The Art of Damper Tuning in Sim Racing

Welcome back to another episode of No Dumb Questions! We sit down to answer your questions, and we promise – there are no dumb questions, maybe just some dumb answers. This episode is a little different… We introduce a guest “host,” Sam Smith, who we are launching a new podcast in January with. It’s called It’s Not The Car, and is all about stories learning things, and having fun.

On this episode, Jeff, Sam, and I discuss how to better instruct intermediate level drivers and how to use damper histograms in sim racing. 

Jeff is one of the very best race car engineers in the world. He’s engineered cars at every level, and every type: NASCAR, karts, club racing cars, Indy, GT and Prototypes, and even Top Fuel dragsters. But what sets Jeff apart from many engineers is how he can explain what he’s doing, what a car is doing, and even how the best think.

Sam Smith is a brilliant and hilarious storyteller, a writer, an amateur racer, and a journalist. Over the last 20 years, he's written for outlets as diverse as the New York Times, Wired, and Hagerty Media. From 2012 to 2020, he was executive editor and then editor-at-large at Road & Track.