A GOOD memory and careful posture are the key to powering around bends at 200
kilometres per hour, a study of a racing driver has revealed.
When negotiating a bend, ordinary drivers fix their eyes on the continuously
moving 鈥渢angent point鈥� where the inside curve of the road disappears, says Mike
Land of the University of Sussex near Brighton (快猫短视频, 30 July 1994, p
17). This allows them to adjust their steering correctly.
Land wondered if the same would be true for racing drivers, who typically
drive 2 or 3 times as fast. To find out, he mounted cameras on the helmet of
Tomas Scheckter, a Formula Three driver being groomed for Formula One. The
cameras measured the direction of his gaze, the orientation of his head and the
scene in front of him as he raced round six laps of the Mallory Park circuit in
Leicestershire.
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Scheckter also used the tangent point. But unlike ordinary drivers, he also
turned his head slightly before hitting each bend, Land reports in the 7 August
issue of Current Biology. The amount he turned his head was proportional to the
rate at which the car was rounding the bend one second later. 鈥淚t happened on
every single lap,鈥� Land says.
Land believes racing drivers angle their heads so that they will be looking
directly at the essential tangent point when it appears a moment later. He
thinks they can do this only because they鈥檝e memorised the track.
Land says his findings may help Formula One drivers perform better, although
he is not yet sure how. The camera might be a good way to spot lapses of
concentration, for example. Representatives of Bernie Ecclestone, head of the
Formula One Constructors鈥� Association, have already visited Land鈥檚 lab to find
out more.