Veloce Raptor

http://www.roadandtrack.com/motorspo...-at-trackdays/

fleadh

Ahh... the good ole "code brown":


-mike

Veloce Raptor

I remember when you first posted that. I still say DAYYUM and cringe every time I watch

Bull_D

never a bad idea to identify your best "outs" on any track you're driving. if you have an "option B" map in the back of your mind, its a lot easier to make an instinctual play for that exit. the rule in flying.....keep flying til you're not, applies on the track too.

mark kibort

"Try grabbing a lower gear, by double-clutching if necessary. Yes, this is bad for your driveline–but if it keeps you out of a wall it’s the smart decision."

This has saved me in my two brake line burst occurrences. (sans the "double clutching, thats silly, not needed and takes way too much time) one at laguna seca, and one where Mike H had his. with Thunderhill, in that area, there is no long apex area to bleed off speed, so you need to ride it out (but all grab gears or gear , as there is not much time) . Laguna and many other high speed corners, you can make multiple downshifts and heavy trailbraking like steering to kill a LOT of speed......possibly saving the turn, or at least saving the car from a hard impact.

so, driving off straight is also dependent on the track and approaching turn. if you have the room , and have 0 brakes, as i did at laguna, you are best served to downshift, and start a turn in. if you have lots of pavement, an induced "push" is great to help slow the car... its like having the front tires locked up, but they are still spinning for control!! Lots of braking force there that wouldnt be available if you just give up and ride it out. You need to understand what turns you can do that for .. and which you cant. (thunderhill turn 10 , no......laguna turn 2, yes)

I always force folks i work with to experiment with this with good brakes for a few laps. no brake laps are a good education on slowing the car without brakes, and it transfers to better car control into turns as well when you have them.

danielyonker

Wow - code brown indeed. Thank goodness for the runoff area.

AudiOn19s

The 2 failures noted above are indeed scary and a true instance of brake failure.

I think his point was that "brake failure" is often thrown around as an excuse when it wasn't actually the root cause of an issue and I have to agree that alot of instances we see of "brake failure" are completely avoidable with more awareness of what's going on with the car or better car prep.

MSR Racer

fleadh didn't have the window net on! He hammered through a barbed wire fence!

mark kibort

that was a good decision........he figured how much damage a wire fence would cause vs the tires.

mark kibort

Here is a tech question for porsche tech gurus. do all cars have diagonal brake safety redundancy?

my brake failure was similar to what is described often times... i had a front brake line BLOW. i sill pushed on the pedal and wasnt feeling any speed reduction, so resorted to blip downshifts and over rotating the wheel when slow enough to get a tire "push" braking effect. or do cars separate front to rear in the braking system.

on the former, its hard to imagine how a blown line doesnt remove all braking. you blow the line and the pedal goes to the floor. there is no pressure built up in the m/c anymore, so how is anything preserved? maybe at the bottom of the pedal there is a reserve of some sort that activates some level of fluid for part of the brakes.... but i surely didnt feel anything that was related to brakes, other than downshifting and turning of the wheel.

PPo

Thanks for sharing, great article. 'brake failure' and 'tires overheated' seem to be common terms used for those not willing to accept that they are responsible for the off track events.