Ultimate Geek Racer Drives by Guts, Instinct and Algorithms

[Mr Kleen]

Ultimate Geek Racer Drives by Guts, Instinct — and Algorithms
By Preston Lerner

Inside the cramped, seething belly of a 550-horsepower, $500,000 race car, Colin Braun hurtles around the Homestead-Miami Speedway at 177 miles per hour. As he bends the car into Turn One, the chassis shudders over a bump and the back end lurches sideways. In slower hands, this would be the prelude to a catastrophic wreck. But Braun, 18 years old and fearless, responds with a lightning application of opposite lock — what driving instructors call "steering into the skid" — and blithely carves through the corner.

On this sunny Friday morning, Braun is practicing for tomorrow's Grand-Am Grand Prix of Miami. As he roars around the track, electronic sensors embedded in his purpose-built Daytona Prototype monitor the car's behavior in minute detail: suspension travel, exhaust gas temperature, throttle position, wheel speed, and dozens of other variables. This information is radioed back to the pits, where race engineer David Brown squints at a dizzying array of numbers and graphs on his laptop. A serene and methodical wonk, Brown is charged with adjusting the car to optimize performance.

Accelerating out of a hairpin turn, Braun fishtails toward a daunting right-hand kink that can be taken — in a best-case scenario — flat out. But he feels the car losing traction. If he eases off the throttle, the lap will be ruined. If he turns the steering wheel too sharply, he'll spin. If he does nothing, he'll run out of track. Braun opts for plan D: He edges the car to the right a millimeter at a time. The left rear tire kicks up dust. It's just beginning to slide when the other tires suddenly grip the asphalt and launch the vehicle forward.

It's the kind of I-think-I'm-going-to-die moment that causes a driver's hair to stand on end, but when Braun keys his mic to speak with Brown, he sounds laconic, like a military test pilot. "There's a lack of front grip in the middle of the corner, and it doesn't put the power down very good," he says, flying out of the kink at 130 mph. "It feels like it could use a softer spring. Right now, it pushes too much in the middle, and I get snap oversteer at the exit."

Part athlete, part astronaut, Braun is at the forefront of a new generation of drivers who have internalized the mechanical subtleties of the gears, pistons, and tires they control. Once upon a time, racers drove by the seat of their pants. Quick reflexes, a well-balanced inner ear, and substantial cojones were the marks of a winner. But nowadays, the cars are so complicated that drivers need to know not merely how to push them to the limit but how to make adjustments to extend that limit. This means telling the race engineer — precisely, concisely, under pressure — how the car feels, so performance can be improved during practice or even in the middle of a race.

WIRED article continues HERE

[Phibs]

Wow that is hot! envy...

[spazegun2213]

for the record he is also an asshole behind the wheel.

but a DAMN good driver

[sirwilliam]

yeah, I would take his job...yes, thank you.

[complacent]

Interesting read. I am willing to believe that someone that young would be a bit to manage.

Cool stuffs though.

[Mr Kleen]

trained since he was 6, IIRC that's longer than Conan!