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Montoya vs. ......Jeff Gordon?

453 views 19 replies 11 participants last post by  rheacer 
#1 ·
Maybe someone posted about this before??

Columnist Joe Rusz in the new R&T wrote about an exhibition between these two in which Jeff Gordon was within a second or so of Montoya on the Indy F1 course in the Williams car.

Apparently it was on SpeedChannel..

Did anyone see this?? How did Montoya do in the Winston Cup car??

I love stuff like that.

Anyhow the main thrust of the column is how cool it would be, however unlikely, if Gordon made a splash in F1..........of course, he points out that he would probably have to take a substanstial pay cut .

Anyhoo I'd love to see the "match" broadcast.
 
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#2 ·
It was on Speed about a month ago. Montoya was all over the place in the Cup car. He wheel hopped it all the way through turn 1. Never spun the car but was pretty slow. In his defense the Cup guys never run there so the car was not setup to run there, whereas Gordon got to drive the car Montoya drove last year. Those cars are night and day anyway. Gordon was talking about braking the F1 car at the 50 foot marker whereas when he did the initial setup on the Cup car you were braking at like 300 - 400 feet. Montoya could not keep from spinning the wheels off the turns either, used to Traction control in F1. Overall was pretty good. Each guy got like 10 laps at a time in the others car. Made one run came in adjusted on it while the other guy went out.
 
#3 ·
Cool, I'm just pleased that Jeff Gordon showed well. I pretty much ignore NASCAR, but he seems to one of those motorsports wizards that could win in anything.
 
#4 ·
Well I'm definately liking the "new" Jeff Gordon. He's really calmed down and has settled into just being an excellent driver rather than a darn good driver with some crazy scary moments.
 
#5 ·
Gordon impressed me too and thats saying something for someone who is as anti-NASCAR as I am. In all fairness though, Gordon got within a second or so of Montoya's shakedown laps, not race laps from last year, although they did say that Gordon's times in the car would have put him in the field for last years Indy F-1 race. Not bad at all. Just think how good he could have become had he gone to real race cars rather than the taxicabs he drives now!
 
#6 ·
Well I'm definately liking the "new" Jeff Gordon. He's really calmed down and has settled into just being an excellent driver rather than a darn good driver with some crazy scary moments.
Like I said, I almost ignore NASCAR, but hasn't he had multiple championships for awhile now, like a few in row a few years back? What scary moments did I miss? I thought he was just frustratingly consistent for everyone to deal with, as well as being too "squeaky" clean for the old guard.

A side note.......I have never had a more fascinating sociological experience than attending a Winston Cup race at Sears Point. I can only describe the partisanship as similar to the SuperBowl......if ALL the teams were playing at once!!

On top of that, I couldn't believe how HATED Jeff Gordon was, like he was evil incarnate. What is up with that?
The only thing I could remotely compare it to, was Reggie Jackson's reception as a Yankee at Dodger games back in their World Series days.....pure hatred. (OK....some of you weren't born yet)

"[censored] YOU Gordon, come on Mark, put that [censored] into the wall" was a quote one fan screamed right behind me......the MOTHER of three Mark Martin cap wearing boys.

what an experience......
 
#7 ·
Yea, good for Gordon! He's not actually that bad of a guy. And one hell of a driver.

It's funny, people sometimes make fun of NASCAR because "they're all ********", "drive big heavy low tech cars" and "can only turn left". But when you think about it, I'll bet it takes almost as much skill to pilot a stock car at 190mph while bump drafting as it does to drive an F1 car with an "automatic transmission", traction control, and more downforce than 5 stock cars combined. What I mean is, even though NASCAR is far from the top in world of motorsports, some of the NASCAR drivers are certainly near the skill level of the worlds top drivers (including F1 and WRC).

The only motorsports drivers(riders) that are in a class of their own are the Isle of Man TT motorcycle riders. They've got more balls than a Chuck E. Cheez's play pen!
 
#8 ·
To go on........

I wonder if driver today have the same push to succeed in diverse venues........or is ultimately the "corporate" nature of today's racing going to prevent a "Mario-type" career from ever happening again?

It's just great when a general love of going fast shows itself at the top.........Mika Hakkinen's "rally hobby" is a fine, recent example.

But what about top-level wins in multiple venues??
Is it going to become less and less likely?
 
#9 ·
Murph, what I mean by "scary moments" is this:
1994 - 2 wins
1995 - 7 wins
1996 - 10 wins
1997 - 10 wins
1998 - 13 wins
1999 - 7 wins
2000 - 3 wins
2001 - 6 wins
2002 - 3 wins
2003 - 1 wins

When they asked Jeff why he thinks his win's had decreased a bit, he gave credit to the other drivers, but he also said that as he's gotten older, he doesn't tend to drive on the ragged edge (sometimes dangerous edge) as often any more.

But he still probably has as many top 5-10 finishes as anyone in the sport right now. Which says he's still an awesome driver, but he might not be taking the same "chances" he took when he was younger.
 
#10 ·
But he still probably has as many top 5-10 finishes as anyone in the sport right now. Which says he's still an awesome driver, but he might not be taking the same "chances" he took when he was younger.
I get what ya' mean now.........so is he still as "hated" by everyone?
 
#11 ·
What impressed me about Gordon was once he came back in the pits, how he was instantly making suggestions for the F1 car, such as dialing a bit more rear brake bias in, etc. Being able to detect minor needed tweaks like that after a couple laps in a completely different beast of a vehicle says alot about his technical ability.

