A Racing Legend on Mastering America’s Greatest Track
WIRED: I hadn’t seen cars run at the Speedway before yesterday. One thing that struck me about this place was how much of the magic and the weird old speed temple vibe you don’t get over television. Does it work the same way for drivers?
Rick Mears: It does. A lot of guys don’t respect it until they’re here and they figure it out. It looks like just four long corners. And people watch it and think, “Oh, well, what do you do? You just drive around there all day.”
There’s a lot more happening out there than anybody realizes. In qualifying, in four laps, you never run one corner the same way twice. It’s constantly changing, as a tire goes off, as the wind goes down, as the fuel load changes. And the guys that can adapt to that and deal with it, and learn how to make the corrections needed the next time through that corner—instead of doing the same thing, expecting a different result. It doesn’t work. You’ve gotta change something, and I’m talking this (mimes twitching steering wheel with his hands), not talking this (waves hands around). That’s the last two or three percent. That’s what you don’t know until you run here.