Track Day Safety
Track days can be an excellent way to improve your driving skills and become more familiar with your MINI under reasonably safe circumstances. However, there are some good rules to keep in mind whenever you are out on the track with other drivers.
Obvious point number one: be aware of other drivers. One characteristic of nearly all track days is that the capabilities and experience of the drivers, and their desire to drive fast, will vary significantly. Unfortunately, abilities and need for speed also often vary in inverse relationship to each other.
You always need to be very aware of the drivers around you. Those in front may create situations to which you will have to react, and those behind you can startle you in unexpected places. Try to concentrate on everything immediately around you, but focus only on what is going on at the moment. This is no time to be thinking about where you’re going for dinner after the event.
Obvious point number two: follow the rules. The supervisors of each track day will have specific rules for you to follow that will be determined by the nature of the group you are driving with and the characteristics of the specific track.
For example, areas of the track where you can pass, and where you can not pass, are likely to be specified. Procedures for passing, such as that the overtaking car is always to go to the driver’s right or driver’s left of the car being passed, are also likely to be specified. These rules are not suggestions or simple courtesies. They are mandatory, and if the supervisors are doing their job, breaking them will bring a strong warning, followed on a second occurrence by immediate expulsion from the event.
Watch your mirrors. Even more than in everyday traffic, you need to check your mirrors frequently to be aware of cars behind you, especially those that are overtaking you. Try to develop a habit of checking your mirrors at least once and preferably twice on each straight portion of the track.
Check your mirrors first just as soon as you complete the corner to see if there may be a car behind you that will want to take advantage of the straight portion to go past you. Check again just before you commit yourself to the next corner to make sure that no one is going to try to get around you just at the point when you are coming across the track to apex the corner.
Allow others to pass safely. During your first few track days, when you’re feeling a little tentative about your car and your driving ability, and getting to know the track, it will seem as if everyone in the world is going faster than you are and is crowding your bumpers.
Typically, you’ll find that you’re being crowded on the corners, since you’re likely to be slowest in those areas. Don’t let that worry you, but be ready to let the faster cars go around you as soon as you’re in an area where passing is permitted.
As soon as you’re in a safe passing area, point in the direction you expect the driver to go as he passes you. The point lets the driver behind know that you know he or she is there and that they can pass you without causing you to do anything unexpected.
Don’t try to move over, or move off the line that you would otherwise be traveling. The driver overtaking you needs to know that you aren’t going to turn abruptly in one direction or the other as they’re trying to pass. It is up to them to make the pass safely.
It doesn’t hurt to slow down just a bit to allow the car behind to get completely around you before the next corner. Typically at a MINI track day, the cars will be fairly evenly matched, but driving abilities will vary.
As a result, you might be able to hold your own on the straight, or even outdrag the overtaking driver, but that proves nothing. If they can stay on your bumpers through the corners, then they’re probably driving better than you and should have the right to practice their cornering without having to slow up for you.
Remember that there may be more than one car behind you waiting to pass. They will often assume that if you’re letting one car pass, that you will be letting anyone behind them around as well.
Just don’t be disconcerted by being passed. If you’re courteous and predictable in your driving style, no one will mind that you’re driving more slowly than they are.
If you’re the overtaking driver, make your passes safely. As you gain a little experience, you may find that you are overtaking other drivers. In this case, it is your responsibility to make the pass safely. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about this. The safe pass is solely the responsibility of the overtaking driver.
After you’ve gotten near the car ahead, wait for the next safe passing zone and look for their signal to pass. If you are not sure the driver ahead knows you’re there, or not sure there is enough room to make a clean pass in the safe passing area, then wait until you can make the pass safely.
Be careful to completely pass the car ahead before you change direction. If you don’t think you can pass them before the turn-in point for the next corner, then wait until the next passing zone to make your pass.
If you find that you simply can’t get around a driver safely on the straights, even though you know you’re faster on the corners, then the best thing to do is to back off. Track days aren’t races, and there are no prizes for proving you’re faster than someone else. You might even pull into pit lane and then go back out on the track to give the slow car as much room as possible. Pausing for even thirty seconds is usually enough to get enough track space for yourself so you can go back to practicing at the speed that suits you.
Obvious point number three: If the program in which you’re participating offers to provide a coach or instructor to ride with you on your hot laps, take them up on it. This is no time for a macho “I’d rather do it myself” attitude. Once you’re out on the track, you’re going to discover that there is about twice as much going on as your mind can process and your memory store.
Having an instructor or coach in the car will make sure that if something starts to happen that is beyond your power to control, there will be an experienced driver in the car to holler or grab the wheel to help you avoid the problem. More likely, having a quiet voice next to you saying, “brake now” or “turn-in here” can help you stay focused.
Best of all, the instructor/coach can store up all the little data that you might miss or forget in the sensory overload on the track, and help you put it all in perspective once you get off the track. Having someone who can say, for example, “You’re coasting into the corners by pausing between brake and throttle,” can make everything suddenly make sense.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Track Day Driving Techniques
Corner Workers
This is probably a good point to discuss one of the important roles that corner workers play at race tracks. All sanctioned race tracks will have at a corner-worker station at each blind corner. Two workers will be posted at each of these corners.
