The similarities between race car driving and slalom skiing

[Horton]

Younger me thought there were a lot of parallels between race car driving and slalom skiing. Older me is not sure there are as many parallels as I thought ( and I still have never sat in the drivers seat of a car on a race track). Anyway this video is interesting. Some of it maybe is similar to skiing and some of it certainly is not.

 

[markn]

Have been driving track porsches for 15 years...the old air cooled ones with no nanny tech. I guess one could make the analogy. But the objective of driving a track course is to complete the lap as fast as possible. ...sometimes using unorthodox approaches and exits in turns. In skiing, most skiers want the earliest path through the course. This translates to the earliest apex as possible. On track some turns may require an earlier entry point others a later apex depending upon exit strategy and set up for coming out of the turn.

Horton, get a ride in a dedicated track car....you would love it.

[6balls]

Yeah go racing, dude. We rented formula Fords a few years back at Brainerd International. There were lots of hot sports cars (Lambo/Porsche/Ferrari etc) there, too, but the actual race cars (while having less power) made them look silly in the twisties.

Open air, 4 point harnesses, and real manual tranmissions. What a riot.

 

Even fast kart racing is fun. The rentals around here approach 50 mph while the comp karts might hit 90 on the straight. In the twisties they handle, well, like race cars. That's a lot of fun, too.

[dbski]

I've done enough track driving that if I had to choose between skiing or track driving, it would be the track no question. The rush driving balls out on the track is something everyone should try! They opened one of those private track/condo developments in the Detroit area, if I only had that kind of money!

[rico]

The most obvious similarity is that you go where you are looking.

[Wish]

Now that's a question for @SkiJay. Being a pro race car driver and skier and having made gear for both. +1 go where you are looking...eyes up and picking points of where you want to be in the course.

[Tom351]

Course skiing to me is almost as if you are in a race car where your speed/lap time is predetermined... and as the driver you have to be able to make all of the corners at that speed. You have no throttle control and you keep going faster and faster each lap until you miss a turn.

[Horton]

Given a choice road racing seems a hundred times more interesting than NASCAR style oval racing but I think perhaps the similarities to slalom skiing would be more like a one and a half mile track in a stock car. Yes I know they only turn left but that's not the point.

 

As I stated in the original post, the similarities seemed plausible to me years ago. Today I don't know. Maybe it's just winter conversation.

[Jody_Seal]

I think car racing is less expensive then waterskiing.

[Jetsetr]

I get PAID to drive my race cars...just say’n

[Horton]

@Jetsetr In a straight line? That would be off topic.

[kurt]

I used to think that vision was the only thing, then I had @TFIN out last year and he's talking about early or late apex and starting to sound like one of my driving coaches.

But then again he's really good at finding out what message you can understand.

 

The rush coming into turn one when your two wide bumper to bumper is quite amazing.

@Jody_Seal not sure if car racing is cheaper , it's usually a 1k weekend to race and that doesn't include hotel or if you wreck...

[Adam Caldwell]

While I moved away from trying to draw to many conclusions from sports like this years ago, I will say that I do think there are a lot of parallels to flat track dirt bike track racing. Ones that are far more obvious anyway.

 

Yaw and roll rotations are much more comparable to our sport. Pitch maybe a bit less obvious but something that you can still observe analyzing the squat in the front or rear suspension throughout a turn or acceleration.

 

The shear lack of traction of the bike....with the back end sliding while the front end influences rotation in and out of the turn.

 

 

 

 

[UCFskier]

racing alpine GS feels so much like slalom skiing in the course. I think it could actually be used as an off season training tool

[markn]

Jody, maybe based on the car....like a miata. But in my experience, driving a dedicated track car is 3x-4x more expensive than skiing!

[MISkier]

Probably the most relatable concept in the race video in this thread to water skiing was describing the shifting of weight in the car at the wrong times or too frequently. Reminded me of de-weighting the ski at the wrong time and then compensating with a bunch a bad position changes to ultimately finish the turn slowly/suboptimally. It's a loss of control that subsequently ruins the perfect apex and your ability to carry speed through it, rather than riding through it on rails.

 

If Xtreme Xperience ever holds an event near you, sign up. The one at Michigan International Speedway has a mix of curves and straightaways. They have the exotic cars. Total blast.

[waterskiwag]

The timing of the edge change is similar to the concept of braking points coming into a corner in auto racing. Gotta slow down (at the right time and the absolute minimum possible) to go fast...to the next ball/to the next corner.

[MDB1056]

This comparison was Wade Cox’s favorite comparison ( slalom vs NASCAR) from 1998 video Adrenaline Rush. Both focus on whoever goes fastest with the most control wins.

[Horton]

When I first got the idea that NASCAR and slalom had ideas in common I still thought that carrying more speed through apex would mean less effort to get back up to max speed on the way to the next ball. I still think there is a sliver of truth to that but as the rope gets extra short I think it is less and less true. You need to get as wide as possible and then slow down to be in position to make speed again on the way back to the centerline. The idea that better skiers have a lot more speed through apex is false. The best skiers are ready to make speed after apex and do so the most efficiently.

