The last point has to do with a notion I have about drawing the track. Mr Code almost says it’s a waste of time, that you can’t learn a track by looking at a track map, or walking it. I don’t wholly subscribe though. At the very least it is a starting point which one can validate when on two wheels in anger.
To me, it is closely related to a Sighting Lap that you see in MotoGP. Every Infantry soldier knows the term “Sector Sketch.” It’s a pain-in-the-ass. Nobody ever explains to a soldier the real value — which is a careful examination of the terrain. For example, Bob Goodman could tell you that photographing can teach you to look at space differently. You could say the same about learning to fly. Drawing, takes it even further.
The Sector Sketch requires a soldier to look at the 120 degrees of ground fronting his foxhole, to find the deadspace, to find the avenues of approach, to decide where to emplace Concertina wire and Claymore mines.
Similarly, the Track Recce can inform the racer of Camber, Radii and Elevation Changes. She can look and feel the sealant snakes, the tarmac patches, the auto racing rivulets and divots
So, back to the battlefield:
At the Benning School for Boys, I was not the best Infantry land navigator. I had trouble picking up the patterns and distinguishing between subtleties in the central Georgia terrain. I required remedial training. I also apparently required a come-to-Jesus meeting with the Commandant of the Infantry School. Colonel Davis informed me that I was not looking long as a LEADER OF MEN if I didn’t learn to find my ass with both hands.
I worked hard at it with Colonel Damewood on Yankee Road as the Saturdays cooled in the fall of 1988. He taught Terrain Association as opposed to Dead Reckoning. I learned that drawing the terrain forced me to really look at it. As an echo of Keith Code’s “end to beginning,” I learned too that eyeballing it backwards gave me an even clearer feel for its ass-to-ankle contours.
That last lonely November Saturday night instead of being at the strip clubs on Victory Boulevard, I ran jungle-booted in a red-lens-lit, pissing-down, rain-creek-crossing, final do-or-die examination. Happily I had no further Front-Leaning-Rest meetings with Colonel Davis.
So, back to the track, Jack:
Snapping, drawing, walking, crawling, roller-skating, pogo, stilts unicycling. That first morning at VIR was one for Terrain Appreciation. I took a pad, and my Lab, Nickee. We walked and drew the interior of the track. We slogged uphill and downhill. She carried my easel. Lacking 4 Contact Patches I slid down the dew-soaked grass that she strode down. She pointed out to me, with her webbed paws, me where the gradients were, like at Turn #7. I wish we had had time to do the same walk backwards. Had I a 1-speed bicycle and her a Razor scooter at the time we could have ridden them, to get the real character of the gradients.
scrotocycles.rip 