Learning to Drive - sticky or slippy?
02-18-2018, 11:31 AM
#16
Rennlist Member
Wayne, I am with you.... anyone who has observed children can plainly see big differences in how they abosorb and interact with the world based on pre-wiring or physical characteristics. In the other camp is Malcolm Gladwell who in his book "Outliers" describes the "10,000-Hour Rule", claiming that the key to achieving world-class expertise in any skill, is, to a large extent, a matter of practicing the correct way, for a total of around 10,000 hours, though the authors of the original study this was based on have disputed Gladwell's usage." The the wiki on his book here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_(book)
I find it interesting that when folks discuss some concept or something controversial, the arguments move to addressing extremes....... most of us, by definition live in the meaty part of the bell curve...... so to driving..... most of us require learning to operate a car. We then require learning to create and establish neural pathways for fast action such turning into a surprise skid or not lifting the throttle in a turn as a reaction to the car suddenly moving. This is the difference between a reaction and a planned response. High performance driving, and the fun of it, was best described to me by a friend who had his SCCA license and raced spec racer Fords for a time. He said something about the fun of it is driving so fast the car is slipping around.... controlling the car in the slip zone... getting close to losing control. If you have sticky tires and a high performance car with appropriate suspension geometry, this means you need to be going really fast to get deep into this slip zone. This is why faster is more dangerous. Faster requires a pre-wired reaction library in your brain vs time to solve for a sliding car. Said another way, if you don't have the reaction skill, you are going to wreck (into me!).
So my point is how do we develop this library of reactions? Buying a Porsche and driving fast? Buying stickier tires and boosting horsepower? If you think this is true, then stay the heck away from me.
Bonus points: What is the difference between slipping and sliding?
Peace
Bruce in Philly
I find it interesting that when folks discuss some concept or something controversial, the arguments move to addressing extremes....... most of us, by definition live in the meaty part of the bell curve...... so to driving..... most of us require learning to operate a car. We then require learning to create and establish neural pathways for fast action such turning into a surprise skid or not lifting the throttle in a turn as a reaction to the car suddenly moving. This is the difference between a reaction and a planned response. High performance driving, and the fun of it, was best described to me by a friend who had his SCCA license and raced spec racer Fords for a time. He said something about the fun of it is driving so fast the car is slipping around.... controlling the car in the slip zone... getting close to losing control. If you have sticky tires and a high performance car with appropriate suspension geometry, this means you need to be going really fast to get deep into this slip zone. This is why faster is more dangerous. Faster requires a pre-wired reaction library in your brain vs time to solve for a sliding car. Said another way, if you don't have the reaction skill, you are going to wreck (into me!).
So my point is how do we develop this library of reactions? Buying a Porsche and driving fast? Buying stickier tires and boosting horsepower? If you think this is true, then stay the heck away from me.
Bonus points: What is the difference between slipping and sliding?
Peace
Bruce in Philly
We tried skiing. The kids were freaked out when the ski started to slip. I said, “skiing is controlled falling with the goal of falling down the hill, but not falling down.”
And then we also practiced falling down. Learning how to fall allows kids to get hurt less often, but also, falling often sometimes results in them catching themselves and saving it.
That “saving it” is the border between control and lack of control, and the more practice time spent there, the better chance of recovery due to those quick reaction times you speak of on the racetrack at the limit. It needs to be practiced for experience and for muscle memory, let alone, being comfortable and confident, which results in focus, rather than freaking out and losing it.
Slipping is when you still have excellent grip and you have finite control over the car/tires and you are not scrubbing much heat/speed as the tires are squeezing their little microscoping fingers into the crevices of the road surface.
Sliding is when you lose finite control and move to broadband control (having to use much larger inputs) and you are scrubbing off a lot of heat and speed. The tires no longer squeeze their fingers into the road surface, but now have to drag their “hands” across the surface for lower friction and control.
02-18-2018, 11:39 AM
#17
Nordschleife Master
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Bruce, There is a really good article (which I can't find on the web right now) from an old Car and Driver where they described the process Ford used to qualify their test drivers. They started in an old Crown Vic with crappy tires on sandy loose surfaces - i.e. learn to control the car in slippy circumstances at lower speeds. Once they had mastered this they could move up.
If you want to go faster sticky tires, more HP all help - if you want to control the car on the limit experience in the car slipping/sliding is essential if you want to be really fast. Watching the F1 last season there was some great shots of the cars at Austin going through the curves - the commentators were describing the 'slip angles' -i.e. the car is moving sideways through the curves as the tires are on the edge of adhesion. At that level through the corners are cars are moving around all the time and understanding how to control a car as it slides is essential.
Now I've done some skid pan training over the years - great fun but I've never done enough to translate that to higher speeds :-) I guess I'll be happy being the middle of the pack at the next HPDE event I go to!!
If you want to go faster sticky tires, more HP all help - if you want to control the car on the limit experience in the car slipping/sliding is essential if you want to be really fast. Watching the F1 last season there was some great shots of the cars at Austin going through the curves - the commentators were describing the 'slip angles' -i.e. the car is moving sideways through the curves as the tires are on the edge of adhesion. At that level through the corners are cars are moving around all the time and understanding how to control a car as it slides is essential.
Now I've done some skid pan training over the years - great fun but I've never done enough to translate that to higher speeds :-) I guess I'll be happy being the middle of the pack at the next HPDE event I go to!!
I cannot recall the guys name, but 10 - 15 years ago this old guy used to show up at PCA HPDEs in the absolutely worst beater sedans he could rent from car rental places when he would fly in to instruct. He was have Buicks and all of these 4 door granny mobiles dang near on 3 wheels with a car load of students doing hot laps. It was hilarious to watch and I always wondered what the heck the rental car places thought when they got those things back with shredded tires and only a very few miles traveled.
We used to run the Skippy buses around Lague Seca full of students quicker than some students were lapping in their Formula Dodges . . . okay, perhaps some of the grannies and reluctant wives forced to attend . . .
02-18-2018, 02:01 PM
#18
Three Wheelin'
It's funny Tim...it's all I have ever experienced and it's my personal professional experience as well so I know it and believe it first hand. I don't believe nor have I observed anyone ever that's innately talented....skills and practice are the ticket IMO. Unless it's picking a car color....then I feel you Dan and I are innately talented at that.....or we just copied Dan!
Tom
Tom
02-18-2018, 02:25 PM
#19
Three Wheelin'
That's a great book and a worthwhile read for anyone. There is a mountain of evidence that it's all experience and that 10,000 hours of practice will get you to a world class performance - if you haven't started young its really hard to amass that level of experience later in life..
Edit....looks like Bruce beat me to it :-)
Edit....looks like Bruce beat me to it :-)
02-18-2018, 09:06 PM
#20
Tom, I hate to admit it, I really, really hate to admit it, but at the time my 11 year old daughter picked out Turquoise Blue. She saw pictures of you both yours and Dan’s cars and said, “Dad, are you insane, this is the color you have to get”. I wanted Gaurds Red but our deal has always been that she picks the color (previously she chose SY), so Turquoise Blue it was. And of course she chose perfectly (I got my Gaurds Red fix with the seat belts and instrument dial). So, the only innate talent I have is a partial didactic memory and echoist hearing. I’d be dumb as dirt if I didn’t innately remember seeing and hearing a large fraction of what comes across my path.
Tom