Split decisions made on road courses make or break drivers

A mistake at Watkins Glen last summer sent Juan Pablo Montoya crashing into Kevin Harvick. AP

Downshift, brake, hit the mark, turn, up shift, accelerate, turn, brake. Five seconds -- maybe -- in the work day of a race car driver on a road course. And that's the easy part of racing. That doesn't even factor the metallic herd traversing the winding course, some among it predators capable of manipulating any mistake to create a precious passing opportunity.

Racing on road courses is a discipline demanding constant attentiveness, physical, mental and emotion control and the ability to repeat tasks with robotic commitment. When that fails, when Martin Truex Jr. sends Juan Pablo Montoya into Kevin Harvick and spinning off Turn One at Watkins Glen International (which happened last summer), all that framework of stoicism is often shattered by a shove.

As NASCAR contests its second and final road course event of the season on Sunday at Watkins Glen, the 220.5-mile parade around the 11-turn, course will challenge each driver differently. Road course racing is also all about perspective.

Jimmie Johnson has won 35 races since his rookie Cup season in 2002 -- a NASCAR-best during that span -- but has yet to win at the series' yearly stop at either Sonoma, Calif., or Watkins Glen, N.Y. He's averaged a 17th-place finish in 13 road course events. After a career-best third at Watkins Glen last summer, he said there is nothing as difficult in the season as the road course events.

"With every corner there's a different rhythm to it," he said. "Indy might be one of the hardest ovals because each corner is so different. I'd put Pocono maybe second most intense, mentally. But when you get to a road course, you've got to turn left, turn right, hard-braking zones and intermediate braking zones, down-shifts and up-shifts. There is a lot of stuff going on over the course of a lap on a road course."

The perspective is completely contrary for Patrick Carpentier, a 36-year-old Sprint Cup rookie whose experience has been on both ovals and street and road courses in Champ Car and the Indy Racing League.

"I would say the stock car is a lot tougher on an oval to drive," he said, "because you're so close to each other with 43 cars, and also the car moves around and there are so many tricks you can play on each other with the aero and just by being beside somebody and stuff like that. On a road course, it's a little bit easier because things don't happen as fast as when you're in an IndyCar."

Still, unlike on an oval, a single bobble could require several laps to correct

"If you're under pressure and somebody gets by you, you're in trouble at that point," Johnson said. "But in my own mind, I typically chase the lap times that are fed to me over the radio. So if it's Bristol and a 15-second lap, I only have 15 seconds to worry about it and then I try again. At Watkins Glen, it's a minute and something before I get another shot at it. So that's what you really focus on."

*****

There's no time to focus on their feet. The choreography of accelerating and braking must be fluid, subconscious -- and goes far in determining success. About ninety percent -- estimated veteran road racer and NASCAR driver Boris Said -- brake with their left foot, allowing them to react quickly by keeping a foot on the gas and the break at all times. They don't use the clutch, but sense when to shift by listening to the engine rev. A right-foot braker removes his foot from the accelerator and applies it to the brake to slow, depressing the clutch pedal with his left foot.