Are driver changes becoming a thing of the past?

[BajaFand]

Looking at results from all 5 major events this year, it seems that driver changes are becoming a thing of the past if you want an overall victory. It was just a few years ago that every team did atleast 1 driver change during a race. At every major event this year the overall has been won by a single driver and the largest margin of victory has been about 4 minutes. In the last 2 events the margin has been less than 20 seconds. You would also have to figure that on course tire changes can take as much or more time than driver changes in the pits.

These days there are so many teams with good drivers that are all capable of having a good day, it's starting to look like doing a driver change can cost you an overall and/or TT victory (depending on the series). I still think in the Baja 1000, especially a penninsula run, you will be able to win with having driver changes. But at any race under 500 miles it's hard to say.

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[JEFFRPM]

Look at the drivers lately the overall winners are 12 years old and the rest of us are well into their 40s and some of the real fast drivers are 70 we HAD to do driver changes cause they were spent at 250-400 miles and i don't mean out of shape just SPENT.

[y2kbaja]

We just ran a 300 miler with no drivers change. A driver change would have cost us the win because of the time to change drivers and the time it would have taken the 2nd driver to get up to speed and learn the track and truck. Anything over 500 miles for our team however we are changing drivers.

[CaptinCrash]

Good crews can change out the rider and driver faster then they can change the tires and fuel the truck or at least we can and we have to stuff a couple booster cushions in my seat plus most driver changes are done at pit stops so it doesnt matter you still need to stop for gas and tires why not put a fresh guys in

[Jacob7672]

Good crews can change out the rider and driver faster then they can change the tires and fuel the truck or at least we can and we have to stuff a couple booster cushions in my seat plus most driver changes are done at pit stops so it doesnt matter you still need to stop for gas and tires why not put a fresh guys in

Exactly, the change should always be done while fueling the car/truck. Most of the time the new driver/rider is in and ready before the fuel cell is full.

[DanMcMillin]

Driver changes are only as good as to how well that driver knows that section. Chuck Hovey knows the 2nd half of the 500 MUCH better than I do, so in that case, YES a driver change is a big advantage.

[Porboy]

I talked about this with one of the top TT drivers regarding the 1000 a few years ago and he said he would prefer to do the whole thing himself but once other teams started putting in fresh drivers throughout the race it became a real competitive disadvantage to solo the race. A quality driver who has only been in the truck for the last few hundred miles will be faster than the other quality driver who is blowing bubbles at mile 1000. As mentioned above, a good team should be able to get a fresh driver in to the truck in the time it takes to change two rear tires and fill the truck with fuel. For races like the 500 the top drivers are good enough athletes that they can handle that distance and still maintain a winning pace. My.02

[pdailey]

Andy/Scott McMillin


/thread

[pdailey]

Driver changes are only as good as to how well that driver knows that section. Chuck Hovey knows the 2nd half of the 500 MUCH better than I do, so in that case, YES a driver change is a big advantage.

To touch more on that, when prerunning, you can cover your section twice as much. And staying fresh is a big advantage as well.

[GunnSlinger]

Andy/Scott McMillin


/thread

exactly .. the "fresh legs" theory seems to be successful. kinda like bike teams