OK, a question about driving from a guy who has never driven & will never drive a sprint car: When do they use their brakes? Let off gas? (if ever....)

I wreck constantly even on simulators, can't stop laughing the whole time....

I am waiting to hear this answer, too. This is the time for some of our drivers to chime in.

One thing I remember from the old "Wind Tunnel" show with Dave Despain, he had an idea to make racing on a simulator, or video game, more realistic than you can imagine:

Get a stack of $50 bills and a brick. Sit next to a fireplace. Every time you wreck, take the brick and hit yourself in the head with it. Then throw a $50 bill into the fireplace.

If you wish to keep racing, get back behind the wheel.

When to let off? When you smell ****.
When to use the brake? When you see the face of God himself!
You asked. LOL

I've always loved that answer.

Seriously, if you interested check out some of the BOSS videos on youtube. You can see brakes sparking when applied on entry, as to the foot feed I supposed that's driver preference and talent level would determine that as well as track configuration and condition. No 2 tracks or situations are the same so there isn't a set method. It also matters whether your talking wing or Non-wing. With wing you obviously are in the fuel way more than a non-wing so your gonna go deeper before lifting or any braking is needed.

I asked the same exact question on Hoseheads, figuring answer would be different for wings/ nonwings. No reply yet....
People are more polite here (duh....)

I too have never driven a sprint car in real life, but I’ve been running one (both winged and non-winged) on iRacing since they were released. I’m no expert, but on the non-wing car, I never get full throttle and at a track like Eldora I lift at the flag stand and use both the brake and throttle through the turn. With the winged car, I don’t use the brake at all, and just “blip” the throttle at corner entry to set the car then it is flat-footed the rest of the time.

Depends on the track, and how the car is handling at the time. If all is good, a slight twitch of the steering wheel, and a burp of the throttle will set the car. Then feather the throttle through the corner (you steer with the gas pedal). The more your car mishandles, the more brake you need to set it, and sometimes you end up jabbing it several times in the corner to keep it stuck.

Bill

Watch some qualifying youtube videos and focus on the left front tire. If you see the left front tire stop while in mid air, you know the driver is using the brakes. That video also gives you an idea as to where they lift. However just because we're on the gas, that doesn't mean we're at 100% throttle. I've pushed people down the straight away while using 25% throttle just because they were lighting their tires up.

My favorite story of comparing computer racing to the real thing happened around 15 years ago:

I was in my 5th year of racing sprints and I had a 16 year old pit crewman. I had just recovered from a pretty bad right shoulder injury in a crash. It was around the time the Ratbag sprint car computer game came out. The kid played it every day all day - even at high school in study hall and he got really good at it.

He loaded it on my home computer and I tried to play it a few times laughing at how unrealistic it was. A few months later, he’s at my house and breaking all my lap records at every track - then looks at me as serious as could be and says “hey, I’m beating all your records, you should let me drive your car sometime”.

My reply was this: “okay, here’s the deal. You restart that 25 lap feature. If you win the race, you can drive my car next week. (Then I walked to the front door where I kept a wooden baseball bat and picked it up) But if you crash during this feature, I’m going to hit you in the shoulder as hard as I can with this baseball bat. While you are on the floor in pain, I’m going to take all the money out of your wallet AND you have to give up half of your paychecks for the next 3 months. Now let’s go”

The look on his face was priceless. And he didn’t take the bet.

The Iracing I hear is pretty realistic - but until you’ve rode out a bad crash or worked your ass off to buy the equipment - you aren’t a racer yet.

You should have also told him you were going to throw rocks, clay and dust in his face the whole time too. I love the baseball bat part!