In the next installment, I'd like to relate Dick's experiences driving on curved bank racecourse...Daytona.
For a road racer, a curved bank race course is a new experience. Dick related that on a straight away...approaching a curved bank.. it's like driving into a sharp 90 degree turn when you're going 150 mph plus. When approaching the turn, and driving through it, he was expected to keep the gas pedal to the floor. The owner had rigged up some switches so that if he let up on the gas pedal, a red light would flash and a horn would to off...bottom line...he was expected to drive through the curved bank race course at full power. Going into the high banked turns, centrifugal forces keep you body down into the seat...no sideways forces. The visual and sensual feeling is that you don't experience a turn...it's like the road just keeps on straight but g forces sink you into the seat. And visually, even though the road seems like it's going straight, the horizon dramatically tilts. Going counterclockwise, to the left you see the infield near the race track edge and to the right you see open sky. All of this happens with you feel like you're driving on a straight road! Passing on a curved bank is also different...I forget the details here, but to pass on the left, you decrease speed and with less centrifugal force the car drops downward on the curved bank, and to pass on the right, accelerate and the car climbs up on the curved bank. The take here is that to pass to the left or right, you don't use the steering wheel, you adjust the speed of the car.
