In the upstate New York area, it's Chris Gifford. The guy won 3 different chapters alone last season. Except for when there are karts, he usually gets FTD and he almost always gets 1st on PAX. He runs a brutally fast STR-prepped S2000 that has reportedly bent upper control arms before from the sheer amount of grip it generates on RE71Rs. But it isn't just the car, the guy is an absolute maniac. Always impressive to watch him work, and I got to ride in it this weekend and it was a white knuckle ride.

I have very little AX or track time under my belt, but I've completed thousands of miles of Enduro and Hare Scrambles on dirt bikes back in my youth.

The Lafferty family are all aliens. They can go fast with uncanny ease across lines that make no sense at all to human riders.

Toebra wrote: So yesterday I was down in Stockton, autocross day. There are a lot of guys with Corvettes, because fast. There are a couple guys with very similar ZO6 cars, fast version of fast car, and a lot of them are on Hoosiers, bring the car on a trailer and all. One nice older guy daily drives his, street tires, not Bridgestones or Rivals, seems like a human. On a 45 second course he is a full second to a second and a half faster than the guys on Hoosiers, who are all good drivers. I was running the grid, so I was kidding the guys on the R comps, "Shouldn't you be faster than him?" that sort of thing. He regularly whips up on guys driving open wheel cars on R comp tires too. At least he uses his powers for good, rather than evil. Does anyone else have any local, freak of nature drivers? I am just glad I don't have a Corvette.

This older gentleman; his name wouldn't happen to be Grant Byers, would it?

One of my friends, who let's just call "Gary" for a moment, is crazy fast in anything he drives. Sometimes when I don't have a viable vehicle to rallycross, he lets me drive his car (which is usually some form of nonturbo Subaru) and we proceed to bank off of each other line-wise until we utterly embarass the rest of our class.

"Gary" can do this thing mid-corner where the front wheels seemingly jump a foot inward. I have felt this before, when I had a certain driver from Colorado shame me in my own car a Nationals. (But dangit I was a second away from him overall last time!) He'd do something with the brakes and the front wheels would jump inward. At the last rallycross where I co-drove with "Gary", I asked him, okay WTF exactly are you doing when you do that?

He didn't know. I told him don't think about it, I'd just observe.

I couldn't figure it out. Neither could he. He just "does" it. In his words, as best as he could figure he just moves the car inward by force of will.

We've got a few running around in the SW Michigan/Northern Indiana area. We had a guy raw time the entire field (by 1.5 seconds) in a GS FoST on a big (1 mile+) wide-open course. I couldn't figure out how that was even possible. Seems like there was a video floating around, but I can't find it right now. If I find it, I'll edit and link it.

Pedro Ebert

burritodonediditagain

rickybobby

becauseBrasil

Knurled wrote: Video that was making the rounds in 2000-2001ish

On an autox course in the rain, I saw Bryan start to lose the back end on his MR2. Most drivers would have spun. But Bryan caught it when it was completely sideways, gathered up and finished with a competitive time. We called him "Slidekotter" for the rest of the day.

HappyAndy wrote: I have very little AX or track time under my belt, but I've completed thousands of miles of Enduro and Hare Scrambles on dirt bikes back in my youth. The Lafferty family are all aliens. They can go fast with uncanny ease across lines that make no sense at all to human riders.

I grew up casually riding dirt bikes through the woods. Nothing scares the crap out of me like onboard of a truly fast Hare Scrambles rider. There is no way I can think as fast as they ride.

I was at a test and tune day on the local track the Thursday before the old CART series was going to run. Met a guy in the paddock that was there to test on Friday. The track was closed for CART testing. As he put it to me he was the driver for the black car that was in the big black haller (there were actually three of them for his team). Anyway partway through the afternoon session I came in to re fuel and check tire temps and asked him if he wanted to take a spin in my FC.

He was At least 10 seconds faster than me per lap. We were on track for about half an hour and I just kept asking questions and he kept describing what he was doing. I learned more in that 30 minute than hundreds of hours of HPDE schools before or since that day.

I honestly did not know who he was at the time as I did not follow CART at the time.

He did things with my car that I did not know it could do. I was in the presence of a driving God!!!!

Turns out that guy was named Bobby now is partnered with Letterman.

My friend took this photo of me later on that day. That is me with my FC. Be for the days of all the modern safety gear.

In reply to mazdeuce:

I suspect that Pro or AA riders don't think a lot faster, just differently. It may even be to thier advantage to think a bit less to avoid sensory overload.

One thing that I always get a laugh out of is tutorial videos, or back in the day they were sequential photos, of how pros tackle obstacles or challenging terrain. They all seem to show very logical lines and techniques that an advanced amateur could pick up quickly. When you are out there against the real Pros, you see that they don't do any of that! They never give tutorials on the illogical hero lines. They might as well just say "Use the Force".

Type Q wrote:

Knurled wrote: Video that was making the rounds in 2000-2001ish

On an autox course in the rain, I saw Bryan start to lose the back end on his MR2. Most drivers would have spun. But Bryan caught it when it was completely sideways, gathered up and finished with a competitive time. We called him "Slidekotter" for the rest of the day.

What? Is that not normal?

Incidentally. I love helmet cam. Put your finger about centered over the GIFs.

It's one thing to see "car attitude" but it is quite another to see "what is the driver looking at". Just like mountain bikes, you go where you look. What are you looking at, the thing you're trying to avoid, or the corner exit? Where do you want to BE?

Understeering, oversteering, too fast, too slow, look at where you want to be, always.

dean1484 wrote: Turns out that guy was named Bobby now is partnered with Letterman.

So

um

who was it?

Claff wrote:

dean1484 wrote: Turns out that guy was named Bobby now is partnered with Letterman.

So um who was it?

Bobby Rahal?

Knurled wrote: "Gary" can do this thing mid-corner where the front wheels seemingly jump a foot inward. I have felt this before, when I had a certain driver from Colorado shame me in my own car a Nationals. (But dangit I was a second away from him overall last time!) He'd do something with the brakes and the front wheels would jump inward. At the last rallycross where I co-drove with "Gary", I asked him, okay WTF exactly are you doing when you do that? He didn't know. I told him don't think about it, I'd just observe.

I had a dream last night where I was driving a Civic and I did it. All four wheels were sliding a little yet all "working" (you know that feeling you get when the tires are working), I wasn't countersteering or steering into the corner, it was just "there", and I dabbed the brakes a moment and the car rotated around its polar CG for a moment.

It felt familiar. I think I've actually done the move before. I just never practiced it enough to add it to my driver skillset.

Burrito wrote:

Claff wrote:

dean1484 wrote: Turns out that guy was named Bobby now is partnered with Letterman.

So um who was it?

Bobby Rahal?

Never told me his last name and not being interested in CART I did not look in to it and there was no internet back then so it was not like today when you can just google somthing. I can not say for absolute certainty but that is who I think it was.

A funny side note. When I was on track after lunch one of the Indy cars came on track. Just as I set the car to turn into turn one of the oval I saw the nose of the Indy car common on to the track at the exit of the road course where it comes on to the front strait at the exit of turn 4. He passed me in turn two and again in the back part of the road course on the same lap of mine. The speed differences in t2 made me feel like I could have got out and walked away from my car and I was probably doing 70 mph or more.

That was a day I will never forget and cemented my want to go race "real" race cars.