Endurance racing & stock cars: Do they have anything in common?

What does endurance and oval-track racing have in common? More than you realize. And both can learn something from each other.

Prior to joining Grassroots Motorsports earlier this year, I had been intimately involved in oval-track racing for more than two decades. A little more than a week ago, I covered my first full endurance racing event–the Lucky Dog Racing …

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Really cool to have this sort of insight into both worlds, especially since I'm not well-versed in the world of circle-track racing.

Thanks, J.A.

Well a friend of mine who came from dirt racing and racing dirt late models here in Edmonton and now works in Toronto for a big car club just won a lucky dog endurance race this past weekend in calabogie.

I kind of enjoy it when people say circle track drivers can't drive.  I once got to see Michael Waltrip show up to do a legends car race on a road course.  It turns out fast drivers are fast....  he won by a lot.

On an oval you spend almost every second challenging the friction circle of optimal traction.  You get lots of skill that way quickly.

There are a few people alive that were at the same event I was where I got to run an autocross against Lynn St.James in a Ford Probe at the Roanoke Civic Center. I had never driven one before and I have no idea how much seat time she had before the event, but I suspect she had some. She kicked major ass that day including mine of course. She knew how to find the edge of the friction circle and hang on for dear life. As I recall it was a figure 8 course so it was mostly skidpad kind of driving...but she sent everyone packing. Not ashamed to get beaten by her. :) Trans Am driver put on a postage stamp auto cross course and still kicked butt. It goes to show that if you can drive it almost doesn't matter where you are, the talent shows.

There's going to be a stock car at Le Mans this year so we're going to find out.

In my experience, good drivers are good drivers, regardless of their specialty.

I hear NASCAR is the featured marque at The Mitty this year.  

MotorsportsGordon said:

Well a friend of mine who came from dirt racing and racing dirt late models here in Edmonton and now works in Toronto for a big car club just won a lucky dog endurance race this past weekend in calabogie.

She just recently won a big global female racing competition and will have a couple of starts in gt4 car in British gt

j_tso said:

There's going to be a stock car at Le Mans this year so we're going to find out.

It won't be the first time.  They added the chicanes because American stock car based endurance race was just too fast on the Mulsanne.  It's amazing what  you can do with stock car technology when weight and downforce restrictions go away. 

I'm glad this one was bumped up again to read--very cool stuff here.  I really liked this topic!

In reply to DavyZ :

Thanks! I feel the different disciplines of motorsport can learn a lot from each other. A successful dirt late model racer once told me he watched what other forms of racing did and tried them on his own car. He'd think through the why behind it and it often gave him that edge.

A lot of people take relatively stock cars and go endurance racing with them in Chumpcar, Lemons, Luckydog, SCCA, NASA, and AER if that's still a thing. 

J.A. Ackley said:

In reply to DavyZ :

Thanks! I feel the different disciplines of motorsport can learn a lot from each other. A successful dirt late model racer once told me he watched what other forms of racing did and tried them on his own car. He'd think through the why behind it and it often gave him that edge.

Definitely. My off-roading experience definitely had some effect on how I first started building race cars in terms of designing for failure modes. And I know an Ultra4 racer who is always interested to learn about track driving and prep because there are things he can use.