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General Techniques of Road Racing

4K views 45 replies 21 participants last post by  TrackAddict 
#1 ·
Just thought I'd start a thread where we can share some of the basic concepts and techniques of road racing. the idea here is to capture and disseminate knowledge points which a beginner could benefit from during their 1st few events. this isn't about car prep, but about driving technique.

1st off, the sayings "slow in fast out" and "smooth is fast" are absolutely correct. Most newbies tend to try and go as fast as possible into a corner, thinking they're doing really well, but don't realize they're early apexing and giving up a LOT of speed on corner exit. It usually feels fast though, because the car is being thrown around, so they get some validation that what they did was right ... Until they get passed up in their 400HP monster on corner exit by a 120HP Miata with a driver who knows how to carry momentum :)

  • Getting the apex right is critical to a good lap time. and for beginners, this is what you should be focused on. For experienced drivers, who are looking to get into wheel-to-wheel, knowing how to handle all the different lines through a corner is important for traffic management and passing techniques, but for someone starting out, learn the race line and how to apex correctly.

  • Here's a look at early, proper, and late apexing a left hand corner. Notice the early apex will allow more speed at corner entry, but will require a sharper turn at corner exit to stay on track, which means you'll have to scrub a lot more speed after you've already apexed the corner. This means you can't get back on the gas until you have a safe track exit line, which is way after the apex and too late to carry any momentum.

  • The proper apex allows you to carry the most speed through the corner, and enables you to get back on the gas the earliest

  • The late apex will allow you to brake later when approaching the corner, but you'll need to scrub more speed due to the tighter radius ... but, it is the safest way to take a corner. I do this a lot when there is a hazard at corner exit, such as a wall or tire barrier; just to ensure I don't slide into it.




Pedal management is also a critical factor to getting good laps, and keeping the car settled. You're goal here is to keep the car smoooooth

  • For the brake pedal, push it HARD when 1st getting on the brakes, then let off slowly when releasing.

    • pick a brake point on the track when approaching a corner, and hit the pedal HARD! the initial press of the brake pedal should be the hardest you'll need to brake for the corner. It'll feel violent, but it's actually the smoothest way to do it.

    • Then, as you release the pedal, do it slowly. Don't release quickly as it'll cause a violent weight shift just as you're ready to turn into the corner. Be sure to be off the brake 100% before turning in, so pick a brake point early enough to accomplish this.

    • You can still be releasing the pedal after turn in, and this is called "Trail Braking", but is an advanced technique and should be learned when you have more experience

  • Throttle pedal management is the exact opposite of the brake pedal. Getting on the throttle should be smooth and slow, where releasing the throttle should be fast and abrupt.

    • The reason is due to you trying to get on the throttle as soon as possible during corner exit. Ideally, this can be just before corner apex, and if you smashed the throttle at this point to the floor, you'll cause a sudden weight shift and upset the chassis of the car.

    • the idea is to get on the throttle as soon as possible, and gradually ease it down as you exit the corner and keep the car smoooooth through corner exit and onto the straight.

  • Situational awareness is a big piece of becoming a successful driver as well
    • Knowing the flag stations
    • Knowing what the flags mean
    • Knowing which of the flag stations are actually manned
    • Dealing with traffic
    • Understanding the track surface, and positioning the car for maximum traction based on surface condition (sometimes this can be off the race line due to a bump in the pavement, or a patched area which provides better traction)

  • One of the important things for a new driver to realize, is once you get behind another car, you will have a tendency to follow that car around the track. Don't do this!

  • Keep your eyes on the track, and position your car dependent on following the race line. You should be looking 2 points ahead of where you are

    • by points, I'm referring to brake point, turn in point, apex point, track exit point

  • So when entering a corner, you should already have scanned (with your eyes) through the brake point, through the apex and be looking at corner exit when you hit the brake pedal (and hit it HARD, remember?).