I believe the show was called "Trading Paint" or something like that.
 
#12 ·
To go on........

I wonder if drivers today have the same push to succeed in diverse venues........or is ultimately the "corporate" nature of today's racing going to prevent a "Mario-type" career from ever happening again?

But what about top-level wins in multiple venues??
Is it going to become less and less likely?
Well, I don't like either of them, but Robby Gordon runs NASCAR WC, Indy, and Baja Trucks, and Tony Stewart runs NASCAR WC, Sprint Cars, Late-Model Dirt Track, and several other series.
Mark Martin has won his class, co-driving w/ Paul Newman and Tommy Kendall at the Daytona 24 hrs.
I think drivers are becoming more "Specialized" or "Localized", whatever, but there are a FEW Exceptions.
It's all Oval as far as I know, but Ken Schrader probably races in about 10 series. If he's not racing one thing, he's racing another. What? No WC race?, Well, let's go run at the local Dirt Track, or ASA, or ARCA... He doesn't care if he has to trailer the car to the track himself, he's going to be racing Something, Somewhere, several nights a week.
You've also got guys like Boris Said who run in Quite a few Series...
 
#13 ·
yes i was very impressed with how quickly he got up to speed in that car. Montoya didnt seem to care much about the WC car, but coming from a williams to a cup car isnt something to be happy about. Jeff Gordon also said that BAR wanted him to drive for them in 1998. Pretty interesting stuff. I think kurt busch is another stock car driver that could jump in an F1 car and do really well, he did it in a champ car already.
 
#14 ·
I think Kurt will be a Real "Up-and-Come'r".
Sort of a "Markko Martin" of NASCAR.
Jack Rousch really knows how to pick his drivers.
W/ his Trans-Am background, he seems to pick guys who are Multi-Talented.
 
#18 ·
Is Jeff Gordon representative of the average NASCAR driver though? I mean, he has raced in Indy cars, which is fairly close to F1. I'm no putting down Gordon, just saying that you couldn't draw the conclusion that all NASCAR drivers would be fast in F1 cars.

Like, if you put somebody like, Ken Schrader in an F1 car, how would he do? I don't know anything about the guy, just picked the name out of Michael's post as somebody with a lot of experience, but all of it being in circle track cars.

I'd love to see a three way:

F1 driver vs. Rally Driver vs. Circle track

I'd bet the Rally driver averaged the fastest times across all 3 venues. Probably followed by the circle track guy, then the F1 guy actually.

I find that while the F1 guys have really good feel for a car, reflexes, and actually engineering knowledge, they are "pampered" by massive downforce, massive traction, massive power, traction control, "semiautomatic" transmissions, etc...

As we've seen, they're at a disadvantage in a low tech car like a NASCAR. I image it would be the same with the rally car.

Then, the circle track guy would of course do well in the NASCAR, and I bet would do pretty darn good in the rally car too. I think it would be pretty close to the skills they had from dirt track racing. The cars would be somewhat similar. Kinda large and heavy, with kinda low power/weight, tires with big squishy sidewalls, low traction surface, etc....

I think the rally driver probably has the most diverse skills. While not as fast as the F1 drivers in the F1 car, they do have experience with turning both ways on pavement, and modern car features like the semi-autotransmission. ETC. Colin McRae tested in an F1 car once, and IIRC, he actually did run a time that would have qualified him like halfway up the pole at Silverstone or something like that.

Also, the rally driver would be at home in the NASCAR, because it is pretty similar. A tubeframe chassis, front biased weight, "underpowered", etc... Heck, a NASCAR wouldn't be to disimilar to the Mk1 or Mk2 Escort that most rally drivers learned on. And actually Colin did run an "ASCAR race in Britain, and I think he finished second or something in his first race.
 
#19 ·
I think most of the older gen drivers couldnt do well. They pretty must only care about WC. Guys like robby gordon (former open wheel guy only), jeff gordon (former sprint car driver), tony stewart, and ryan newman could all do well in an F1 car. They all have the same background and are so technical about a car and course i believe they could get up to speed very quickly. Some of the older generation have become maybe to conservative to drive one. They focus on smooth long race runs rather than fast pace all thru the race. Just my opinion. Rally drivers to me are the best, colin did run ascar. But a former ascar driver tried his hand at the busch series and what was supposed to be a full season turned into a few races when he was done.
 
#20 ·
um, I'm an older guy....Don't forget Foyt, Andretti, Gurney did it all. J.Gordon can drive about anything, same for Robby (open wheel, desert, TransAm), but remember Michael Andretti has more Cart/Champ car wins than anyone and was pretty dismal at F-1. Boris Said has driven just about everything with a top- sportscars, TransAm, trucks- not sure he could cram into a formula car... Saw him when he was running Corvette challenge back in the 80's, driving an old pickup with an open trailer and the Corvette on the back. Slept in the truck at Road Atlanta. Someone gave him fresh tires to compete on, he only had 1 set for the weekend. oh by the way, Didn't J. Gordon end up on his head with the Rally car?
Not to compare my skill to any of the name drivers, but I have raced formula cars, as well as tintops and there is no comparision with the handling and braking- even with a formula ford (or even the formula Vee
) If you ever get the chance to throw your leg over the side of a formula car, give it a try. Great fun!
 
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