Turn 4
Why does no one ever over take on turn 4? This is just an oval circuit, right? I mean, all the driver needs to do is turn left every now and then, surely?
shareUm.....they do?
The scene where Cole is told not to pass on the outside of turn 4.......that's because it's a tricky corner. Darlington is renowned for being a challenging racetrack.
Yeah, but Cole comes back with something like "you told me never to pass on turn 4".
I didnt know the name of the track, so I just googled it - I was right, it is just a big oval. So what makes turn 4 on an oval track harder than the rest?
I think he meant don't past on turn 4 at that particular track; not every single racetrack.
Darlington is actually a unique, egg-shaped oval. The fastest way around the track is to let your car drift up near the wall in the middle of the corner, and you run really close to the wall, so it's a very challenging track.
Watch this clip to get a sense of what Darlington is like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jS_22E4BB5I
I'm sorry - being used to the F1, I am having trouble understanding how an oval track can be difficult. You only need to turn in one direction.
shareThat's pretty much ignorantly way over-simplifying things.
Making a turn is easy. Anyone can do it. We do it in our passenger cars everyday.
But making a turn as fast as you possibly can, squeezing every ounce of performance that your car is capable of, and racing competitively in one of the world's premier racing series (while keeping the car in one piece) is extraordinarily difficult.
The long, sweeping, high-speed turns that oval-shaped racetracks present are very difficult when you're trying to get through them at speeds from 100-160 mph. People don't even go that fast going straight on a highway.
Each track is different and each have their own unique characteristics........the shape, the length, the radius of the turns, the banking, condition of the surface, etc.
The particular conditions at Darlington make the fastest racing line up near the wall.
Mate, its an oval track. How challenging can that be? Its not Monaco, its not the Nurghburghring - its just a bog standard oval track with normal cars going over it.
And to top it all off, all the drivers need to turn in the same direction. So, again, what is it that makes that corner so hard compared to the rest? You cannot be going any faster there, as the pictures of the track suggest that all the corners and straights are the same length.
I answered your question and now you're going to be a rude jerk about it because you like F1 and you don't even know anything about NASCAR........that's real cool, dude.
sharePlainly you didnt answer my question - it still stands. How can turn 4 of an oval track be any harder than the other three corners? Each of the straights are the same length and each of the corners look like they match their parteners, so turn four shouldnt matter at all.
I couldnt care less if it is NASCAR or not, my point is that the track is far from complex in the first place. As for being an F1 fan, when did I say that? I could draw comparisons to a whole bunch of other motorsports, F2, F3, WRC, DTM - they all use drivers who need to turn in both directions and are all a lot bigger in the sporting world than NASCAR.
I don't know what track you were looking at, but the straights and corners at Darlington Raceway are all different lenghts. Not all oval tracks are symmetrical.
shareThey are not only different in length the banking is different at many tracks which means the fastest "line" is different.
I've seen many comments ridiculing NASCAR type races as "just driving around in circles" mostly by Europeans who don't understand how difficult "driving around in circles at 200 mph really is. Ask any driver who has driven only road courses and then tried their luck in NASCAR. If it was so easy you would see many of them at the top. Montoya is one driver who seems to have made the switch well but even he wouldn't say it was easier than road courses. From a fan's view NASCAR oval races are better because of the ability to see the whole race from one spot especially if you like to follow one particular driver.
With NASCAR's drive to make it more competitive and safer they have hurt the sport in my opinion. The identical cars with identical parts causes cars to bunch up and create a lot of accidents though not fatal for the drivers. Maybe NASCAR thinks that having more wrecks makes it more popular with the fans. It certainly makes it more popular for the advertising companies. I still think they should have unlimited classes and/or get rid of the restrictor plates..After all suicide is one act that's difficult to control by rules. :)
The debate will go on forever but I think the interest originally started and is still happening in the many dirt tracks all across the nation where the courses and stands were easy to set up for weekly races, usually on Saturday night. After alcohol became legal it was a place where the ex-bootleggers could show off their fast cars and the fans could drink a beer without the feds coming after them. It grew from there and now even the city dudes love NASCAR and guzzle beer even though the sport is more popular in non-urban areas.
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My favorite: "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb"
Turn 4 is the exit to turn 3; it's not a separate corner. Just like in road racing, passing is generally done on the entry into a corner, not coming off the corner.
Think of Indianapolis with its four distinct turns. This is where oval racing got its naming convention of having four turns. Eliminate the short chute, and turns 3 and 4 become one long turn.
OP seem to be a moron and a troll, the question is already answered several times, Turn 4 at darlington is a little tricky and you normally dont pass there, especially not on the outside
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"if seagal was thinner this could have been a theatrical product."
Mate, its an oval track. How challenging can that be? Its not Monaco, its not the Nurghburghring - its just a bog standard oval track with normal cars going over it.
Ask Juan Pablo Montoya. He won at Monaco in F1, yet has never won on an oval in nascar. Ask Jacques Villenueve. He won at the nuremburgring, was an F1 champ, yet couldnt get a fledgling nascar career off the ground (He was good at road courses but sucked on ovals.)
Darlington is also not a standard oval:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darlington_Raceway
Im not a big fan of wikipedia, but just read the first paragraph to get a better idea of whats going on.
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as the pictures of the track suggest that all the corners and straights are the same length.
You must not be looking at Darlington, the straightaways are the same there but nobody can claim the corners are identical...
I think it was a legitimate question. If all things were equal, if it were a symetrically oval track with identical banks, straights and surfaces, then there would be absolutely no difference between turn 2 and turn 4. This is the basis of the question, "why would turn 4 be any different thn turn 2?"
So obviously something is different about turn 4, be it the banking the radius or the fact that it's where the pits let back out onto the track. There MUST be a difference and that is wht the question begged- what's with turn 4 on what is seemingly a symetrical oval track?
"Tommy want wingy"
Take a look at Darlington ( http://www.cbssports.com/autoracing/tracks/page/darlington). You can get a good idea of what Im talking about by the aerial photograph. It is not a symetrical track. Turns 1 and two are wider than 3 and 4. The banking is also different at either end of the track. This doesnt seem like it would present too many problems, but with the speeds a driver is carrying going into turn 3, the lack of track space coming out of the turn (turn 4) makes it difficult to get the car around in enough time to avoid scraping or even plowing into the wall. The question would have been legitimate if the track was symetrical, but clearly it is not...
shareThanks, VI Cess. That picture speaks volumes about Turn 4. Worth a thousand words, I'd say.
Clearly, it is not symetrical. The OP needed to do more research apparently. I guess that's why he came here- was to research it.
On a side note, I 'm not even sure I'd take that turn at 50-MPH well alone at over 100-MPH. Doing that in heavy traffic? Forget it. Those crazy bastards can HAVE it.
"Tommy want wingy"
OP shoulda checked the track layout before bothering IMDB-forum with bs questions, everybody knows Darlington is an asymmetrical and unique track.
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"if seagal was thinner this could have been a theatrical product."
ok Yall are arguing like Ricky Bobby and Jean Girard.
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