Danica knows more about building a race track than I could learn in a book. I once completed an airport job and had the runway to myself. Thought it would be fun to take Shivas's favorite modern sedan out and pump it up. I freaked before I peaked. I can not and will never understand the true meaning of 200 mph driving next to walls. Guess what, I had hot wheels growing up to boot.
Sorry John, but this point and your whole line of thinking on this thread is just plain dead wrong. Now Jack may be the best there has ever been at architecting, but that would have only to do with his work in that area, not his playing days.
Your Danica example is also laughable. I don't follow indy as closely as F1, but a couple of years ago some magazine asked Lewis Hamilton to "design" his dream race track. He picked his favorite corners from tracks all over the world and the end result was a course that would result in a boring, processional race. He has no plans to quit his day job. We can find innumerable examples of where being a good practitioner has nothing whatever to do with designing the implements or environments used by said practitioner.