[MDB1056]

Wade was right. Speed and control wins

[Ed_Johnson]

Having spent most of my life driving Race cars from Go Karts as a kid, to Sports Cars, Formula Cars, and even Indy Cars, the most glaring correlation is setting up the turn so as to ACCELERATE off of the Apex....The advantage in Slalom, is you have the same turn 6 times in a row. Yet, for a lot of us, myself included, it is still hard to get that right.

 

Also, the Race Car, especially Formula Cars, are just like Slalom Skis, in that they are BOTH extremely dependent on proper set-up. Done incorrectly, they both can become dangerous and unforgiving.

 

They also share the commonality that high speed crashes are scary as hell, and injuries seem to be all to common...Yet, for those of us that Love both these sports, we deem this as acceptable risk, a trait that sets us apart from many others.

 

I myself thank God I have had the opportunity to participate in both, and share this experience with some of the greatest people I have known.

 

 

[Adam Caldwell]

Maybe a bit off topic but I'll throw this out there...

 

For a car, the ability to accelerate is largely a function of something internal, ie. the engine, tires, etc.

 

For a skier, the ability to accelerate is not "internal". If it was, you would see all the muscle heads out there running huge scores, and the skinny guys not - which is obviously not a reality.

 

For the skier (who is the secondary element in the system) to start an acceleration phase, the rope must first begin to undergo 'rotational acceleration' around the pylon.

 

We need the rope to decelerate in its counterclockwise upswing into 1 ball until it stops, and then slowly begin rotational acceleration in a clockwise direction to start swinging back through the wakes to 2 ball.

 

Conclusion: True acceleration out of a turn is not possible unless the rope has changed directions.

[6balls]

"True acceleration out of a turn is not possible unless the rope has changed directions."

 

@adamhcaldwell in one sentence that was some really cool shit right there!

[Daryn_Dean]

@Horton,

 

The similarity for me is the rush I get during and after completing the activity. Like you, I always gravitated to the idea of racing cars. I waited 44 years before making the decision to give it a shot. It started with some track day events using my street car, and it will undoubtedly evolve into a GT3 race car. I now claim driving and skiing as two of my biggest passions in life. You should give it a try.

 

-Daryn Dean

Lakes of Katy, TX

[Horton]

@Chuck_Norris I have often said that if I win the lottery I will die in a race car. Until I win the lottery I'm not going to have that chance.

[disland]

@horton skip the cars and go strait to racing planes and yaghts

[dbski]

 

For those of you that have never had the thrill of driving on a track, a great way of doing it is go to a driving school. Not only do you get to drive without limits, but you actually learn some skills. That way you're not in over your head. It will also make you a better road driver. I've done several but the one I really enjoyed was the Bondurant School in Phoenix.

[DW]

While on the subject of racing - 'Ford v Ferrari' picked up a couple of Oscars. Nice to see a racing movie worth watching...

 

As noted by many, getting out on a track is an amazing experience. A pure formula car is an amazing experience although I will say for an overall insane experience its hard to beat a blast down the Baja peninsula in an off road vehicle, that extra degree of freedom and insane spectators create quite the ambiance...

[Skierx]

Having raced Indy cars and stock cars for 10 years some road racing mostly oval & be 20 years of snowmobile ice oval racing. There doesn't seem to be a lot of similarities between slalom skiing and racing although there are some. in snowmobiling you do have the ability to change the COM which will affect pitch and roll. so you are moving the center of quicom aroundt a bit which in water skiing is not very helpful at all. This has been the biggest hindrance in my slalom skiing that I have had to overcome. Snowmobile to go fast in a straight line com must be back as far as possible to get as much weight off of the skis & when you approached the turn the trick is to break as late as possible they call it threshold braking meaning you jump on the brakes pretty hard and release them slowly but at the same time com has to shift forward as much as possible to add weight to the front skis for traction grip and as far away from the machine as you can to counterbalance the weight. Very effective for fast lap times. But in relation to slalom skiing I have found out the hard way that pitch is much more subtle. Obviously we don't want to taill ride in our acceleration we want com centered on the ski so we have is much ski in the water as possible. From centerline to the Bowie this is the place where I went wrong for many years. I thought pitching my com forward or jumping on the front of the ski was a good way to slow it down for the turn. Why have I been wrong. Centerline out to the buoy if I stand up tall while yawing the ski it will catch more naturally what are you doing now with the balls of my feet and ankles so I'm not really slowing down I'm actually at the fastest point of the cut .rope is spinning around the pylon as fast as it's going to. As I reach the highest point on the boat reaching the hand out and rolling the skiing in to finish the turn is what slows the speed down as the boat starts to pull away and travel faster than the skier. As far as the vision goes it's at that point we're at five spot the boat it doesn't feel like my hair is on fire. So the speed feels relative. I liked when@adamcaldwell mentioned the speed of the rope traveling around the pylon actually stops as it changes directions when we reach to finish the turn. Very interesting. So applying racing techniques can somewhat hinder slalom skiing especially when we consider pitch.

[Dsully]

This thread got me thinking about the growing popularity of vintage racing. All those guys look like there having a ton of fun. So...what if there was vintage skiing events? Tow boats couldn't be newer 20 years old, skies had to be at least 10 years old.