I have to agree with you JIMSTER, I also get confused when people use the word "track" to refer to a drag strip. ...kinda like people using the term "feathering" for cupping.

Drag racing does have its skill and technology; it's not like Bubba from the backwoods can put a 3000HP engine in his Camaro with big tires and run 4 second quarter mile. I'll admit, there is a bit of skill to keep these monsters going in a straight line. Stock classes, though, are boring. And this is the only area of racing that I am disappointed with the Z...the wheel hop is abysmal. However, even after more than 5 years since my last time at a dragstrip, in two nights I was able to consistently cut 520's again. It became boring all over again.

Yeah, I think there are two reasons why NASCAR fans hate Jeff Gordon: 1) He enunciates 2) He can turn right equally well as left.
I got bored with NASCAR too. Some buddies and I used to race stock cars at the local track. I have a buddy that still does. We recently went to a Busch race this summer...it was certainly an experience! The sound of 40 uncapped V8s at WOT makes thunder sound really wussy. The best part of NASCAR are the hot-a$$ women that date the drivers and hang out in the pits...very nice.

My passion has become road racing. I think I have outgrown the ultra focused forms of racing and so I like the cars that can do it all. Maybe this is why I like my 350Z so much. Road racing is the only thing that I have ever done that still requires 100% of my concentration. F1 drivers have been compared to Air Force fighter jocks, and I think for good reason. F1 is also the most techologically advanced (and expensive) form of racing ever devised. At the risk of sounding "elitist": an F1 driver can drive a stock car, a stock car driver can't drive an F1 car.

Oh, almost forgot: apparently Nissan shares my viewpoint...the Track model has large wheels and brakes. If "track" really meant "drag strip", wouldn't it be equipped with no brakes and a parachute??

 

Did you see that show on SPEED ("Swapping Paint" or something like that) where Gordon and Montoya switched cars for an afternoon? Pretty entertaining. Gordon actually did pretty well for only having a couple of hours of seat time in an F1 car. Montoya sure drove the **** outa the Formula Gump car as well

What's a "bellybutton car"?

 

It took me awhile, but that is some funny shiznit..."Formula Gump"...

I didn't see it myself, but my buddy told me about it...I guess it was entertaining!
Yeah, F1 is pretty hard to get into...I guess there are CART drivers that spend most of their career trying to get into F1. Can you believe the sounds those cars make?? It sounds like something escaping from hell!!

Bellybutton car: This one's pretty simple if you stop to think about it. Everyone has a bellybutton, right? So by saying a car is a "bellybutton car" means that everybody and their brother has one. Maybe it's just my area, but it seems that every nice day I'm driving I see at LEAST a dozen Boxsters. If I'm lucky, I'll see ONE other Z in a weekend and it usually has manufacturer's tags on it...Nissan is just down the road. The Boxsters look good from the front, but they really have to get rid of the "butthole" exhaust pipe.

 

My understanding is that Jeff Gordon grew up on karts and his goal was to win the Indy 500 in an open wheel car. I read or saw that basically it was whatever pro team took him first in whatever series and he didn't like the steps you had to take to get to CART including Indy Lights.

Edit: I found some legitimate info on Jeff Gordon which basically makes everything i said above wrong.

Click Here for Bio

 

LOL, I know I am an elitist A$$! I make no excuses for it!

But to answer you question; yeah, I think I could beat a lot of those NASCAR guys on a road course. Gordon is an exception because he grew up road racing karts.

Think of it this way, you have 60 year old men winning in the top levels of drag racing and you have late 40's guys in NASCAR that can win races. In F1, CART, ALMS, WRC, that is just way too old. The reflexes required to drive on a road course are just much greater. Oval racing is all about car setup.

A few years back I watched a charity race with a bunch of NASCAR regulars in karts at the Willow Springs Kart track. It was run with Rotax Max Spec Karts. The NASCAR guys got KILLED, by the road racers. The NASCAR guys were running laps .75-1.5 seconds slower than the CART guys (Although Eddie Lawson won). My brother and I both had lap times from earlier in the day that were about .75-1.00 seconds faster (as did almost all the top half of the drivers in our class) than the fastest of the NASCAR guys; SPEC KART, so same car.

I'm not saying NASCAR doesn't require skill, but so does golf and I don't consider either a sport, just a game.

Just my elitist two cents!!

 

Steve,
while i respect the skills needed to race fast go carts, don't you think that some road course guys would look down on what you do as well. when I did formula vee's there were many ex cart racers in that group and I know they were looked down on by some of the other guys. it is all relative. so, we have elitists at all levels. if some one is enjoying what they do with any type of racing, i say GO FOR IT! there seems to be more interest in drag racing in these race forums, so i am not sure what that means, but it seems to mean that it is fun/important to a lot of z owners.
as a matter of fact this thread is getting boring becasue we have already heard enough from the pro's and the con's. most seem to say that they don't care what the venue is called though.