  • When clipping the apex, you should be looking down the straight already and not at the corner exit point. You should have already scanned the corner exit point before reaching the apex because you're looking 2 points ahead

  • I know this sounds strange, but your car will go where you are looking, so stay completely focused on the race line, looking ahead, and your car will follow.

  • If your watching the car in front of you, and he goes off track, guess where you will go too? Remember, your car will go where you are looking, so don't look too long at anything you don't want to hit ;)

Ok guys, that's it for now. Hopefully some of the other track guys in here can add some more info. As you can see, this is a very large subject and I could go on and on and on and on and on and on and on ..........
 
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#3 ·
RR rocks and is 10 times better than cone racing in a parking lot which is 10 times funner than drag racing.
 
#5 ·
Stoop, us track noobs and those hoping to hit the track someday, really appreciate this.

Excellently written!
 
#8 · (Edited)
Traction Circle




A traction circle is nothing more than a representation of the available traction, or grip, your car can put to the ground. Consider the outer rim of the circle to represent 100% of available grip, and you can apply that to acceleration, braking, or cornering .... or, any combination of acceleration/cornering or braking/cornering.

The thing is, when you corner in conjunction with either braking or acceleration, the total amount of traction for any one of these three is reduced. This is why threshold breaking is so important.

  • Threshold Braking: Is a technique used to slow your car as quickly as possible, and be completely off the brakes before turning the steering wheel

This image is a good representation of how your cornering capabilities are reduced when you add either braking or acceleration to the picture:



  • If the arrow was pointed 90* to the right, you're maintaining a constant speed and have the most cornering traction available.

  • If the arrow is pointed straight up, you're full throttle and depending on how much G force you can generate, may have zero cornering traction available.

  • If the arrow was pointed straight down, you are full braking, and depending on your ABS and braking capability, may have zero cornering traction available.


Think of a string tied from the bottom of the steering wheel to your gas pedal, with the length set to allow full throttle with the wheel straight, and zero throttle with the wheel turned into a corner.

When the wheel is turned due to you being in a corner, the gas pedal is all the way up. As you come through the corner, and start to unwind the steering wheel (slowly), the string would start allowing the gas pedal to be pressed in relation to how much the wheel has unwound thus far.

this mental concept helps you manage your traction circle and get full available traction to the ground without spinning the rear tires or sliding.
 
#9 ·
There has been a question about road racing that always nagged at me. When you look at films of drivers, you see the steering wheel feverishly moving to and fro, and I never quite wrapped my brain around it. It appears that the drivers are constantly making frantic, rapid corrections. Or are they just keeping a rather loose grip on the wheel and letting it move on its own?
 
#10 · (Edited)
What you are seeing Mike, is a more advanced technique the driver is using to control the slip angle, and keep his car on the desired path. This happens when the driver is operating the vehicle outside of the traction circle ... ie: he's going really fast!

Slip Angle: Is basically the difference between which direction the tires are physically pointed and which direction the tires are actually moving




The driver is also using the throttle (which you may or may not see in the videos you're watching) to control this as well.

Flipping the steering wheel when the slip angle of the front tires is different than that of the rear tires will prevent a spin (or cause one if you do it incorrectly).

Using the throttle in conjunction with this allows you to control where the weight is being transferred on the car (more throttle = less weight on front wheels = less front traction = larger slip angle .... less throttle, or brake, = more weight on the front tires = more front traction = less slip angle)

Leave it to mistermike to start getting into the advanced concepts ;)
 
#11 ·
Well, it seems from the rapidity of the steering movements, that the driver has some kind of superhuman reaction time?
 
#17 ·
there's a technique that basically has the driver saw tooth the steering wheel a bit (turn just past limit of traction, then back inside limit, very quickly back and forth during a turn). It's supposed to give you better feedback supposedly, at the cost of maximal accel in X direction
 
#12 · (Edited)
  • For the brake pedal, push it HARD when 1st getting on the brakes, then let off slowly when releasing.

    • pick a brake point on the track when approaching a corner, and hit the pedal HARD! the initial press of the brake pedal should be the hardest you'll need to brake for the corner. It'll feel violent, but it's actually the smoothest way to do it.

