Dionvm24

Hey Everyone!

Based off of quite a few recent conversations with drivers I have noticed a common theme: Many are scared to start slowly working up towards trail braking because they are worried about oversteer.

I know oversteer has a negative connotation but that oversteer they are scared of is what we actually want to happen (within reason)! When I change that word from "oversteer" to "rotation" it seems to help them be open to working towards some trail brake. We recently wrote an in-depth article on how to "control oversteer" in many different scenarios and even included some small setup notes (although I believe way too much focus is put on setup before drivers have the right foundation). Hopefully, for any of you out there that may struggle a little bit with confidence to trail brake or with oversteer, in general, there are some helpful pointers here!

Here is our in-depth oversteer article: https://racers360.com/racecar-driver...rol-oversteer/.

As always if anyone has feedback or additions we would love to hear it!

ProCoach

I would add:

For driving techniques to think about for:

Corner entry oversteer: Slower release of the brake

Corner exit oversteer: Open steering (reduce steering angle input) proportionate to throttle application and yaw generation.

Really like the car engineering suggestions.

Kevin Fennell

Dion, if you made one of those driver/engineering charts for all the most common complaints in a car you would be my (and many others) favorite person.

Dionvm24

Haha they are coming very soon

Beantown Kman

Great article, written in a way that most drivers will find easy to understand. Thanks for sharing it Dion.

Veloce Raptor

This is all good stuff, and emphasizes why it's so critical for drivers to learn and develop a true feel for the car

Gofishracing

correct , pause, recover- Skip Barber school always said - Good stuff.

ProCoach

One of the hardest things (PAUSE) to learn, ever.

But critical to avoid steadily increasing oscillations and off-course excursions, for sure.

Nice job, Dion.

mdrums

Slower brake release is something I’m always thinking about..keeping that balance in check between front and rear. Always a challenge...fun stuff though.

jj1

Interesting. I’ve found that in cars that are loose I should drop the brake peddle to more quickly transfer weight onto the rear and on pushy cars I have to slowly come off the brakes to keep the front loaded and the car rotating. Otherwise I end up needing to over slow for the corner in either situation.
Is this situational? Car or condition dependent?

edit: I think I misinterpreted. You guys are saying to slowly release the brakes to “control rotation” vs “manage oversteer”.

mdrums

I'd say car and condition dependent. Different corners require different braking that is for sure...there is no one way only...different cars and different sets same thing...however I am always thinking and conscious about my braking, I get brake points and pedal pressure come to me pretty fast...its the release I concentrate on to keep the car as balance as possible.

However you should ask a real pro here more about this..I'm just a DE instructor and drive more by feel than thinking about techniques.
__________________

CrazyFast

I've found one of the best situations to learn how to feel the balance of the car and how it affects over / understeer is through a long sweeper on power using throttle steering. Examples: Carousel at the Glen, Big Bend at Lime Rock, Turns 2-3 at Barber. In these turns, you've generally already set your speed for the turn, and can modulate the throttle to control the car's over / understeer. Once the driver can feel the car's behavior in these longer turns, it becomes less scary in sharper turns using the brakes to control the balance of the car.

Long sweepers are also a great opportunity to teach snap oversteer and how to really rotate the car or control rotation with balance. I first learned this at Bertil Roos, going through turns 4/5 at PBIR. I was slowly modulating the throttle, and was told to pop off the gas, and get back into it immediately. I had the confidence to try it at the school in an f2000. However, I also remember 6 months prior, when my right-seat PCA instructor in my GT4 told me to get on the gas to wash out snap oversteer. I looked at him like he was absolutely insane. Now I love that technique.

Dion - Since I'm a visual type guy, I'd also like to ask you to review your corner diagram from the article. When I look at the way you've drawn the path and braking through the turn, it looks all wrong. Specifically:
- The smallest turning radius for the car is immediately after turn-in. I can't think of any situation where this is the case. The path should be decreasing radius to the apex, and increasing radius coming out.
- The trail braking should continue until the smallest radius of the car's turn. Otherwise, the car should be on gas. So if the car were to follow the path in the diagram, it would be back on gas immediately after turn-in where the turning radius is smallest, not to the apex of the corner.
- Rotation should be done at / near apex. The diagram sort of shows the path a car might take if it did the rotation at the start of the turn and drifted through the corner. But even then it would follow a more uniform arc throughout the turn.

Feel free to correct me, or if there's something else you're trying to illustrate. Just seems to be in contrast to other references I've read.