whipplefilter:

Things I learned rewatching the first scene from Cars for the millionth time:

– Lightning sure likes that high line (even though the main groove at Motor Speedway of the South is pretty clearly on the bottom)

– The racing groove is the fastest way around the track. This isn’t always determined by the shortest geographic distance around it. You can see it because of all the rubber being put down by the racers’ tires, which in turn makes the racing surface quicker there.

– Whether this is because he’s actually good at running the high line or because it happens to be closer to the crowds and he can make lightning bolts on the wall is up for debate. XDD (Okay, he’s good at running the high line. But you can’t tell me those other two things don’t factor into his decision-making here.)

– The high line is tricky because on some tracks, if you run close enough to the wall you can push up against a “cushion” of air that will help your aero and really make you live up to the notion that you’re a “precision instrument of speed and aerodynamics.” Motor Speedway of the South appears to be one of those tracks. The risk, of course, being that if you misjudge the cushion you’re essentially putting yourself into the wall and there’s little chance of saving it because you’ve eliminated your margin for error.

– Other racers will go up top like Lightning–and at least by the race’s midpoint onward, pretty much everyone does in Turn 3 and midway through the frontstretch.

Here’s an ugly screencap of the entire field basically just following Strip up there:

But as you can see from the first shots in this post, there are a ton of scenes after Lighting’s broken away from the pack where he’s just hanging out up there alone. Those caps aren’t all from the same sequence or at the same point of the track–it’s Lightning’s specific-to-him way around the track.

– On the other end of the spectrum, Strip is really good at holding the bottom, and really sticking his tires to the yellow line:

He can hold himself there rock-steady in a way that most of the other racers can’t seem to.

– For instance Lightning. When Lightning enters this corner, he’s on the line:

But he ends up cheating up as his inertial force pushes him outwards. Many a race has been lost when a racer doesn’t stick the line and allows enough space for a pass on the inside. Lightning’s got some pretty wild body roll going on here: 

I’ll be the first to say here that there is a TON of fine detail that goes into understanding body roll and weight transfer and suspension geometries and how all of this lines up in racing, and I could not begin to understand 99% of it. BUT. 

In general, body roll decreases handling, or steering responsiveness. It’s possible that while Lightning has enough control to successfully run that high line, he struggles more when it comes to sticking the bottom and reducing his body roll in order to be in complete control of where he’s going.

After he collects himself he’s able to drill back down to the line, so I don’t think it’d be a stretch to guess that he’d never intended to leave it in the first place. XP

What we see from Lightning in this first race is that he’s clearly very fast. If he can outrun most of the field on old tires, then he’s got some crazy speed in him. He also knows how to make aero work for him up top. He’s an aggressive passer, and he knows how to handle himself in traffic/navigating through wrecks. He’s not afraid to do wild acrobatic stuff, either. 

But aside from lacking judgment when it comes to pit stops (staying out on old tires to get up front is a real strategy that can work, but I dunno that Lightning’s application of it was entirely opportune), I think he has room to grow when it comes to handling and car control. 

When expressing his frustrations about the turn at Willy’s Butte, Lightning claims he’s driven “perfect turns on every track I’ve ever raced on” but if we’re looking at Lap 257 up there… 

…Has he? Has he really? XDD 

Sure, nothing terrible happened and he didn’t lose position or anything, but all that means is he had enough raw speed to compensate for being a little sloppy elsewhere. His driving style had never gotten him in trouble before, so he just assumed that meant “perfection.” It does not. And any crew chief looking through his film (as Strip says, the “good folks behind you”) could have told him that.

What’s less forgiving of sloppy habits? Dirt. What Lightning stood to learn from Willy’s Butte wasn’t just how to drift, or how to take, specifically, a dirt corner, but overall handling and car control–which is applicable on asphalt corners and all around the track entirely.

Anyway, it’s just fun to try and guess at what kind of track the Motor Speedway of the South is and what the racing’s like there! And also try to glean more about each racer’s racing styles. <33