Critique an article on Improving Driving Skills...

dtfastbear · 12-31-2002, 08:16 AM

Hey gang,

I just put together an article on some things you can do over the winter to improve your driving skills for the coming autocross/DE season. If anyone can give it a read and offer me some feedback (positive or negative) before I submit it to the local PCA club newletter, I'd appreciate it.

http://www.momentarylaps.com/tech/WinterPractice2.pdf

Thanks!

Dean

FranksPlace2 · 12-31-2002, 08:34 AM

Dean,

I liked it as is. My only suggestion is to explain a little more how to decide what "the line" is.

Frank

jluetjen · jluetjen's Garage

I like it. You hit everything that I would hit, but you put it all into words alot better. You obviously put a lot of thought into it. Nice job!

- John

RazorRacer · 01-01-2003, 03:33 PM

It's a good article.

I have one suggestion about concentrating on the line. Since there are years and years of habitual driving thoughts floating in your head, I suggest you make it a gradual increase starting at 5 minutes, to 10 minutes, to 15 minutes, until you can do it all of the time.

masraum · 01-01-2003, 04:20 PM

pretty cool. I would guess that length might be a limiting factor to whether or not you can go through deciding on a line, but then that might be why you included the two books.
I had the opportunity to try a very small, short indoor electric cart track in a place called Gameworks in Irvine, CA once. It was probably too small to practice much of your line, but it was a ton of fun. Bigger which I am guessing the others probably are must be a real hoot.

makaio · 01-01-2003, 04:40 PM

Nice write up Dean!

Jack Olsen · 01-01-2003, 05:25 PM

Well-written article!

Noel · 01-01-2003, 05:34 PM

Well written. All of my normal recommendations were covered. Including "Winter Karting."

Noel

diy83sc · 01-01-2003, 06:31 PM

Great article. This past season was my first and I've learned a lot. I read "solo" and found some of these same recommendation to be helpfull. What I found to be the most influential in improving my time had to do with weight transfer. It is incredibly easy to push the car through a turn and lose whole seconds recovering. Whereas if the braking is done right, in conjunction with the line, the car is set up for the turn in. What is the most puzzling to me is how the cars with their inside front tire off the ground are the ones with the fasted laps? Can anyone explain this for me? I didn't do a search yet.

Tony

Don Wohlfarth · 01-02-2003, 05:01 AM

Good question Tony and I can't give you an absolute answer.

It is just how the car is setup. These cars do not raise one wheel at every turn but will raise a wheel time after time on 1 or 2 specific turns.
These cars would benefit from slightly heavier front torsion bars/springs or slightly more front sway bar. Car setup is a trade off where making an adjustment up or down for these 1 or 2 specific turns (keeping all 4 wheels on the track) may cause understeer or oversteer at some of the other turns.

Paul_Heery · Paul_Heery's Garage

Dean, nice article. However, I do have a bit of a problem with how one of your suggestions was presented. Keeping your head up and looking ahead while driving on a public highway is a good thing. However, concentrating on the line is not. Your first requirement while driving on a public highway is safety. The line is totally unimportant.

jluetjen · jluetjen's Garage

Quote:

What is the most puzzling to me is how the cars with their inside front tire off the ground are the ones with the fasted laps? Can anyone explain this for me? I didn't do a search yet.

911's pick up their front wheel when cornered hard because of two things:

1) The well known rear weight bias
2) The rear suspension geometry on non-turbo's and RSR's which allows the rear end of the car to "fall over" onto the outside rear tire. On the RSR's and Turbo's (and some other modified cars such as Jack Olsen's BB2), the rear roll center is raised a little which greatly reduces the car's tendancy to do this.

In general it is not a big deal since 911's are ultimately Oversteering cars, which means that they are limited by rear end traction when cornering. A car which is lifting it's inside front wheel has basically had a large amount of roll resistance transfered from the back end to the outside front corner to try to conteract this oversteering tendancy.

Since most of the 911's in the world don't have the raised rear roll center modification, most of them will raise the inside front wheel when cornered hard. It's not a big deal. Even on an F1 car, the inside front wheel will often have almost zero load on it. Their lower center of gravity and suspension geometry just doesn't make it so obvious.

dtfastbear · 01-05-2003, 07:50 AM

Thanks for all the feedback, everyone! I intentially did not try to tackle the topic of how to "find the line", as it deserves a book (or two) unto itself. This is why I made the references.

Paul, I agree with you in principle, but I have to admit that as an enthusiast, I'm concerned with more while driving than simply getting from one place to another safely, and I have to believe that others who will be reading the article in a sports-car club newsletter will feel the same. I guess I should add an additional disclaimer before I find myself being sued because someone was thinking about an apex when they pulled out in front of a truck!! Point taken.

Thanks again to all who offered feedback.

Happy New Year,

Dean

bento · bento's Garage

dean
great article. any thoughts on a bay area pelicanites grudge match at speedring or lemans? just a thought.

david benett
(still chasing suspesion issues)

dtfastbear · 01-06-2003, 05:11 AM

Oooh! There is an idea! I'll put up a separate posting to see if anyone in the Bay Area is interested...

Let me know if you still need some help with that nasty tire rubbing issue. I can offer only a fresh set of eyes/ideas and an extra set of hands.

Any chance you're going to the NCRC event at Sears Point on Jan 25th, David?

Dean