Michael Schumaker

When I was talking to a car guy, I mentioned that many of the top car drivers began by racing motorcycles. The immediately said 'the people with the best reflexes are the downhill ski racers. The last time I road-raced a motorcycle, I was taking a beta-blocker, because I am a stroke-survivor. It was a very pleasant experience. Adrenalin and reflexes can kill people. We need reflexes, but we should not rely on them for survival. The faster we go, the more we get time dilation. It takes time to get up to speed.

Racing car drivers all want to be John Surtees. 'Life was not meant to be easy'.

I think Shumaker started racing go carts, but I might have that confused with many other 21th century F1 race car driver documentaries I've watched.

For some reason I don't think that very many top tier world class motorcycle road racers transitioned to car racing very well, or bothered to do it. Amateurs probably tried both. A few motocross racers went on to race trucks in the dirt.

Eddy Lawson races a little formula something car, but I think it's more or less for fun. I have no idea what goes on in other countries. Maybe you could enlighten.

I think this is Lawson in his race car. Maybe I'm not sure since I didn't copy this from anywhere. It's in my pile of photos.

Damon Hill started in motorcycle racing. He got to be quite good at driving F1 racing cars...

edit; John Surtees - won world championships on motorcycles and then in racing cars.

Mike Hailwood transitioned to cars and then went back to bikes quite a few years later and still had it .

Michael Dunlop who has the record for most wins at the IOM TT, races his own rally car in the off season

The first time Wayne Gardner tried to drive a race car, he chucked it onto its roof at Phillip Island. Some opinions are formed on the basis of speculation and supposition. Racing is not really about the speed or reflexes. The speed when you are halfway down a straight is not really relevant. Car racing attracts a different breed. I have known 3 who have tried to race motorcycles, and have almost immediately seriously hurt themselves. I think that over the years since the 1930s, there have been about 10 topline racing car drivers who began by racing motorcycles. I don't know of any racing car drivers who reached the top in motorcycle racing.

acotrel said:

The first time Wayne Gardner tried to drive a race car, he chucked it onto its roof at Phillip Island. Some opinions are formed on the basis of speculation and supposition. Racing is not really about the speed or reflexes. The speed when you are halfway down a straight is not really relevant. Car racing attracts a different breed. I have known 3 who have tried to race motorcycles, and have almost immediately seriously hurt themselves. I think that over the years since the 1930s, there have been about 10 topline racing car drivers who began by racing motorcycles. I don't know of any racing car drivers who reached the top in motorcycle racing.

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Some of that is probably true. I don't know anybody racing at the world class level. I have pictures of them, but that is about it. Everything I type up is basically formed from living and a dose of BS.

"Racing is not about speed or reflexes." Pretty sure without those two things what you have is most of the recipe for a back marker.

acotrel said:

Racing is not really about the speed or reflexes.

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Without either what are your prospects of winning / surviving ?
How do you come up with this stuff Al ? I am beginning to think we are being baited …

Reflexes are a huge part of racing. The higher the level, the more important they are.

At the top level, those guys have super human reflexes, quite literally.

I read an article once that explained it like this:

We’ve probably all had some kind of car or bike crash at some point so know that feeling where time seems to slow down.

The brain does this to allow us to make decisions and react in ways that we otherwise wouldn’t be able to do.

The article basically said that F1 drivers brains are in a similar state for an entire race, they are literally seeing time different to normal people and thus allowing them to react abnormally quickly.

Without this, you’d be at the back of the grid, or in the gravel.

Anyone who has raced knows that reflexes are key.

Al is just click baiting us all !

And I’m not even going to comment about speed being unimportant coz that’s just being silly…

acotrel said:

The first time Wayne Gardner tried to drive a race car, he chucked it onto its roof at Phillip Island. Some opinions are formed on the basis of speculation and supposition. Racing is not really about the speed or reflexes. The speed when you are halfway down a straight is not really relevant. Car racing attracts a different breed. I have known 3 who have tried to race motorcycles, and have almost immediately seriously hurt themselves. I think that over the years since the 1930s, there have been about 10 topline racing car drivers who began by racing motorcycles. I don't know of any racing car drivers who reached the top in motorcycle racing.

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What gearing was he using?