic systems. I'm positive I could learn to live with Lotus Elise traction control.

This is why I often think that 20 years from now, most of the people who want to "truly drive" their racecars will have to either be vintage racing or doing rally. In rally, all the whiz-bang stuff doesn't make you the most likely to win (cite: Travis Patrana's heavily-built Subaru team car upside down at STPR today). Fancy aero will get damaged or destroyed in many cases. High-strung engines and lightweight componets will get broken. All your sensor-aided computer gizmos will be broken, or covered in mud, etc. And the cars that go the fastest flatout are the ones that hit the trees and ditches the fastest because rally is all about how fast the driver can respond to what he can't see.....that slick spot around the blind corner or the culvert that you hit when you jump that crest just a little bit crooked.

Sure there are gizmos like launch control and yaw control and fancy suspensions, but look at any rally and you'll see late-90s subarus beating late model evos. You'll see old e30s beating any modern RWD car out there. etc.

It depends on the car. Some systems are so invasive that it just kills all the fun. Then you have others that are there to help the fun instead of smother it. The Fiesta ST I codrove a couple of times last year was like the latter. I found that I was faster in Sport mode. Less understeer and better all around rotation, who wouldn't want that?

In reference to Aerodynamics/downforce; it is entirely possible to have cars with downforce that can follow each other closely, several F1 car designers have talked about it at length.

As for close racing, in motorcycle road racing the 125 now Moto3 races are slam bang dog fights almost every race yet how many people watch (other than me and 6 other guys in the U.S.)?

MotoGP bikes have no downforce lots of passing, lots of sliding and once upon a time no electronic gizmos yet not the most popular form of racing.

Tom