    • Then, as you release the pedal, do it slowly. Don't release quickly as it'll cause a violent weight shift just as you're ready to turn into the corner. Be sure to be off the brake 100% before turning in, so pick a brake point early enough to accomplish this.

    • You can still be releasing the pedal after turn in, and this is called "Trail Braking", but is an advanced technique and should be learned when you have more experience


  • I'm going to disagree with the bolded statement. It might work if you have ABS, but it's a recipe for flat-spotting tires with no ABS. Now, if it's a corner where I only need to bleed a little speed, then yeah, that's the way I do it. But when I need to bleed a lot of speed, say going from 110 to 40, I roll into the brakes. It's a VERY short transition to full brakes, but that itty-bitty transition time gets the car's weight moving to the front wheels before I get to full braking pressure. Getting the weight up there provides more traction for braking, and thus I can ramp up the brake pressure without locking a wheel. Just jamming on the brakes as hard as I can will lock the wheel before the weight ever gets there to provide the max traction.

    Edit: My race car, a '92 240sx, has no ABS.
 
#14 ·
I'm going to disagree with the bolded statement.
Agreed...

With the present brakes on my Escort ZX2 you do NOT want to go hard on the brakes. The Ol' Chump Car will getting a Proportioning valve before the next race.
 
#13 ·
yes TObey, I agree with you 100% ... Transferring the weight to the front tires on a car without ABS, with a driver pushing the limits to 10/10ths, is absolutely what you want to do before getting to full braking. You're managing the weight transfer to control your traction circle.

The bolded statement you quoted is meant as advice and guidance to a beginner who is just starting out in their 1st few sessions.

Certainly there are more advanced techniques to all of the items I called out, I just thought having a thread to provide beginner info for folks who are considering road racing would be good to encourage them :D
 
#16 ·
I dont track my GTO so I'm the wrong guy to ask..

If I'm going to beat up a car on the track thats what my chumpcar is for...lol
 
#22 ·
Really good points here. From my experience I would have to say that this car requires a slower entrance and a later apex. YOu want to get the car turned and get back on the power such that the rear tires are required to only accelerate the car and not provide lateral traction. If you look at a traction circle you can see that as you ad lateral force, the longitudinal force falls off.

Also, slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Screaming tires and not happy tires. :p
 
#23 ·
So in other words be ready to be REALLY slow in the corners ? I'm curious to figure this out as much as possible. Most of the cars I'll be expecting to see will be GT3's and such so the better the approach the better.
 
#25 · (Edited)
For a stock'ish GTO, with tons of understeer, you can get on the gas before the apex, you just have to be sure you can ride the slip angle out to the exit berm. When you start playing with the car on track, you'll know what I mean. (this will be very hard on your tires though)

Basically, you learn to control the car on corner exit with the throttle. More throttle = greater slip angle = approaching the edge of the track quicker .... less throttle = lesser (or no) slip angle = approaching the track edge slower.

The key is to hit the apex perfectly, and have the car oriented at the right angle to allow the most throttle input you can give and ride the slip angle all the way until the outer tire just clips the exit berm.

Sometime this means a late apex, sometimes it means an ideal apex, and yes, sometimes it means an early apex. Every corner is different ....

BUT, for beginners starting out, shoot for the ideal apex every time for learning purposes, and don't be concerned with maximizing your corner exit speeds just yet. There will be lots of other areas to focus on 1st before refining your technique. .
 
#26 ·
But of course all these techniques go to hell when there are several cars on the track all trying to hit that sweet spot on the corner! :gr_jest:
 
#27 ·
LOL, but for a beginner this won't be a problem. DE sessions typically don't allow passing except by point-by, and only on particular parts of the track (ie: couple of long straights).

