Quote:
Originally Posted by adc
What on earth possesses you to bring up race cars in this conversation? The M3 is not a race car. It’s a trackable street car, nothing more.
I couldn’t care less if my lap time was 2 seconds slower with the stickshift. Absolutely not a concern. When I go to the track, I measure my improvements from session to session, year to year, all to do with better technique, more confidence, more mental stamina. Me against myself, man against the machine.
It’s never been about going fastest, or else I could have bought a Corvette or a Radical or similar and called it a day. It’s about the learning and the improvement process, in which a manual transmission is just another thing you as a driver must master, in addition to the miriad other things you must keep track of. When done right, in addition to the racing line, and tire/brake management, traffic management, maintaining consistency etc., it simply provides a better “high”, more of a satisfaction and feeling of achievement - for me at least. And again, the lap times are only significant for me personally.
If you think you’ve maxed out a car on track simply because it has an automatic transmission of some kind, you’re delusional. And if you’re not maxing it out anyway, what difference could it possibly make if it had a stick or not. If you’re not racing professionally, then you’re just out having a good time.
And what type of trophy/prize do you take home from a trackday? The correct answer is, your own car, undamaged, and your health, unchanged.
Everything else is just BS.
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The "thing on Earth that possessed him" to bring that up was that they were talking about racing transmissions, which a true SMG is.
Okay it's not about going fastest, but it certainly is about going faster isn't it? Or how do you measure your improvement from lap-to-lap, etc?
You mention the "miriad of other things" involved in the driving process. He isn't saying he's automatically "maxed out a car" just because he's driving it on track with an auto. He's exactly saying the same as you, that there is much more to perfecting your high-performance driving than rowing your own gears with a manual transmission, which I'll go ahead and agree with him that it's probably not the hardest one to master either.
Don't go about calling others delusional when you're saying that if the car doesn't have a manual transmission, suddenly it can't be "man against the machine".
You enjoy your manual. Maybe he feels like he's already had his fair share of improving his shifting skills, and now finds much more joy in perfecting the other things you need to put the car through it's paces effectively.
There's nothing wrong with either, but it doesn't make anyone less or more of a driver just based on their preferences.