handling question
 

Well, finally had a chance to burn up the big rubbers in a big parking lot this past sunday.

I'm just going in circles and hope to hone the sliding skill and get the hang of the rear end breaking loose in the dreaded mid turn gas lift - off.

My questions are:

when the rear end started going sideways, I can control it with the gas pedal. once I let off the pedal, all four wheels are drifting. any advice? what does one do to control it.

It seen like I can go mush faster in the canyons then in the parking lot with out the tires loosing grip. I am spinning them in both 1st and 2ns gear. Am I giving it too much gas? This makes me worry in the next canyon run.

It is a 930 with 315s in the rear. don't know if that will make a difference?

Thanks, Jeff

Yes. The idea of driving the car at the limit of it's performance is to be at the edge of, but still within it's performance envelope. The moment that you start spinning tires or sliding the tires -- you've gone too far. In the gray zone between street driving and going too far is a zone where the tires are generating slip angles -- but not sliding. That is the zone where you want to be if you are trying to drive the car to it's fullest abilities.

If you have access to a parking lot where you can play, set up a skid pad and starting driving around the circle -- first in one direction and then the other. Slowly pick up the speed and try to avoid sudden changes to the throttle. See what the fastest speed is that you can maintain for 3 or 4 laps around the circle. Then try to slowly increase the speed a little further as you start to understand what the car feels like when it is cornering at the limit. You'll start to learn that a slight "breathing" of the throttle is all that is often needed to get the car to tighten it's line, or a slight increase in pressure on the gas pedal is all that's needed to settle the back end. Guys like Senna used constantly modulate between those two attitudes -- 2 or 3 times a second -- while cornering.

Once you understand that, then the objective (TRACK USE ONLY!!!!) is to take corners on the track so that you are right at the limit, just like you were on the skid pad. If you're making violent attitude changes in the car -- you've got it wrong.

Just to add, for a tyre to generate a side force there has to be a slip angle. No slip angle, no side force.

The roads that carve through canyons are usually banked with the proper amount of camber whereas parking lots are flat.

-Joe

Thanks guys. What is a slip angle? What is causing the four wheel to loose traction? Maybe the front wheel is just slipping a bit and more on the rear. It happens so fast and I am trying correct it with the steering wheel. That's where I feel the slippage, through steering wheel. Am I going too fast to cause this. Once the 4 wheel starts to drift, How do I gain control back? Thanks for the freebie lession, Jeff

Look 171;
Call up Skip Barber, Bonderant similar a school and take a course. Given the performance potential of your car, you need to learn this stuff from a pro in a safe and controlled situation. The $1500-$2000 for a mult-day class will be money well spent down the road compared to the cost of throwing your car (with you in it) off the road at speed.

Take my word for it. I've tried to learn performance driving using other methods (read entry ramps, exit ramps, and then with a little more brain engagement SCCA Racing schools), the big name schools have been successfully in business for 20 to 30 years (or more) for a reason. They really do now how to teach people how to drive fast safely and in a short amount of time. In my opinion, you'll be wasting your money trying to learn these things anywhere else.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1099589806.jpg

As a bonus, if your car happens to develop issues, they just give you another one! (note the change in the car's color)

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1099589875.jpg

Don't worry about learning in a formula car. What you learn there directly applies to driving a rear engined 911.

John, thanks. Sounds lilke too much fun. How does it compare to the DEs offer by the P car clubs and other weekend school? I know they don't drive formula cars. Jeff

I haven't done any DE's, although I've been told that some of the teachers are very good with excellent credentials. That's great. But keep in mind that the teachers at the pro schools do it for a living, day in and day out. My observation is that their process for teaching is better then I've seen elsewhere. Once again, they have been tweaking the process for 20 to 30 years, 52 weeks a year, up to 5 to 6 days a week. They also have spare cars available.

When I took Skip Barber, my instructor was Mike Szymeky who I've seen occasionally on TV coaching the Skip Barber pro series drivers. Boris Said (at the time another Skip Barber instructor) stopped by to check out what was going on. Jeremy Dale stopped in on the last day and took one of the very same cars that we had just been driving, and promptly lapped LRP about 2-3 seconds faster then us. Watching how he drove the course compared to how we were driving it was worth the price of admission alone!

Here's a comparison. Prior to taking a 3 day Skip Barber class I had taken three 2-day SCCA racing schools in my FF and hadn't been successfully signed off. While faster then some of the other students, I was still dead-slow -- and I tossed my FF off the track at Turn-1 in my last school at Watkins Glen. The repairs to the car (and budget) took me out of action for some time.

After taking Skip Barber I haven't been perfect, but I've found that I can sit down in a race car and start turning consistant lap times from lap 1, and start to be in the "competitive" zone after about 5-10 laps -- while being a lot safer. The type of car doesn't really matter -- I've found the same results in an FWD and RWD IT cars, Sports 2000, Spec Racer and karts.

My only regret is that I didn't start by taking Skip Barber rather then putting my own investments on the line. It's certainly not the only way to learn how to drive fast, but my experience is that in the long run it is the cheapest and fastest. You have a $20K+ car. You'll easily spend a couple of grand on short shift kits, wide rubber, cool collers and stuff like that. The best way to improve the car is to update what is between the driver's ears!

The best car control class I ever took was not at a professsional race school, it was an autocross school. I've learned much more about car control here than on the big tracks. They usuall set up a skid pad, oval, figure 8, box 8 and threshold braking areas. You get practise in each type of section, then put it all together on Sunday on a course that includes most of these type turns.

I would suggest signing up for an auto cross school in your PCA region. Also I highly recommend you buy Hank Watts book "secrets to solo racing"

The stuff I learned autocrossing has helped me tremendously in my transition to club racing.

PS the cost is way cheaper than Skip Barbers class as well. Our zone 7 school is usually a few hundred bucks.

TC-sacto; I agree autocrossing is great practice, inexpensive and fun. I've some friends who started out that way and proven to be quite fast. I tried it myself once but it wasn't quite "my cup of tea". The issue that I have with learning the cars limits with that approach is time. When autocrossing you get 6-8 runs of maybe 90 seconds each per day. More if the car count is low. With the Skippy class you get a good 2-3 hours of seat time per day easy (rain or shine, or rain and shine in my case). 20 to 30 minutes at a time. I had so much seat time at Skip Barber that when I went home and went to sleep (bone tired by the way), my ears were ringing from all of the time spent sitting right next to the engine.

Look 171, a good start locally would be a POC Short-Track event or a DE like the one I'll be instructing at next week. (Link here.)

jluetjen,
Agreed. I don't autocross any more due to the lack of seat time. The school we did however, was only for beggining and intermidiate drivers. There was a bunch of seat time and no working the field. They had volunteers for that. Learning at the lower speeds helped me understand what the car was going to do given a dump action by me. I'd hate to have my first experience with lifting the thorttle in a sweeping turn be at 80mph at say Sears Point/Infineon. Walls all over the place. If I did that in an autocross setting all I'd hit would be rubber cones. However, as I progerssed into full racing, the Jim Russell class was very fun. Just about all the Professional classes are well worth the money.

Yeah, if you're going to hit something -- a cone would be tops on my list!

Jack, thanks for the info. Tuesday is not good for me. This work thing is really started to get in the way of all the fun. I am also interested in the little cart on the track. Approx $350 covers everything? When will the next event take place after the holidays? Jeff