My, my we're a hyper bunch! It's nice to see some calming, moderating voices.
Here's the part of Pat's column I'd like to talk about:
I agree 100% on the winged sprint cars, and I want to see a speedway motorcycle race in person someday.FS cars are generally unattractive, narrow focus vehicles that are not particularly exciting to watch on track. If you want to see exciting motorsport, try find a short dirt oval where they are running winged sprint cars, or possible the purest and most intense motorsport of all, speedway motorcycles. 4 laps, 4 riders, balls out and all over in about 60 seconds! That’s exciting!
In an attempt to hijack this thread ;-) I'd like to say that I really enjoy watching Formula SAE/Student cars. Where else can I see such a broad range of vehicle behaviors in one location? The best cars & drivers are a joy to watch. The crisp roll and yaw transients, braking on the verge of lockup (with correct brake balance) and the quickness of these cars in a slalom are all very impressive. Seeing a well-practiced driver learn the endurance course in the first 3-4 laps and then be a model of consistency for the remaining circuits is something special. The rest of the field exhibits all sorts of less-desireable characteristics, each of which is also interesting and fun to pick out: excessive roll gradients, poor damping of the vertical tire mode, K&C-induced stabilty issues, visible suspension compliance, etc. Of course, some drivers/cars are just plain slow and uninteresting--should have finished building the car sooner and done some testing and driver training!