During a practice session or race, one of the workers will face towards oncoming traffic to watch for unsafe situations that require drivers to be warned with a flag. If there is a faster car overtaking you, he’ll wave a blue flag with a yellow stripe to warn you. If there is debris or fluids on the track, he’ll wave a red flag with yellow stripes, and if there is a safety vehicle on the course up ahead, he’ll wave or show a white flag.
The other worker will be standing with his back to the first worker, looking further down the track. That worker is your eyes into the area that you can’t see, but which you are about to drive into at high speed. He has only one flag under his arm, the yellow one.
If he sees something around the corner or over the rise that you need to be concerned about, such as a car spinning sideways or off the track in an unsafe place, he will turn around to face the oncoming cars, and wave that yellow flag to let you know that it isn’t safe for you to drive around the corner at high speed.
We can’t emphasize too much that you must look at the flag station before you drive into a blind corner. If the flag workers are standing there with their flags tucked under their arms, you can safely pick your line into the corner and take it with all the speed that’s appropriate.
If, on the other hand, the course worker is waving the yellow flag, that’s your warning to slow down and be ready to even stop, if necessary, becauuse there will be an obstruction to avoid on the other side of the blind spot.
Wet Tracks and Slippery Pavement
Whenever we visualize ourselves driving at speed on a racetrack, the sun is always shining, and the temperature is comfortable, but not too hot or too cold. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the situation. It can be rainy and it can be cold and the track day will still take place.
With the high costs of track rentals these days, and the complicated logistics involved in putting together a track day, cancellation due to bad weather is just not an option. It’s only at the Indianapolis 500 that they wait for the rain to stop before running.
Consequently, a few words about techniques for running in the wet are in order. Most of the following tips are also relevant for driving on highways in the rain or where glare ice may be a possibility.
Obvious point number one: slow down. You’ll have more time to react to unexpected situations should they arise, and be carrying less momentum should you find yourself in trouble. Leave more room than normal between yourself and the vehicle ahead, and look well down the road for developing problems such as a car skidding out of control.
Obvious point number two: be alert. When you find yourself on the wet, or in the middle of that unexpected shower, narrow your focus of attention to your driving. Make sure you’ve got both hands on the wheel in the proper eight or nine o’clock and three or four o’clock positions.
Use your hands to feel for any loss of traction in the front wheels. If the steering wheel starts to feel as if it isn’t quite connected with the wheels, then you may be hydroplaning on top of the water, instead of moving through it with your wheels in contact with the pavement.
Be smooth in your response. Any slickness in the pavement is going to multiply your reactions. You want to be even smoother with your direction corrections, acceleration and braking that you would otherwise be. Be sure that you are going straight before making any braking or acceleration changes. If you do need to make any changes in direction, do it slowly and carefully rather than abruptly.
Here again, keep in mind that you are driving a front-wheel drive car. As long as your foot is on the throttle, your wheels will help you handle the situation, just so long as you are very smooth with your inputs.
On the other hand, on a wet track, if you release the throttle or hit the brake in the middle of the corner, the rear end of your car is going to get loose and spin out even more quickly.
On the track or highway in the wet, try to stay away from the most-traveled portion of the pavement. On the track the standard fast line around the corners is often called the “dry line.” Because most of the cars travel on this line most of the time, that pavement will be impregnated with oil and rubber, which will rise to the surface first in a light rain. Instead, take the “rain line,” typically about one car length in from the edge of the track.
On the highway, your best bet is to stay in the slow lane which will be slightly less slick, keep you out of the way of those who think that rain can be ignored, and will give you run-off space if you need to avoid a problem.
This is probably a good point to discuss one of the important roles that corner workers play at race tracks. All sanctioned race tracks will have at a corner-worker station at each blind corner. Two workers will be posted at each of these corners.
During a practice session or race, one of the workers will face towards oncoming traffic to watch for unsafe situations that require drivers to be warned with a flag. If there is a faster car overtaking you, he’ll wave a blue flag with a yellow stripe to warn you. If there is debris or fluids on the track, he’ll wave a red flag with yellow stripes, and if there is a safety vehicle on the course up ahead, he’ll wave or show a white flag.
The other worker will be standing with his back to the first worker, looking further down the track. That worker is your eyes into the area that you can’t see, but which you are about to drive into at high speed. He has only one flag under his arm, the yellow one.
If he sees something around the corner or over the rise that you need to be concerned about, such as a car spinning sideways or off the track in an unsafe place, he will turn around to face the oncoming cars, and wave that yellow flag to let you know that it isn’t safe for you to drive around the corner at high speed.
We can’t emphasize too much that you must look at the flag station before you drive into a blind corner. If the flag workers are standing there with their flags tucked under their arms, you can safely pick your line into the corner and take it with all the speed that’s appropriate.
If, on the other hand, the course worker is waving the yellow flag, that’s your warning to slow down and be ready to even stop, if necessary, becauuse there will be an obstruction to avoid on the other side of the blind spot.
