Hooniverse Asks- What Would Be Faster, an Old Racer in a New Car, or a Young Racer in and Old Car?

Monday HA It’s a time-worn tale, the contest between youthful energy and older experience, but what if you could make the switch of not young versus old, but the expertise in a particular skill exclusive to their era. Foilan Gonzalez is famously quoted as saying “In my day, the driver’s were fat and the tires were skinny.” Such is the lament of someone who has seen their melieu change so drastically over even a short period of time. Race cars of the past required a very different, very physical, driving strategy that was required in order to obtain the 11/10ths the driver needed. Today’s cars on the other hand are far faster and much more frenetic, requiring not just experience, but lightning-fast responses.  If we were to switch eras – putting a modern driver in say a car form the ’40s, and that car’s driver in any one of a slew of modern racing machines, who do you think would have a harder time adapting? This question isn’t really about the drivers, it’s more about the machinery and the nuances of being about to eke out the last drops of their performance potential, and how difficult – and dangerous- that would be. Considering the gulf between the eras, who do you think would eventually go faster, a racer familiar with the older era’s methods of madness in a contemporary machine, or a modern driver, dropped into a racer of the past? Images: TheOldMotor, kimiraikkonenspace

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