By Jeff Glucker
You can race at a high level in one form of motorsport, but that doesn’t mean your skills automatically translate. Road racers might not have the right mindset for drifting. Open-wheel superstars aren’t used to things like copious amounts of suspension travel and throttle induced setups for jumps and dips. Still, the basics of going fast exists in the mind of the professional race car driver. Once they figure out the nuances of a given motorsport discipline, they’re likely to adapt far more quickly than the average person.
Who would you like to see jump from one form of motorsport to another?
It would be great to see a World Rally Championship driver get a shot behind the wheel of a Formula Drift car. Maybe MotoGP racers could acclimate themselves to the cockpit of an IndyCar? There should be a show that takes drivers from one type of racing and let them try a completely different sort of motorsport. It would be entertaining to see if they could adapt, but also there’d be good insight into the differences between the types of racing.
Who do you want to see taken out of their comfort zone and placed somewhere new? Sound off below.
Has A. J. Foyt taken the wheel of a monster truck yet?
I feel like there should be a Chuck Norris-type joke somewhere in there …
Best answer. Well done.
Robbie Gordon, while not as successful as AJ, has driven Baja Trucks. Close enough.
Any truck Super Tex gets in is a Monster Truck.
Any truck Super Tex gets in is a Monster Truck.
Monster Truck: Any truck Super Tex drives.
Jan Lammers (F1/LeMans/BTCC) jumped into Paris-Dakar rally trucks, as shown in a testing session in a GINAF here. The jump proved a little bigger than anticipated: https://youtu.be/LDlCfd0xGyA
“There should be a show that takes drivers from one type of racing and let them try a completely different sort of motorsport.”
So they need to revive Fast Masters/Crash Masters?
Or at least bring back IROC.
Jesus. Not FastMasters again. It was good to see the drag racers run well, but killing the Jags in the process made little JayP cry.
https://jalopnik.com/c7-corvette-stock-piles-up-as-chevy-dealers-anticipate-1832769792
They could use Vettes. Looks like GM has a few extra.
“There should be a show that takes drivers from one type of racing and let them try a completely different sort of motorsport.”
So they need to revive Fast Masters/Crash Masters?
Or at least bring back IROC.
Lots of going between disciplines (though not near as much as it should be) in the 4 wheel realm, and you’ll see motorcycle racers dabble in 4 wheels now and then, too. But there’s not much you ever hear about going from 4 to 2. I think Michael Schumacher tried it semi-seriously before going back to F1 with Mercedes and John Surtees was famous for it, but I haven’t heard of many others trying it. So that being said I want to see Tony Stewart, who has driven a LOT of stuff, try dragging a knee.
Before Dale Sr died, he was running enduros in the Corvettes with hints he wanted to go to LeMans 24. That would have been a party.
Jeff Gordon joked about running with Penske at LeMans… Not the same.
Just put Alonso in whatever is sitting around. It’ll be a good time.
Formula One Champion and LeMans winner Fernando Alonso will run at Indy this year. He wants to achieve ‘The Triple Crown’. He has raced the Indy 500 once before, in 2017. He qualified 5th and led 27 laps during the race. His engine blew up with 22 laps to go.
I’ll watch the Indy 500 this year because of him.
Take any circuit track driver and put them in a dragster. I think that’s about as far out of your wheelhouse (fnar!) as you can get and still be on 4 wheels.
Just about everybody racing in motor sports today started off in karts which means they all share a little of the same DNA. Back in the day drivers had to race what ever, when ever, to make a buck so it wasn’t odd to see an F1 champion driving in endurance races and hill climbs and saloon races and Baja and Indy cars. Like A. J. Foyt, Moss, Gurney. Montoya seemed very versatile over genres. I can’t think of anyone I’d like to see other than watch Valentino Rossi drive a Nascar cup car at Watkins Glen.
Slightly downbeat answer – I’d like to see Michael Schumacher doing anything at this stage, even if it was just racing slot cars.
I’d like to see Lewis Hamilton race Moto GP. While some motorcycle racers made the transition to F1 like Nuvolari, Surtees and Hailwood I don’t recall any car racer becoming a successful motorcycle racer.