Wet Tracks and Slippery Pavement
Whenever we visualize ourselves driving at speed on a racetrack, the sun is always shining, and the temperature is comfortable, but not too hot or too cold. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the situation. It can be rainy and it can be cold and the track day will still take place.
With the high costs of track rentals these days, and the complicated logistics involved in putting together a track day, cancellation due to bad weather is just not an option. It’s only at the Indianapolis 500 that they wait for the rain to stop before running.
Consequently, a few words about techniques for running in the wet are in order. Most of the following tips are also relevant for driving on highways in the rain or where glare ice may be a possibility.
Obvious point number one: slow down. You’ll have more time to react to unexpected situations should they arise, and be carrying less momentum should you find yourself in trouble. Leave more room than normal between yourself and the vehicle ahead, and look well down the road for developing problems such as a car skidding out of control.
Obvious point number two: be alert. When you find yourself on the wet, or in the middle of that unexpected shower, narrow your focus of attention to your driving. Make sure you’ve got both hands on the wheel in the proper eight or nine o’clock and three or four o’clock positions.
Use your hands to feel for any loss of traction in the front wheels. If the steering wheel starts to feel as if it isn’t quite connected with the wheels, then you may be hydroplaning on top of the water, instead of moving through it with your wheels in contact with the pavement.
Be smooth in your response. Any slickness in the pavement is going to multiply your reactions. You want to be even smoother with your direction corrections, acceleration and braking that you would otherwise be. Be sure that you are going straight before making any braking or acceleration changes. If you do need to make any changes in direction, do it slowly and carefully rather than abruptly.
Here again, keep in mind that you are driving a front-wheel drive car. As long as your foot is on the throttle, your wheels will help you handle the situation, just so long as you are very smooth with your inputs.
On the other hand, on a wet track, if you release the throttle or hit the brake in the middle of the corner, the rear end of your car is going to get loose and spin out even more quickly.
On the track or highway in the wet, try to stay away from the most-traveled portion of the pavement. On the track the standard fast line around the corners is often called the “dry line.” Because most of the cars travel on this line most of the time, that pavement will be impregnated with oil and rubber, which will rise to the surface first in a light rain. Instead, take the “rain line,” typically about one car length in from the edge of the track.
On the highway, your best bet is to stay in the slow lane which will be slightly less slick, keep you out of the way of those who think that rain can be ignored, and will give you run-off space if you need to avoid a problem.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Track Day Driving Techniques
Sequences of Corners
The corners on a track or autocross course that really show off a driver’s skill and experience are those where several corners come in a row. In these circumstances, taking the optimum line around one corner may make it impossible to take the best line around the next corner.
For example, many tracks have a situation where if you go all the way to the outside of the track to prepare to enter the first corner in the sequence, the result is that you wind up exiting that corner way beyond the point where you can get a proper line into the second corner.
The key to these situations is to think about where you want to be when you come out the other end of the sequence of corners and are back on a straight section, whether that sequence is two corners, or five corners. As a general rule, the driver with the best lap time is not the person who goes through the corners fastest, but the one who gets from the beginnings of the straighter high-speed sections to their ends fastest.
To get the highest speed on the straighter sections depends on coming off the last corner before that section on the best possible line. Sometimes this is impossible unless a less-than-optimal line is selected through one or more of the earlier curves in the sequence. This principle is sometimes called “sacrificing a corner” for speed.
Obviously, you aren’t going to get this right the first time you drive the course.
In fact, you have to find that line through the sequence of corners one step at a time, starting from the very last corner before the straight. As you start to learn the track, or begin working to lower your times, start by driving relatively slowly through the sequence so that you can set up the last turn as effectively as possible in terms of how fast you’re going when you exit. Once you’ve figured out where to begin your entry into that last corner, then you can do the same thing by determining where to turn in and how fast to enter the second-to-last corner in the sequence.
By following this process back to the first corner in the sequence, you may very well find yourself starting the first corner at a point that wouldn’t make any sense at all if that corner were the only one, or you may find yourself going relatively wide and slow around a corner in the middle of the sequence in order to finish the sequence at the highest possible speed.
We grant that it is much easier to explain this process than to follow it. Nevertheless, if you were to watch a professional driver who was learning a new course, or mastering a new car on a known course (nearly the same thing), you would see that their lap times get progressively lower, one step at a time, as they continue to practice.
It isn’t that they are getting better and better at the whole course. Instead, what is happening is that they are finding a good line through one corner of a section at a time, and then progressively learning the corners leading up to it.
For the near term, the main thing to remember is that when you confront a sequence of corners, you won’t necessarily be able to follow the theories of correct lines through corners and find yourself going fast at the end. Instead, concentrate your attention on the last corner in the sequence, since that’s where the greatest gains will be made in improving your lap times. Be willing to sacrifice speed around earlier corners in order to find that good line out of the last corner, and you’ll be on your way to driving better.
Blind Corners
Whenever given the chance, those devious track designers will generally take advantage of terrain changes, or geographic characteristics to make the driver’s task even more difficult. If they do very well, they will be rewarded by having their track called “technical.” In our terms, a technical track is one that calls on all of the driver’s skills to get good times.
One of the favorite strategies to do this is to use changes in elevation to create a blind corner, where the important elements of the corner, like the apex and exit point, can’t be seen until the driver is already making the turn and is committed to a line. One of the best examples of this is the “corkscrew” at Laguna Seca, but just about every good track has at least two or three examples of blind corners offering similar challenge.
To drive these blind corners well, two tips are in order. First, try to see the entire corner, including the part you can’t see, in your mind’s eye before entering it. Second, help yourself by finding visual landmarks that you can see in order to take the corner well.
Seeing the corner in your mind is a trick that all good drivers use. It’s often noted that an experienced driver can remember every foot of every corner of every track that he or she has mastered, and can drive the track in their mind so accurately that if you tell them to start, and they tell you when they’ve completed the mental lap, the elapsed time will be almost precisely the time it takes them to physically drive a lap.
The idea is that as you come up to a corner that is obscured by a rise in the terrain, or other barrier, that you try to see through the barrier in your mind, picturing what the corner will look like as you clear the barrier. Do this several times as you begin driving a new track and fairly soon you’ll have a clear picture of what the corner looks like in your mind. At that point you’ll find that your confidence has been built up so that you can clear the barrier without slowing down more than is justified by the actual characteristics of the corner.
The second tip is to select a physical landmark that you can see, to give you a guide point to tell you where to aim the car as you go over the rise, or around the barrier that obscures the corner. For example, drivers who have mastered Laguna Seca will tell you that they aim for the top of the first oak tree as they make their turn and prepare to dive over that blind crest into the Corkscrew.
On other courses, the landmark might be a particular lamppost, or water tank, or other physical landmark in the distance that you can aim for when you round that blind corner or crest that blind rise into the next corner.
But if you use the combination of creating a mental picture of the corner, coupled with a physical reference point to help you find your line, you’ll be able to take the corner almost as if you had x-ray vision.
The corners on a track or autocross course that really show off a driver’s skill and experience are those where several corners come in a row. In these circumstances, taking the optimum line around one corner may make it impossible to take the best line around the next corner.
For example, many tracks have a situation where if you go all the way to the outside of the track to prepare to enter the first corner in the sequence, the result is that you wind up exiting that corner way beyond the point where you can get a proper line into the second corner.
The key to these situations is to think about where you want to be when you come out the other end of the sequence of corners and are back on a straight section, whether that sequence is two corners, or five corners. As a general rule, the driver with the best lap time is not the person who goes through the corners fastest, but the one who gets from the beginnings of the straighter high-speed sections to their ends fastest.
To get the highest speed on the straighter sections depends on coming off the last corner before that section on the best possible line. Sometimes this is impossible unless a less-than-optimal line is selected through one or more of the earlier curves in the sequence. This principle is sometimes called “sacrificing a corner” for speed.
Obviously, you aren’t going to get this right the first time you drive the course.
In fact, you have to find that line through the sequence of corners one step at a time, starting from the very last corner before the straight. As you start to learn the track, or begin working to lower your times, start by driving relatively slowly through the sequence so that you can set up the last turn as effectively as possible in terms of how fast you’re going when you exit. Once you’ve figured out where to begin your entry into that last corner, then you can do the same thing by determining where to turn in and how fast to enter the second-to-last corner in the sequence.
By following this process back to the first corner in the sequence, you may very well find yourself starting the first corner at a point that wouldn’t make any sense at all if that corner were the only one, or you may find yourself going relatively wide and slow around a corner in the middle of the sequence in order to finish the sequence at the highest possible speed.
We grant that it is much easier to explain this process than to follow it. Nevertheless, if you were to watch a professional driver who was learning a new course, or mastering a new car on a known course (nearly the same thing), you would see that their lap times get progressively lower, one step at a time, as they continue to practice.
It isn’t that they are getting better and better at the whole course. Instead, what is happening is that they are finding a good line through one corner of a section at a time, and then progressively learning the corners leading up to it.
For the near term, the main thing to remember is that when you confront a sequence of corners, you won’t necessarily be able to follow the theories of correct lines through corners and find yourself going fast at the end. Instead, concentrate your attention on the last corner in the sequence, since that’s where the greatest gains will be made in improving your lap times. Be willing to sacrifice speed around earlier corners in order to find that good line out of the last corner, and you’ll be on your way to driving better.
Blind Corners
Whenever given the chance, those devious track designers will generally take advantage of terrain changes, or geographic characteristics to make the driver’s task even more difficult. If they do very well, they will be rewarded by having their track called “technical.” In our terms, a technical track is one that calls on all of the driver’s skills to get good times.
One of the favorite strategies to do this is to use changes in elevation to create a blind corner, where the important elements of the corner, like the apex and exit point, can’t be seen until the driver is already making the turn and is committed to a line. One of the best examples of this is the “corkscrew” at Laguna Seca, but just about every good track has at least two or three examples of blind corners offering similar challenge.
To drive these blind corners well, two tips are in order. First, try to see the entire corner, including the part you can’t see, in your mind’s eye before entering it. Second, help yourself by finding visual landmarks that you can see in order to take the corner well.
Seeing the corner in your mind is a trick that all good drivers use. It’s often noted that an experienced driver can remember every foot of every corner of every track that he or she has mastered, and can drive the track in their mind so accurately that if you tell them to start, and they tell you when they’ve completed the mental lap, the elapsed time will be almost precisely the time it takes them to physically drive a lap.
The idea is that as you come up to a corner that is obscured by a rise in the terrain, or other barrier, that you try to see through the barrier in your mind, picturing what the corner will look like as you clear the barrier. Do this several times as you begin driving a new track and fairly soon you’ll have a clear picture of what the corner looks like in your mind. At that point you’ll find that your confidence has been built up so that you can clear the barrier without slowing down more than is justified by the actual characteristics of the corner.
The second tip is to select a physical landmark that you can see, to give you a guide point to tell you where to aim the car as you go over the rise, or around the barrier that obscures the corner. For example, drivers who have mastered Laguna Seca will tell you that they aim for the top of the first oak tree as they make their turn and prepare to dive over that blind crest into the Corkscrew.
On other courses, the landmark might be a particular lamppost, or water tank, or other physical landmark in the distance that you can aim for when you round that blind corner or crest that blind rise into the next corner.
But if you use the combination of creating a mental picture of the corner, coupled with a physical reference point to help you find your line, you’ll be able to take the corner almost as if you had x-ray vision.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Track Day Driving Techniques
Stitching the Corners Together
If driving fast were a simple matter of braking, downshifting, turning in, hitting the apex and accelerating out as you released the wheel, then speeding down the straightaway until you got to the braking point of the next corner, racing and autocrossing would be a lot easier—and probably not nearly so much fun—as it is.
In fact, most race courses and nearly all autocross courses have only two or three places where you are simply driving straight down the course while accelerating and up-shifting. Instead, most corners come in groups. No sooner are you out of one corner than you have to prepare for the next one. In fact, in many situations you may find that you need to begin preparing for a corner before you’ve had the chance to complete the last turn.
It’s in these combinations of corners that less powerful cars can often overtake more powerful cars, and where the better drivers can improve on their lap times and overtake the less-skillful drivers. What’s necessary is to be able to think of the entire series of corners together. Your choice of entrance line into the first corner should be determined by where you want to be when you come out of the last corner, and each of the in-between transitions in speed and direction should be made as smoothly as possible.
Two-Corner Combinations
We can start with the most obvious situation first, where a right-hand corner is followed immediately by a left-hand corner, or where the opposite is true. To drive this two-corner sequence effectively, two principles need to be kept in mind. First, you should “use all the track” as your instructor no doubt will remind you. Second, you will need to make your weight transition—from leaning in one direction to leaing in the other direction—as smooth as possible.
When discussing how to go around a corner in the previous chapter, we stressed going to the very outside of the track before beginning the turn, and then touching the inside curb on the curve, and finally going to the very outside of the track on the exit. Generally, this principle will continue to be true on most right-left and left-right sequences.
Thinking in terms of the right-left sequence, the additional factor in this situation is that, as nearly as possible, the exit point for the first corner should be the entrance point for the second corner. Since you can maintain more speed on a larger-radius curve, you want to go out to the outside to begin the first corner, then go all the way across the track and stay on that side until you’re ready to make your turn-in into the second corner.
If you just drive down the center of the track around both corners, both turns will have to be sharper. If you don’t take advantage of all the track on the entry to your first corner, you will be entering more slowly than necessary into the second corner.
Even worse, if you start to make your turn into the second corner too soon, you’ll find that you’re carrying too much speed to make the corner cleanly. Instead of going around cleanly and smoothly, you’ll find yourself scrubbing off speed, or even going off the track on the outside, as you attempt to get around the second corner.
In the situation where two right hand corners, or two left-hand corners, are taken in a row, the same rules apply. As usual, you go as wide as possible before making your turn-in, generally waiting until you can see your apex before turning. Then you complete the turn by going as wide to the outside as possible and stay on the outside of the track until you are ready to make your turn-in towards the second apex.
The second factor in a combination turn is the weight balance of the car. Essentially, the principle here is that you want the car to be upright and moving in a straight line after completing the first turn and before beginning the second turn.
In the right-left and left-right sequence, the car must first tilt in one direction and then tilt in the opposite direction. If you attempt to begin the second turn before the car has finished its first turn, and before the car is again balanced at the center, it can be very easy to upset the car’s equilibrium, causing it to push or spin.
Instead, try to be conscious of how the car’s center of gravity first moves to the outside of the car as you begin the turn, then moves back over the center of the car as you unwind the steering wheel after passing the apex of the turn.
As soon as the car’s center of gravity is back over the wheels you can begin making your second turn. Done properly, the movement of the center of gravity will be smooth, and the momentum of the shift in balance will simply continue across the car until the car is leaning in the opposite direction going into the second corner.
In the instance where two turns in the same direction follow one another, you still need to be aware of how the car’s center of gravity is shifting. The car will progressively tilt away from the turn as you turn the wheel into the turn. Then as you gradually unwind the steering wheel coming out of the turn, the car will come back into balance, just as it did on the left-right and right-left sequence.
However, in this case, you need to avoid allowing the momentum of the weight transfer to cause the car to tilt too far in the opposite direction before you begin your second turn. By carefully controlling your acceleration out of the turn and the speed with which you allow the steering wheel to unwind you can begin the second turn just at the instant that the car is balanced, thus avoiding the problem of understeering and losing speed by plowing into the second curve.
..stay tuned for more..
If driving fast were a simple matter of braking, downshifting, turning in, hitting the apex and accelerating out as you released the wheel, then speeding down the straightaway until you got to the braking point of the next corner, racing and autocrossing would be a lot easier—and probably not nearly so much fun—as it is.
In fact, most race courses and nearly all autocross courses have only two or three places where you are simply driving straight down the course while accelerating and up-shifting. Instead, most corners come in groups. No sooner are you out of one corner than you have to prepare for the next one. In fact, in many situations you may find that you need to begin preparing for a corner before you’ve had the chance to complete the last turn.
It’s in these combinations of corners that less powerful cars can often overtake more powerful cars, and where the better drivers can improve on their lap times and overtake the less-skillful drivers. What’s necessary is to be able to think of the entire series of corners together. Your choice of entrance line into the first corner should be determined by where you want to be when you come out of the last corner, and each of the in-between transitions in speed and direction should be made as smoothly as possible.
Two-Corner Combinations
We can start with the most obvious situation first, where a right-hand corner is followed immediately by a left-hand corner, or where the opposite is true. To drive this two-corner sequence effectively, two principles need to be kept in mind. First, you should “use all the track” as your instructor no doubt will remind you. Second, you will need to make your weight transition—from leaning in one direction to leaing in the other direction—as smooth as possible.
When discussing how to go around a corner in the previous chapter, we stressed going to the very outside of the track before beginning the turn, and then touching the inside curb on the curve, and finally going to the very outside of the track on the exit. Generally, this principle will continue to be true on most right-left and left-right sequences.
Thinking in terms of the right-left sequence, the additional factor in this situation is that, as nearly as possible, the exit point for the first corner should be the entrance point for the second corner. Since you can maintain more speed on a larger-radius curve, you want to go out to the outside to begin the first corner, then go all the way across the track and stay on that side until you’re ready to make your turn-in into the second corner.
If you just drive down the center of the track around both corners, both turns will have to be sharper. If you don’t take advantage of all the track on the entry to your first corner, you will be entering more slowly than necessary into the second corner.
Even worse, if you start to make your turn into the second corner too soon, you’ll find that you’re carrying too much speed to make the corner cleanly. Instead of going around cleanly and smoothly, you’ll find yourself scrubbing off speed, or even going off the track on the outside, as you attempt to get around the second corner.
In the situation where two right hand corners, or two left-hand corners, are taken in a row, the same rules apply. As usual, you go as wide as possible before making your turn-in, generally waiting until you can see your apex before turning. Then you complete the turn by going as wide to the outside as possible and stay on the outside of the track until you are ready to make your turn-in towards the second apex.
The second factor in a combination turn is the weight balance of the car. Essentially, the principle here is that you want the car to be upright and moving in a straight line after completing the first turn and before beginning the second turn.
In the right-left and left-right sequence, the car must first tilt in one direction and then tilt in the opposite direction. If you attempt to begin the second turn before the car has finished its first turn, and before the car is again balanced at the center, it can be very easy to upset the car’s equilibrium, causing it to push or spin.
Instead, try to be conscious of how the car’s center of gravity first moves to the outside of the car as you begin the turn, then moves back over the center of the car as you unwind the steering wheel after passing the apex of the turn.
As soon as the car’s center of gravity is back over the wheels you can begin making your second turn. Done properly, the movement of the center of gravity will be smooth, and the momentum of the shift in balance will simply continue across the car until the car is leaning in the opposite direction going into the second corner.
In the instance where two turns in the same direction follow one another, you still need to be aware of how the car’s center of gravity is shifting. The car will progressively tilt away from the turn as you turn the wheel into the turn. Then as you gradually unwind the steering wheel coming out of the turn, the car will come back into balance, just as it did on the left-right and right-left sequence.
However, in this case, you need to avoid allowing the momentum of the weight transfer to cause the car to tilt too far in the opposite direction before you begin your second turn. By carefully controlling your acceleration out of the turn and the speed with which you allow the steering wheel to unwind you can begin the second turn just at the instant that the car is balanced, thus avoiding the problem of understeering and losing speed by plowing into the second curve.
..stay tuned for more..
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Track Day Driving Techniques
Tight Corners and Hairpins
At the opposite end of the spectrum is the very tight, continuous-radius corner, which might vary from something greater than 90 degrees to a tight 180-degree “hairpin” where you will be completely reversing your direction within a fairly short distance.In the case of the tight corner, all the aspects of the standard 90-degree corner apply, but must be performed to an extreme. You need to slow down significantly and will probably drop two or even three gears, you need to wait to make your turn-in until you can exit the corner on almost a straight line, and you need to make a very late apex on the corner.
We can take the aspects of the turn one at a time. The first step will be to brake hard to reduce speed, while at the same time downshifting. On many racetracks, hairpins are often found at the ends of long straights, so that a period when the car is at its maximum speed in its highest gear is followed immediately by a turn that requires that the car be moving at a very low speed in its lowest practical gear.
Needless to say, this transition takes a lot of practice, but these types of corners reward the good driver with excellent equipment and solid driving experience. At almost any track, this corner will see the greatest number of changes of position, since the corner is often almost a game of chicken, with the drivers seeing who can wait the longest before hitting the brakes, knowing that the driver who brakes last will be the first out of the corner, provided he or she has left enough room to slow the car sufficiently to be able to get around the corner.
Typically in these corners, the turn-in point will actually be past the apex point, and the apex point itself will be well past the geometric turning-point of the corner. All of this is necessary so that the driver has the maximum distance over which to accelerate. The drivers who turn in early have to wait until they are completely around the corner before they can begin that drag race to the next corner. Such drivers are generally passed by the driver who turns later, but gets back up to speed earlier.
On these turns, the trick is to look around the corner, and wait until you can see well around the track before making your turn. It is not unusual to feel as if you’re looking over your shoulder in an open car before you can see your line out of the corner and begin your turn. In a closed car, you’ll probably be looking out the side window for your cornering line before beginning the turn.
Once you’ve slowed down and made your turn, then all that’s left is to begin accelerating and wind the car up through the gears. In a normal rear-wheel car you might actually induce a little rear-end slide to bring the rear end around. In a MINI, by lifting off the throttle for an instant once you’ve begun your turn, you may be able to release the rear end. Then when you get back on the throttle you can use your speed to pull you around the corner.
Changing Radius Corners
In our modern world of carefully-engineered highways and geometric city streets, most corners have the same curve from the beginning to the end. For these corners, once you’ve turned the steering wheel, you can usually hold it at the same angle until you are through the corner. However, on back roads which were probably laid out to follow the contours of land or the boundaries of some farmer’s property, it is not unusual to encounter a corner that surprises you half-way through by changing its curvature.
On road tracks, such corners are much more common. Track designers delight in making things difficult for the driver who is new to the track, or new to track driving, and the folks who lay out autocross courses positively delight in making things as difficult as possible. Two such corners are typical, ones that become more open as you go around them, and ones that become tighter as you go around them.
The first types are called “increasing radius corners.” On public roads, these are usually a positive surprise, since you find that you can get on the accelerator earlier and harder than you had expected when you entered the corner. On the track, they can be disconcerting because it usually means that you didn’t need to have slowed down as much as you did on the entry and could have been going even faster on the exit.
But in general, they’re not of too much concern for safe driving since it isn’t likely that you’re going to find yourself in an unexpected precarious situation coming out of the corner.
By contrast, corners that become tighter, with progressively smaller curvature, as you go around them can be quite dangerous. These corners, called “decreasing radius” corners, can deceive you into carrying too much speed on the entry. As the corner begins to become sharper, you realize you are going to have to turn the steering wheel tighter in order to keep from running off the road, but realize that if you do you may lose control of the car.
When driving an unfamiliar road, the best way to avoid this situation is to go more slowly, of course, and particularly wait until you are further into the corner before making your turn. That way you can see more of the exit and be able to gauge your speed more accurately.
However, if you do find yourself in the situation of having to turn the wheel more tightly after entering the corner, the worse thing to do is to follow your instinct and try to slow down by abruptly letting off the gas and hitting the brakes. If you do this, the car’s nose will go down, making it even harder to get the car to turn, and you may very well find yourself going straight off the outside of the curve.
Instead, you need to try to keep the car as balanced as possible. Try to keep the car going at the same speed while as gradually as possible turning the steering wheel more sharply. If the situation was serious, you’ll be rewarded by hearing your tires squeal as they start to slip a bit, but 99 times out of 100, you’ll be all right.
Few people outside the realm of professional high-speed driving ever push their cars anywhere near their limits of adhesion or roll-over potential and all that will happen is that the car will scrub off speed as the tires slip a little. The car will make it around the corner without any problem, though you and your passengers may find your hearts beating a little faster when you’re through.
It’s the alternative that’s usually where trouble arises. When you see a car off the road, or worse on its side or top on the side of the road, you can pretty much assume that the driver got into a difficult situation, started to slide off the road, then either jerked the steering wheel hard or jammed on the brakes, or both, and wound up putting the car into a skid or roll.
It’s worth remembering as you mentally prepare for decreasing-radius corners, that you are driving a MINI with its front-wheel drive. On the positive side, you can usually power your way around a decreasing radius corner by using the throttle and front wheels to pull you through. On the negative side, the MINI is more likely to bite you if you take your foot off the throttle, or worse, hit the brakes. This action will cause the car’s weight to transfer to the front wheels and off the rear wheels, and it’s very likely the rear end will skid out to the outside of the corner, leaving you facing the wrong way or worse.
Learning to handle tight and decreasing radius corners is where some practice in advance can pay dividends, and one of the reasons why some track time or autocrossing is a good idea even if you never expect to do any competitive racing. The first time your tires start to squeal, you’ll be startled, but you’ll begin to get some confidence in the car’s ability to hold on to the pavement at speeds well beyond what you would have expected. You will also get a little more confidence in your ability to catch and correct a difficult situation without panicking and making it worse.
Of course, if you’re working on improving your line around a track, and you’re going to be taking the same decreasing radius corner again in two or three minutes, it is a simple factor to adjust your speed and turn-in point so that you start your turn a little later, and a little more slowly the next time around so that you can take the corner without scrubbing off speed and be able to accelerate more quickly coming out of the corner.
.. stay tuned for more..
Track Day Driving Techniques
first off.. let me say that there were some technical issues.
they have been worked out.
www.minimania.com
... back to the good stuff...
Types of Corners
Let’s start with the fact that, once you get out of the artificial blocks of city streets, very few corners occur as neat 90-degree angles with the same width from curb to curb on the exit as on the entry. Curves can consist of long, gentle sweeps that allow high speeds but reward patience, tight turns that require heavy braking and a very slow entry to avoid running out of road, or combinations of the two that start out tight and then open into sweepers, or worst of all, corners that start out as fairly high-speed sweepers and then surprise you by tightening up. Add to that corners where the pavement slope helps your turn, or at the opposite extreme, seems to slope the wrong way especially just when you want to increase your speed, and you’ve got a fistful of new concepts to learn.
But don’t despair. The concepts you’ve already been working on mastering, including controlled weight transfer, slow-in and fast-out, braking and downshifting, selecting your turn-in point, apex, and exit, will continue to apply. The exceptions we’ve just mentioned, and will now discuss in more detail, are just actually just variations on what you’ve been doing.
Sweepers
Let’s start with the corner that is potentially the most fun, the long sweeper. The major difference between this and the basic corner we discussed in the last chapter is that you don’t have a specific apex point where you get off the brake and then roll hard on the throttle. Instead, after completing your braking and making your initial turn, you will find yourself holding the wheel at one angle for what seems like a long time.
The important aspect of this turn is that you are helping your car stay balanced by using the throttle. Instead of pushing hard as you unwind the steering wheel, you’ll hold the throttle at close to one point, and try to keep the car balanced from front to rear without accelerating or decelerating.
Actually there generally is an apex to this type of sweeping curve, but it is a long way after the turn-in point. You can tell when you’ve reached the actual apex, because you realize that the track or road is starting to straighten out. At that point, you can start to straighten out the wheel while beginning to press the throttle harder to start accelerating.
So the key thing to remember on a long sweeping curve is that there is a fourth segment: the period when you are balancing the car using the throttle, maintaining more or less the same speed as you come around the curve. One tip on these corners is to continue to look as far around the curve as possible. This will help you keep a continuous turning radius, and will also give you the opportunity to see when you can begin to straighten out the car.
stay tuned for more...
they have been worked out.
www.minimania.com
... back to the good stuff...
Track Day Driving Techniques
With some practice on the track, or on the autocross course, or prefereably both, and some focused attention to your driving techniques while on the road, you should be getting a feeling for driving a high-performance automobile well. So, now we’ll start playing with your head a little more by adding some complications to the simple process of getting your car around the corners without fuss or muss.Types of Corners
Let’s start with the fact that, once you get out of the artificial blocks of city streets, very few corners occur as neat 90-degree angles with the same width from curb to curb on the exit as on the entry. Curves can consist of long, gentle sweeps that allow high speeds but reward patience, tight turns that require heavy braking and a very slow entry to avoid running out of road, or combinations of the two that start out tight and then open into sweepers, or worst of all, corners that start out as fairly high-speed sweepers and then surprise you by tightening up. Add to that corners where the pavement slope helps your turn, or at the opposite extreme, seems to slope the wrong way especially just when you want to increase your speed, and you’ve got a fistful of new concepts to learn.
But don’t despair. The concepts you’ve already been working on mastering, including controlled weight transfer, slow-in and fast-out, braking and downshifting, selecting your turn-in point, apex, and exit, will continue to apply. The exceptions we’ve just mentioned, and will now discuss in more detail, are just actually just variations on what you’ve been doing.
Sweepers
Let’s start with the corner that is potentially the most fun, the long sweeper. The major difference between this and the basic corner we discussed in the last chapter is that you don’t have a specific apex point where you get off the brake and then roll hard on the throttle. Instead, after completing your braking and making your initial turn, you will find yourself holding the wheel at one angle for what seems like a long time.
The important aspect of this turn is that you are helping your car stay balanced by using the throttle. Instead of pushing hard as you unwind the steering wheel, you’ll hold the throttle at close to one point, and try to keep the car balanced from front to rear without accelerating or decelerating.
Actually there generally is an apex to this type of sweeping curve, but it is a long way after the turn-in point. You can tell when you’ve reached the actual apex, because you realize that the track or road is starting to straighten out. At that point, you can start to straighten out the wheel while beginning to press the throttle harder to start accelerating.
So the key thing to remember on a long sweeping curve is that there is a fourth segment: the period when you are balancing the car using the throttle, maintaining more or less the same speed as you come around the curve. One tip on these corners is to continue to look as far around the curve as possible. This will help you keep a continuous turning radius, and will also give you the opportunity to see when you can begin to straighten out the car.
stay tuned for more...
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