Mario Andretti and Dan Gurney both drove in NASCAR before they went to F1. More recently, Jeff Gordon acquitted himself quite well in JPM's Williams F1 car when the two of them did a swap during the Indy GP. I think he lapped around a second slower than JPM, having never driven an F1 car before. There are plenty of open wheel drivers who couldn't cut it in NASCAR, including ex-F1 driver Christian Fittipaldi.
Open wheel, even including F1, is the refuge of pay drivers. Drivers go where the money is. There was more prize money on the line in the Daytona 500 than Champ Car, IPS, Atlantics, USAC, ALMS and Grand Am combined will pay out all year. source
40 years ago, when F1 was like Formula Atlantic is now. Nonsense. It was a demo run, not "in the Indy GP", and Gordon, who went off road on a recon lap, was over a second slower than Montoya's 'warm the oil' times, not hot laps. ...He couldn't cut it in F1 either. To borrow from someone else's sig: You are entitled to your own opinon, you are not entitled to your own facts. (Sen. Moynihan)
[GUFFAW] Yes, NASCAR, the 'professional wrestling' of motorsport, has sucked all the oxygen out of the room for US racing series. ..."yipee".
sometimes the "show" is so good I wonder if it's too good to be true. Yes, pro wrestling does come to mind. Great minds think alike. So that's the suckking sound I hear. Ciao Phil Not Hill aka Dr. Phil Life is too short not to own a Ferrari and be an F1 fan. Now, take on the day.
??? Tell that to guys like Jimmy Clark. 40 years ago, driver deaths was an accepted reality of F1. GP racing was no less difficult then than it is now, and much tougher in many ways. Sorry, I was not being clear. I know it was a demo run, what I meant was it was run during the USGP week. Obviously not during the GP itself. My mistake about the lap times, I was under the impression that he ran surprisingly close to JPM's times, sufficiently close that Frank Williams himself said he wished he could offer Gordon a competitive enough pay package to entice him to move to F1. At the time, I believe Gordon was the second most highly paid driver in the world, behind only MS. The point I was making is that Gordon performed well above anyone's expectations behind the wheel. Even JYS said that Gordon had the ability to win in F1. Does that include your comment about F1 40 years ago?
yes...the jerk off did huge damage to open wheel racing in north america! pre tony george, cart was a great series.
It still is. The cars of the sixties were comfy sedans compared to the performance envelope at the turn of the century. Forgiving tires, half the power, linear dynamic resposes... Whose? ...He went off-track during a warm-up lap for a demo run. One can only imagine he would have killed himself with a full race rev limit. When did Gordon test for Stewart?
In the 1960s, 1 out of 4 F1 drivers, statistically speaking, died in race cars. You simply cannot compare current day safety standards to the 1960s, that is ridiculous.
Jeff Gordon has the pole in this week's Nextel Cup race at Fontana, CA (if he doesn't put back for cheating like he was in the Daytona 500). The attached picture is one of JG's race cars which was in the Aspen Exotic Car Show with my 360 last July. I am a Jeff Gordon fan. I wish he would go to F1 with a really good team. Your comments are much appreciated. Image Unavailable, Please Login
...and yet still completely irrelevant. The fact remains: Other than Mario freaking Andretti, who was a champion driving EVERY form of automobile save top fuel dragsters, there is no example of anyone moving from the dodgems to any form of open wheeled road racing of any sort with any success. It just doesn't happen. Nobody leaves the fairgrounds for the bright lights of F1. Oval racing requires but a subset of driving skills, and NASCAR even less.
Many, many years ago James Hunt was involved in one of those all comer races, where they all had identical cars on some oval track, in America I believe. The rest of the field was made up of all sorts of drivers ... This probably was after he became F1 WC ... I believe he put the car on pole, and he had never sat in it before or driven ovals. Not only does that give James a big thumbs up, yes boys and girls he was fast, but it also shows where the talent is. I'll see if I can find details on the net. Pete [EDIT: Found details] [/EDIT]
The question is: what's your point? F1 drivers have tried to make the transition to NASCAR and failed (Christian Fittipaldi). NASCAR winners have gone on to win Grand Prixs, Lemans, and even the WDC (Dan Gurney, AJ Foyt, Mario Andretti). Your points make no sense whatsoever. A talented driver is a talented driver, no matter what form of racing he chooses to compete in. There are Sprint car champions who have gone on to become standouts in Top Fuel drag racing (Doug Kallitta), motorcycle champions who have gone on to win in F1 (John Surtees), F1 champions who have won the Indy 500 (Jimmy Clark, Graham Hill, and Emerson Fittipaldi) and Indy 500 champions who have gone on to win the F1 championship (Mario Andretti, Jacques Villeneuve). You can choose to denigrate the NASCAR drivers of today or the F1 drivers of 40 years ago but, frankly, all you are doing is displaying a staggering amount of ignorance about racing in general.
Jack Brabham started racing dirt speedway cars before graduating to circuit racing. Also I have seen touring car drivers jump in a current speedway car and lap very competitively, thus I have to agree with Senna2xWC ( ) ... if you a got it you can drive anything competitively. Why?, it's the attitude and understanding of car dynamics. This means you can adapt and get the most out of any 4 wheeled device. Pete
"Your unqualified declaration that NASCAR drivers are the equal of the world's best is unsupported and untenable." Failed in F1 as well, not a brilliant driver anywhere. Mansel made the switch to ovals handily, Montoya is not embarassing himself in the dodgems. Several NASCAR teams bench their star srivers for Sears Point and Watkins Glen in favor of "unkown" road racers, the same ten guys in NASCAR with road racing bacground are always in the top ten at those events. Indeed, exactly those three men, and NOT in most people's lifetimes. Villeneuve was a modern open wheel road racer first, and was given an unscrewable pooch, at both Indy and F1. ...Huh? Name one driver, since the introduction of CFRP chassis, who switched from NASCAR to F1, and then was even remotely successful. It just doesn't happen, and endorsement deals have nothing to do with it.