Now for W2W, and sometimes even TT, you certainly have to work every bit of the track to compete :D
 
#28 ·
way to open a can of worms stoopalini. slow is fast because of weight distribution. everybody weighs their cars standing still but if you could weight the car to see how much rear weight shift you get under power then that would open alot of peoples eyes. Thats why the fast guys run 650lb rear springs. They keep their weight shift to a min so the car is balanced most of the way around.

as for apexing. all depends on the radius of the corner and length of it. not to mention how long the next straight is going to be. late apexing is great for giving yourself a longer straight. helps to out run those damn sti's

the gto's are heavy cars, even after weight reduction so you have to roll the car through the corner. the miatas are all wide open or full brake.
 
#29 · (Edited)
way to open a can of worms stoopalini. slow is fast because of weight distribution. everybody weighs their cars standing still but if you could weight the car to see how much rear weight shift you get under power then that would open alot of peoples eyes. Thats why the fast guys run 650lb rear springs. They keep their weight shift to a min so the car is balanced most of the way around.

as for apexing. all depends on the radius of the corner and length of it. not to mention how long the next straight is going to be. late apexing is great for giving yourself a longer straight. helps to out run those damn sti's

the gto's are heavy cars, even after weight reduction so you have to roll the car through the corner. the miatas are all wide open or full brake.
That is actually incorrect. You aren't changing the weight shift at all. If anything you are increasing it by making it stiffer. The reason you run large springs like that is because the car is heavy and relatively high up. If your rear springs or roll rate is too soft the CG will "fall over" the cross line on the car or "porpoise". In a left hand turn this is where the LF,RR cross transfers mostly to the RR and overloads it as the effective uf(there really isn't a uf in tires thus the effective wording) of a tire decreases with load.

In short, you want just enough rear roll stiffness to keep the body roll under control but not too much as to transfer too much weight away from the inside rear tire.
 
#35 ·
Running BCs with a 17x9 wheel and a 40 offset up front. Pushes the tire out away from the c/o without rub or need to roll fender. It's a tight fit but nothing touches. I think a 275 will fit but it'll be REAL tight. A 265 is about 10.7" wide vs a 275 that's about 10.9". Less than a 1/4" difference overall which I hope means I'm only adding another <1/8" to the inside and out. I needs mo grip up front to keep up with dedicated track cars in the corners on Open Track days. I ahve no plans of running slicks but I think it's time to drop the DWs and move to something with mo stick like the nt05s.
 
#38 ·
Essential reading while on the pooper:

Think Fast is most recent favorite.


Chipping the rust off the car to try and get to VIR with NASA next month. Looking to finally get under 2:13 with some fresh tires and just a bit more weight pulled.

 

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#40 ·
Essential reading while on the pooper:

Think Fast is most recent favorite.
I just finished the Neil Roberts book myself. "A Twist of the Wrist" by Keith Code is another good one. It's about motorcycle racing, but it has a lot of good information. And the Ross Bentley books.
 
#41 ·
Thanks. Actually depressing to stare at it sitting in the garage for so long.

Car weighed in last September at 3601 with me (200lbs) and almost a full tank of gas and passenger seat/harnesses in (19lbs). I also have full cage and nascar bars. Another 100 lbs out will have me in comfortable range of the AI p/w ratio.

Side note: Less gas in the tank helps from a weight perspective, but not balance. My lap times are always faster and the car feels better with full fuel load. I hate our gas tank's location, but no desire to put in a fuel cell any time soon.
 
#44 · (Edited)
Meh, NT05's are old news. Get on the new ZII's or the BFG's.

Lot of good info in here. The single biggest thing that I need to remind myself of every time I'm on the track (autox or racing) is to keep my damn head up and look ahead. All too often I find myself staring at a corner as I'm passing it instead of looking at the next corner that's coming up (or even better yet, the one past that!). Corners come up much slower when you aren't surprised that you are coming up to them.

Not so directly related to any type of road racing, but for anyone interest in getting into autox, I highly suggest the Evolution driving schools. You get an entire day of seat time with instruction from experienced drivers, most of which hold national titles. It's very humbling when you spend an entire day running a course, "going as fast as the car can go", and then the instructor (who has never driven your car before) goes 2 seconds faster for the same course.
 
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