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      06-19-2018, 05:52 AM   #23
CSBM5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DreamTime View Post
This is just awesome. I wasn't even alive yet in 1981. Anyone who has been doing this for longer than I have been on this planet deserves my attention. I would always want to listen to your stories!! Seriously, this may be my favorite response I have ever gotten on these forums. I love Road Atlanta, so it is beyond awesome to hear your experience of the track from then. Wtf was the elevator shaft end of the back straight?? Was there no 10a & 10b?? For the record, my favorite part of any track that I have been to so far begins coming out of 10b at RA, heading uphill to 11, going under the bridge, slight right turn, upshift, then full throttle all the way into 12 and the front straight. Good lord. I'm getting excited just writing about it lmao.

I just googled Evo School. Will be looking into that for sure.
The main reason I guess my reply was a bit outside the box is that doing that Phase 1 and 2 Evo school will give you continual opportunity to experience putting the tires right on the sweet spot of the tractive force versus slip angle curve, and you'll quickly learn how to stay right near the peak but just to the left of the peak -- develop that keen attachment to the feedback your senses are receiving. An autox course, done right, has the tires at their absolute limits, but not over, continually all the way around the course, with all transitions in steering, braking and acceleration blended with perfect smoothness so as to extract every possible 1/1000 sec. You'll have national championship winning coaches working with you the whole time.

Road Atlanta back then had a huge drop off as you come over the last hill on the back straight. They filled that in significantly when they redid the course over 20 years ago now, and then rerouted the course through those tight corners and made the approach to the bridge almost straight. The initial layout was scary as you can imagine to be zipping along the back straight at WOT and then accelerate like crazy down that chute, but it was just as steep going up toward the bridge, so you could really use that for braking into the bridge turn. That bridge turn apex was right under the bridge, so it wasn't uncommon to track out from it with the tail hanging out a bit under power and sweeping well over into the pit road entrance area down the hill, to setup for turn 12 onto the main straight. It was scary, especially for passengers, but a lot of fun.

There was only one pit back then, the one on the outside of the track, so I'm referring to its entrance above. Where the inside pit is currently located used to be a motocross track (which was incredible btw).

I do recall that at that first event a car lost its brakes going into the bridge turn and came through at huge speed, and cart wheeled end over end down the hill in the dirt toward the pit entrance. Driver had to be air lifted out. He lived at least.

There were so many very high speed crashes that I guess they finally said enough and redid the course in the 90s.

Here's a super8 movie film of RA in 1970 I found on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3NhmB0PBY0 The CanAm cars back then reached insane speeds on the back straight.
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