I have never ever seen, or heard of anyone doing this. I know Sears Point Raceway very well. Watching the video, I can tell you what turn the car is in by looking at the position of the steering wheel.

I have never known a Formula Mazda driver to double clutch. I can get around Sears just fine WITHOUT double clutching.

I don't know why the driver is double clutching a race prepared WRX at Sears

He obviously had a reason to do so, but nonetheless, he is double clutching.

I imagine it would be a hell of a lot more work to do so. Whatever reason the driver was doing so, double clutching will not reduce lap times, as you can only downshift as fast as the car will slow down.


Maybe not, but he certainly is not gaining time

 

End of story.

 

Agreed. I began double clutching when I started racing my old FC RX-7. The 1st and 2nd gear syncro's weren't very good and I had to double clutch to shift smoothly. Since then it's become second nature, I still do it without thinking about it. It does not cost me any more time in the car than if I were to move my left leg one less time. If you need to get back on the gas so quickly that you don't have time to properly downshift, even with a double clutch, you're probably in the wrong gear anyway and you have bigger problems than worrying about your procedure for downshifting.

 

O really?


I beg to differ



I don't think anyone is discouraging double clutching, just that there is absolutely no need to do so in a Honda S2000

 

[QUOTE=captain_pants,Dec 3 2007, 10:29 PM] Read it again, he's talking about going from 6th to 2nd.

 

 

Good luck winning a race in a broken car.

Any professional racing driver will tell you that a part of racing success is knowing the limits of your equipment and being responsible with it. If you feel your syncros starting to go early on in a long race, you'd better start double-clutching, unless you want to be the guy who coasts into the pits from 1st place with 5 laps to go because you can't get into 3rd gear. Your crew would rip your balls off.

Skip Barber advocates double-clutching in his book for this exact reason, and he has quotes from a few other pros to back it up.

To everyone:
YOU may never have to do it in YOUR car, and the OP may not need to learn how to do it either, but you shouldn't dismiss it as a completely useless skill. The double-clutch definitely still has a purpose in racing.

 

And on that note, I think this thread has run out of useful contributions.