In the very beginning of Initial D, there is a scene where the three friends ride in the car. Iketani, leader of Akina Speed Stars, is behind the wheel and introduces the two others, Itsuki and Takumi, to the spirited driving. Both scared, and Takumi is scared senseless. But why? Takumi is an innate driving genius. Iketani's driving should have been nothing for him. I thought about it, but could not figure it out.
CKS offers the following explanation:
What Initial D did really well was show and convince us that Iketani was actually not a good driver and his fast drive was pretty sloppy. Takumi was rightfully scared because he actually understood what was going on and how dangerous it was; Iketani was oblivious.
I think he's spot on, in anime terms. But it did not work for me, not in that way. Of course, I have a great track record of misconstructing what I see. But in this case, it's more: the scene directly contradicts my background.
Here's how I consider it. Since Iketani did not, in fact, crash, we know that he did not "sit into a funnel", or entered a zone where no control input was sufficient to prevent crash. If Takumi possessed the extreme abilities that we assign to him, he must have known it right there as the situation developed.
Once upon a time I rode shotgun with a certain young lady, grabbed the wheel, and saved us from an imminent death when she attempted to submarine a semi (it merged into us because its lane was ending). In this situation, a way out existed, and I took it. She could've have taken it too. And strictly speaking, it was impossible to know if she would.
The situation in Iketani's car was basically the same, so it came down to trusting him to do it right. Which Takumi did not. Why? Iketani drove that way before. What is the panic about?
The whole scene made no sense to me.
Chris, however, figured it out instantly. And it came naturally to him.
UPDATE: What they were aiming for was portrayed better by an episode of BBC series "Top Gear", where Mika Hakkinen teaches James May how to drive on a rally circuit. Watch the facial expression of Hakkinen playing Takumi while May is missing a tree at 140 km/h:
