What we've learned on the track

[FTD]

Quote:


"I know it's a chance of getting an a**hole cop, but I heavily suggest every one of you go to a large vacant parking lot and run up to top of second gear, stand on the brakes as hard as you can and maneuver the car while standing on them."

Originally Posted by Quickurt

My local PCA sets this up at the beginning of autocross season, along with other maneuvers. Maybe other PCAs also do this or would if it were suggested.

[stateofidleness]

wow, i've just read through the whole thread and have learned a lot!

I have a question, I know a lot of the information posted pertains to manual boxes, but what about auto's?

Are the breaking/accelerating techniques any different?

I ask this because I have been forever scarred by my sister's first car.. an old Volvo 540 (thing was a tank).. but it would hydroplane ALL THE TIME!. there was one instance coming out of a mall exit where we 180'ed and were facing oncoming traffic.. i was scared to death...

now, to this day, whenever performing an "aggressive" turn or not slowing down ridiculously slow for a turn, i feel like im gonna fish tail out or hydroplane....

another thing that scares me is the breaking thing... other day I had a car slam on their brakes in front of me, so without anywhere to go I started applying mine. now ive always thought myself to be a decent breaker (no necks jarring, no uneven pressure applied), but once i feel that pedal vibrate (dut dut dut), I feel like im going to crash.. i panic... what is the best thing to do in that situation where you feel the car "skipping"?

[insite]

Originally Posted by stateofidleness

wow, i've just read through the whole thread and have learned a lot!

I have a question, I know a lot of the information posted pertains to manual boxes, but what about auto's?

Are the breaking/accelerating techniques any different?

I ask this because I have been forever scarred by my sister's first car.. an old Volvo 540 (thing was a tank).. but it would hydroplane ALL THE TIME!. there was one instance coming out of a mall exit where we 180'ed and were facing oncoming traffic.. i was scared to death...

now, to this day, whenever performing an "aggressive" turn or not slowing down ridiculously slow for a turn, i feel like im gonna fish tail out or hydroplane....

another thing that scares me is the breaking thing... other day I had a car slam on their brakes in front of me, so without anywhere to go I started applying mine. now ive always thought myself to be a decent breaker (no necks jarring, no uneven pressure applied), but once i feel that pedal vibrate (dut dut dut), I feel like im going to crash.. i panic... what is the best thing to do in that situation where you feel the car "skipping"?

a few notes. some of what you're discussing has to do with the driver; some of it could be the car. braking / accelerating techniques are similar with either auto or manual cars. the goal is to be smooth & not abruptly manipulate either pedal. give the chassis time to react.

in a car with ABS, you will always get your best stopping distances WITHOUT engaging the ABS. the instant the ABS pulses, you have lost a little stopping distance. the best way to learn to feel this moment, regardless of rain or shine, is to PRACTICE. when there is no traffic around, practice panic stops. pick a point ahead of you and 'guess' when you need to apply full braking to stop by that point. the car has much more traction than you think! in certain driving schools, they have a 'box' painted on the asphalt; the goal is to get the car in the box from a high rate of speed under threshold braking without engaging the ABS or over/undershooting the box. it takes time! factor in uphill / downill elevation changes and it gets even MORE tricky. again, the goal is practice. practice in the wet, practice in the dry!

now with regard to the car, there are a lot of factors that will make it unstable in wet weather. in no particular order, those things are: tire / tire tread pattern, tire pressure, wheel alignment. if your tires are balding or if the tread pattern is not very good, the car will hydroplane very easily. if your tire pressures are too LOW, the car will hydroplane very easily. FYI, a car travelling through water that is deeper than the tread grooves will hydroplane at 9 times the square root of the tire pressure. this means that if you're at 36psi, you will hydroplane in deep water at 54mph. drop your tire pressure to 25psi and you'll hydroplane at 40mph. alignment plays a tremendous role in wet weather handling. excessive toe in or toe out will cause you to 'drag' a tire in the wet; the tires will break loose simply because they're not pointed straight. excessive toe out is VERY scary in the rain. above all, notice that in addition to tire pressure, SPEED plays a role in hydroplaning. it is not possible to hydroplane if you are going SLOWER than the speed at which your car will plane out. finally, if your car feels unstable in the rain, IT IS. if you see other cars blowing by you like you're standing still and you cannot FATHOM how they're driving so fast in the rain because your car feels nervous, it's because your car IS nervous! generally this is indicative of a problem with tires, tire pressures, or alignment. check all three!

finally, throttle. obviously with a powerful rear wheel drive car in the rain, one needs to go easy on the throttle in tight corners. too much throttle will break the rear tires loose and the car could spin. what may NOT be obvious is what to do in a higher speed corner if the rear end starts to come loose. there are two types of situations where this can occur in the wet: deep water or just wet pavement. in either situation, if you feel the rear end start to come out, do NOT abruptly lift! if you are in deep water and the problem is hydroplaning, maintain throttle, gently steer the car straight, and gently dial out some throttle. this will let the car slow down below the hydroplane velocity threshold and the tires will settle back down onto the road. if the water is NOT deep and you've simply lost traction, we need to transfer some weight onto the rear tires. gently ADD a little throttle and gently countersteer a bit until grip is restored. then, slow down a bit!

hope this helps. if you can find one, i highly recommend looking for a skidpad in your area & trying wet / dry car control. you will learn a lot.

