vir first right hander in the up hill esses.... WTF... how could you lift there with an awd car.... what was his instructor doing watching the birds?????

 

and honestly alot of times i dont touch the brakes till that point any way a great place to makle up some time... watch any footage from gt cars or dp cars watch were they brake

 

could he have just clipped the curb with his right rear which would pitch the rear to the left... followed by the lift and the off?
I was behind a turbo Monday in Portland and they spun off in a cloud of dust. Took out the coolant line up front. I thought that the selling point of the 4x4 was control????

 

- if you know the track, you can hit that curbing big time (faster line is making it a straight line) and you will be fine if you are on the gas
- what he did was not straighten out the line (he was going around the apex with lots of right stearing angle), his hands were too slow for his pace (i.e. he should have been unwinding the wheel and turning it the other way) and then his brain figured it out and he lifted

- as an aside, i saw an r8 driven by an extremely good driver (demo car that was demolished later) at Tremblant last fall (audi day)
- on trackout onto the front straight he dropped both right side wheels
- i was standing at track level, 100feet ahead of this behind a wall
- i hit the floor immediately as i thought in about 1 second this car would be coming at me at 100mph when it re-hooked and came straight across the track
- the driver kept his foot fully in it and the car never missed a beat
- i was totally stunned (some combo of being a great driver and having a world class four wheel drive system saved this car)

- i've hit those VIR curbs very hard with my gt3 and the car was totally planted - needless to say, i was fully on the gas

 

I think he went into upper esses little too fast. Notice the speed he was catching up to the viper. I bet he completely lifted instead of slight lift. Not to mention steering isn't pointing straight. There are some occasions where I had to slow down in that section but I always make sure the steering is in the right position. This guy didn't even bother trying to correct it.

Still, I'm quite surprised to see audi can lose balance like this quick with quarttro, stability and traction controls.

 

another vid that shows him throwing what i think is either a baseball cap or part of his side mirror at his poor instructor at 3:32

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ixBsfuShUyQ

silly bastard. but the damage doesn't look too bad, might have to get one of those.

 

I can't imagine a right seat on that ride

 

hmmmm ive been at that track umm probably couple hundred days... ive never seen a very fast VIPER ...lol on most sections of the track..

 

there as a fast viper in portland last weekend..... until it crashed

 

That's because you are always behind the wheel of AWESOME and RIDICULOUSLY FAST Porsches only. lol

Vipers are fast!! Respect the American Muscles!!!

 

Yeah really, I remember Matt passing me at VIR through turn 9. I was giving a ride to another GT3 owner at the time, he just flew past us. The kicker is he had time to give a courtesy wave as he passed, off line...

That said, a lot of faster cars are slow through there. All the better, gives me a chance to catch some people I couldn't otherwise.
Ahmet

 

can someone explain why lifting is bad? Thanks.

 

Big part of driving on the track is weight transfer. Your car is heavy piece of metal sitting on 4 springs at each corner. When you accelerate weight goes back to the rear springs/wheels, when you brake it goes forward, etc. Whichever side has more weight pushing down on it has more grip.

Thats why generally speaking we brake before the corner (while the car is straight) and then maintain throttle through the corner, maintaining throttle keeps weight transfer even front to back, making sure there's equal grip front and back. Once you're past the apex (or before, but are already pointed in the right direction), you can start feeding in more power while unwinding the steering. You are transferring weight to the back, but you're asking for less grip from the front by unwinding it, so its still fine.

Lifting in that situation is equal to braking, it transfered the weight off the rear wheels, making them have less grip than the fronts. Combined with the fact that the fronts were pointed right (and had more grip) while the mass of the car wanted to go straight, they swapped ends.

 

i learned to drive from from a great friend of mine, one of the best Ralley drivers in the country, he worked with me for a long time even when i knew i was ready ready for solo driving( he knew it also).. i used to laugh because I vividly remember the first time we sat in my car on the grid... " the first thing you need to know is ,... you are either on the gas or on the brake"

he used to say even if you feel like you were going to go off add some gas.. what hell, you just "MIGHT" go off couple of miles per hour faster, but when you lift i promise you will go off... none of it made sense when i was in green, but as speed increased you could feel what he was saying..
the book "secrets of speed" has some great info on it..

hell I will left foot brake sometime to get some bite and still be on the gas..

thanks Matt J... I still hear you yelling "stay on the damn gas" even when everything inside me says lift! !!!!!!!!!!

 

i respect them on the straights which is 25 %of the track... lol

seriously they are fast and in the hands of a confident driver i am sure they can put the times down