Coming from racing motorcycles and helping with the Keith Code school, trail braking is very essential so I agree with you on that. In a car, the car to driver involvement isn't as intense as it is with a rider to a motorcycle. It's a good technique to know but for a first time HPDE, work on the basics with getting familiar with the track, braking zones, proper apexing, safe passing, being smooth, developing a pace and bringing the home the car clean at the end of the day.

 

Great video and although you don't mention it here - if you are off the clutch at/before turn-in you can properly anchor your left foot to the dead pedal. Great form here!!

Um, just like @DesmoSD said

 

Hypothetically, is trail braking necessarily faster? I'm thinking of two things- first, I've always heard that Jackie Stewart teaches braking in a straight line, and while his active racing career was decades ago it was in cars that might be somewhat closer to "real world" than current race cars (maybe?). Second and very hypothetically at this point, I'm thinking about Fernando Alonso's famous fast turn-in during his world championship years (back when F1 cars had good tires). It seemed like his technique was to get to max cornering energy as fast as possible, so he couldn't have been trail-braking, right? Again, we're way off in the theoretical, but I've also heard that trail-braking is very speed-dependent, good for slow corners but only used to settle the car on fast corners. In short, isn't trail-braking a technique with specific uses, rather than it being "the right way"? BTW, I'm at the "read several books and did several track days years ago" level, at the low-end of expertise on this thread.

 

Maintenance throttle before apex and unwinding of the wheel? Can't square that; no way. Thats a bad habit to get a driver into and sets them up for failure later coming out of an apex. Your always going to be coasting at some point in the transition through a turn sequence. We would agree you need to be smooth. But just because your entry is slow, smooth isn't a little throttle before your unwinding the wheel. Thats danger in the making.

But hey, looks like your in Texas, likely do COTA a lot. I'm way up north and run at Road America several times over the season. Maybe if your racing or instructing brings you north at Road America sometime, you could take me around for a few laps. I don't have the corner on right, maybe I'm missing something. Sincerely interested.

 

I find trail-braking more necessary in the 911 than in other cars, like the BMW M3 I had before. Basically, the 911 front has no weight and runs on bicycle wheels, which makes it prone to understeer at turn in; the M3 had the engine up front and the same wide track tires on all 4 corners. Much more grip at turn in. But even in 911 cars, I still instruct beginners using the "a car is like a dog" analogy, ie it is willing, but can only do one thing at a time. So brake in straight line, then turn, etc.

 

Trail braking is infinitely faster. Especially with modern tires.

 

And I 100% agree with your logic Thomas. Glad we can have a reasonable discussion!

 

Absolutely agree with you. It is very helpful in a 911, if ultimate speed is the goal. And also agree that is NOT something inexperienced drivers should be taught up front.

 

Thanks everyone. I will be signing up shortly. This will be my second time at COTA. Super excited.