[Quickurt]

Are those great explanations why they call you "insite?" Well done, I really wish we had a clapping hands emoticon.
As far as the rain goes, let me explain something. I LOVED to race. I LIVED to race.
As a matter of fact, the line in LeMans where Steve McQueen says "Racing is living, everything else is just waiting" was the motto I lived by.
UNLESS IT WAS RAINING!
1- I was paying ALL the bills
2- I was not being paid to race
3- racing in the rain was NOT fun
4- racing in the rain magnified ANY mistake by about 1 million
5- racing in the rain was NOT fun
Did I mention racing in the rain was NOT fun?
There is one steadfast rule of driving. If it is raining, SLOW DOWN and pay twice as much attention to other drivers as you normally do.

[Frodo]

Back in the mid-1970's I was drivng from Virginia (where I was going to school) down to Florida with a couple of friends. We were in a 1973 Vega, what I was driving in those days. (Fortunately, although it wasn't a very exciting car, I did manage to get one of the ones that never had the mechanical problems that many of them did.)

Anyway, we were on 95 South zippin' along at a pretty good pace. Don't even remember what state we were in, though I suspect it was one of the Carolinas. Then it started to rain. Pretty darn hard. Stupidly, I didn't slow down at all, at least initially. I had no probems personally, but before long I saw another Vega, headed northbound, that I'm pretty sure was the same model and year as the one we were in. I suspect he too failed to adjust his driving technique with the sudden change of weather, probably moving at a similar speed to us.

What caught my attention was the fact that he was doing a 360 (actually probably more like a 720, or possibly worse) in the (fortunately quite wide) grass-covered median area between the highways. It was a sight I'll never forget---they were shooting up a rooster tail of mud and grass that we could see from a quarter mile away. Fortuanately for them, the car came to a stop without colliding with anything more formidable than soaked turf. I could actually see the driver after coming to a stop as we drove by; his eyes seemed as big as saucers and I'm pretty sure his fingernails were embedded into the steering wheel.

I slowed down considerably, and still do when it rains. I absolutely cannot imagine racing in rainy conditions. To me, it borders on insanity. (But maybe that's just me. )

[insite]

Originally Posted by Frodo

I absolutely cannot imagine racing in rainy conditions. To me, it borders on insanity. (But maybe that's just me. )

i've only driven on track in the rain a couple of times, and it is a BLAST! scary at first, for sure, but it is AMAZING how fast you can go if you plot the right line. my first couple of laps are always 'recon' laps to figure out where the water is pooling and where the roughest track surface appears to be. since the friction coefficient between the road and tires decreases in the rain, your grip has to come from the 'mechanical keying' effect where the rubber deforms and 'keys' to the roughness of the road.

once a good line is determined, slowly bring up the pace. the worst thing for me is to have the car break away unexpectedly while in the wet. to avoid this, i've found it best to slide the car IMMEDIATELY on corner entry. horrifying at first for sure. once you're 'in the zone', it's possible to get exceptional lap times only maybe ten percent lower than dry!

granted i've never tried this wheel to wheel; THAT would be insane.

[Frodo]

Yeah, I could see that could be kind of cool on a track with no other vehicles and few stationary obstacles to collide with. That's certainly a good environment to learn what you and your ride's limitations are, rain or shine.

I'm currently taking up a month course of driving and i feel glad to read this thread.I learn lot from your pointers and experience shared by different situations that i will possibly encounter in the future.

[Mike_Yi]

I've learned one thing above all else from driving on the track. It's this:

NEVER drive your daily driver on the track, unless you have another mode of transport available.

[Quickurt]

Originally Posted by Mike_Yi

I've learned one thing above all else from driving on the track. It's this:

NEVER drive your daily driver on the track, unless you have another mode of transport available.

That sounds like a hard earned lesson!!!

I once hit a curb and rolled my Fiat 124 Spider at an autocross! Broke the left front upright, it folded the wheel under the car and over she went. We had just installed the bolt in roll bar my brilliant father gave me for Christmas. It was my only car and I was 1800 miles from home, in the service. Guess what insurance didn't cover.

I don't know if we can get people to come back to this thread or if we should start another one, but I think it would do well to do some stuff about how to really take advantage of Porsche's ABS system and how to practice using it.

There's just no substitute for familiarity when an emergency situation hits.

[insite]

Kurt -

don't you really mean NOT using the ABS? i always get better stopping distances at impending lockup. if the abs pulsates ONE time, i'm deep by 3ft.

[ChefCarnivore]

Did you say that the outside mirrors can be removed just by pulling them out of a socket? My drivers side mirror vibrates too much so I was hoping to find out why.