 

I'm a road race guy & I'd never look down on a kart driver. I've never driven one but I would in a heartbeat, given the opportunity. Karts rip and are probably the biggest performance bang for the buck on the planet.

There's no denying that the vast majority of road racing world champions started in karts.

 

I'm with Jimster and others, in that when I read "track" I think road course, not drag strip. But rather than flame or say that my preferred form of driving is better than anyone else's, I'd just like to make a suggestion:

Could the mods here create separate forums for drag strip vs. road course (which would include club racing, HPDE, etc.)?

That would ease some of my frustration at finding a bunch of irrelevant drag strip stuff when I was expecting some road track posts.

 

hehehe "separate but equal" huh?

didn't I hear that back in the fifties sometime?

 

I think the main problem with racing in america is that not many people have been exposed to road racing(real racing). I've been in plenty of fast cars in a staight line. But the first time I sat in the passanger seat with my friend to road race, my heart couldn't stop beating fast. I can't even begin to describe the thrill. At least a thousand time greater than draging.

now if I only had the money. ... there's the other problem.

 

Michael Schumacher drives a kart to keep his reflexes in check. Said a kart is basically the same as driving an F1 car. Kimi Raikonnen drove karts for 10 years then only had to do 18 actual full size car races before entering F1. 18!!!!!!!!! Juan Montoya, WKA karting champion and his father is a kart importer. 3 Kart racers 1-2-3 in the championship this year-enough said.

I ran the Barber West series for a few years in the early 90's and they were boring and slow compared to a kart.

I am not trying to say that drag racing or oval track racing isn't fun or enjoyable even though it isn't my cup of tea. I just think that you can't argue that going road racing puts a lot more on the line and requires a lot more prep than drag racing and that oval track racing isn't a lot more about the car than anything else.

Let me ask you this; do you consider a drag racer a racecar driver?

 

I am in no way putting down kart racing and as I said earlier i can see were it takes not only a lot of skill, but to have your jewels 2 inches off the ground while you are doing it must be pretty thrilling. Yes, i do consider SERIOUS drag racers real race car drivers. if you look at earlier posts on this thread you will see that I have done a lot of different kinds of racing. Never in a kart though, although i would like to try one of those shifter karts.
This thread started as a question regarding "a drag strip is not a track". I would like to see, if not respect for what we are each into at least some tolerence. Maybe the idea of further dividing the group into sub groups is the way to make it easier to check out the type of racing one is into without running across some form of racing that might be of no interest to you.

 

Ahahahaha!!! How did I miss this thread?

Everything I'd like to purport has already been stated. As already noted, the global term for "track" is associated with a road course, and that's the way I've always understood it. I've already gotten a lot of "" faces here in the past when I correct somebody when they said they went to the track and ran a 13.8. Yes, I'm a snob...

 

I have to say I was in the same boat about the "track" thing. I am new to sportscars, but come from a motorcycle backround doing some trackdays on road courses. I buy the 350ZR come here and find all these guys going to the "track" and it's dragracing? In motorcyclists terms the "track" is considered a road course, or even an MX course for dirtbikes. If you are gonna drag race your bike, you take it to the "strip".

I just don't get this popularity of dragracing, and modifying your Z for dragracing. While I certainly plan to take my Z to a 1/4 mile drag strip to benchmark the car's performance, but it's not the main thing I bought this car for. It's a sportscar that was designed and built to be a balanced car, that has good power, brakes and handles, but it aint a dragracer.

I barely had 3k on the clock when I took the Z to do my first roadcourse trackday. A total blast to drive and it was cheap too, compared to motorcycles. $100 for a complete trackday and all you need are your car and a helmet. I pay $150 for the same roadcourse on a bike, and I have to have helmet, leathers, back protector, gloves, boots. Your talking $1500 to $2000 in gear. Sure the Z burned up some tire tread, but trackdays roach bike tires too, not too mention the cost of a "mistake" on a motorcycle.

 

Well, I'm sure you all know my take on it...




ADMAN

 

Well, as you know, the first step to a cure is being able to admit you have the problem in the first place!

 

Dr. Bonz, once you set foot on a real track, you'll understand where we're coming from.

 

Yeah, I have heard that, but 11 steps more is just wayyyyyy tooooooo manyyyyyy!

Seriously though, the only reason the "strip" started being called the "track" was because of the ****ING FAST AND THE FURIOUS! I wish that movie had never ever come out. Hopefully, the entire ricer fad will fade and please oh god please, make the new fad from Japan have nothing to do with cars!!!

 

geeeez and i thought ther japanese had something to do with Z's.......
and i suppose drifting is a really bad thing to do......

 

Oh man, please don't get me started on drifting!!