Originally posted by Nilsen
Oval track racing in any form looks extremly boring to me. If they raced nascar on normal tracks it may be abit more exciting.
Nascar Nextel Cup does road racing, albeit only two races. Nascar Busch series adds a road race in Mexico City. These are fun to watch. Road races draw a lot of road racing drivers to Nascar... But, they rarely beat the Nascar regulars.
I think that some F1 fans tend to look down on the oval track drivers, mostly out of ignorance. Some Nascar fans are snobbish as well.
If you take a look at some of road racing's famous drivers, you find some who got their start and were successful in oval racing. Mario Andretti, Parnelli Jones and AJ Foyt. Andretti won just about everything worth winning. USAC Champ title, USAC Spint champ, CART title, F1 Champion, Daytona 500, Indy 500 and so on. The only thing missing is a win at LeMans. In his prime, there wan't anything that Mario couldn't drive and drive as fast or faster as anyone else alive.
Even today there are Nascar drivers with as much talent as you will find anywhere.
Does anyone recall Jeff Gordon's F1 test at Indy in June of 2003? He had an opportunity to test Montoya's Williams/BMW. Montoya in turn had the chance to drive Gordon's Monte Carlo.
Each driver took their own cars out for some fast laps and to make sure the set-ups were correct for the circuit. Gordon had not driven the Indy F1 course before, so he spent some time getting his Chevy set-up properly. After each had turned the fastest laps they could manage, they traded cars.
Montoya did reasonably well in the heavy Monte Carlo. He was able to lap within 5 seconds of Gordon's best time. Montoya stated that these were very difficult cars to adjust to. Gordon thought that Montoya had adjusted quickly and also believed he would be competitive with more practice and a few changes to the car. Gordon suggested some set-up adjustments that would better suit Montoya's driving style. Montoya promptly cut three seconds off his lap times. Based upon the speed difference ratio between Gordon and Montoya, Montoya would have qualified 29th of 43 cars at the Watkins Glen Cup road race.
"If Juan were to get a few races under his belt, I have no doubt that he would be as fast as anyone driving a Cup car, especially on the road courses", said Gordon.
When it was Gordon's turn, he headed out in the Williams, gradually increasing his speeds. Like Montoya had done in the Monte Carlo, Gordon over-cooked it into a turn and ended up driving the Williams across the infield and back onto the circuit.
As he adjusted to the Williams, Gordon's times rapidly came down. His final lap was just 1.3 seconds slower than Montoya's best. It was a time fast enough to make the F1 Indy field that year. Not bad for 7 laps at speed in a totally unfamiliar car.
Watching Gordon lap around Indy, the Williams and F1 people were quite impressed. "It's a shame he didn't get more time in the car," said Montoya, "I'm sure he'd be as competitive as anybody in F1."
Both drivers admitted to being a bit conservative, not wishing to risk damaging the other's car. Both drivers demonstrated that talent is not limited by the type of car, and served to show experience required to master them is all each needed to be competitive. Great driving talents will excel in any type of car, given the opportunity.
Gordon and Montoya at Indy.
My regards,
Widewing
