Wild Weasel

I don't know if there's an easy answer here. Maybe it's just years and years of practice but I'm wondering if there's a big "eureka" moment when a driver crosses a point where they realize that they can push a car to the limit and not just immediately crash it.

Is there a feeling that develops where you know what a car feels like when it's gone past its limit but you can still completely safely manage it around the corner? Is there a big gap between that limit and the one where you can't save it anymore so you can fairly reliably throw a car into a corner somewhere in that range and then back it off to where you're getting the most out of it?

I guess I'm just baffled at how hard it seems to get a fraction of a second out of a lap when you know a pro driver can go several seconds faster with ease. How do they know they can do that??

How does a pro driver get in a car they've never driven before... turn all the nannies off... and just go full send around a track without crashing? I get that they do crash sometimes... but they don't normally.

I have a theory that there's a lot more room to correct errors than us noobs are aware of and that once you have a bit of practice you can then go faster with far more confidence that when things go wrong you'll be ok. I mean... you slow down before entering a corner and if all goes well you're on the throttle building speed all the way out. It stands to reason that if you don't get on the throttle like that, you've got lots of room to correct for an error so there's a bigger cushion there than seems immediately evident.

Not for me of course. If I go into too hot I'll just spin out and crash. But will a pro? Or will they just slide out a bit and then come out slower but no worse for wear?

Like... a pro can take a race car out and find out how fast it will go and whether it's loose or tight and what might improve it in ways to get fractions of a second more out of it. There must be a way that they can get that much out of it without crashing all the time. I'm just wondering when you find out how to do that. Does it just happen one day? Do you need to work up to it with slower cars over a few years before you find it? Does it then apply to anything you drive?

Is it like riding a bike? Once you feel it... you just know?

squid42

For starters, properly driving a curve means that if you don't have the friction you counted on during braking only means that you go deeper into the curve than you wanted to, and hence lose time in a way that us n00bs don't even see from the outside. If the car doesn't rotate as you want you miss the apex and slow down, but again it still looks fast to us.

The ideal point to be slowest in the curve is very far forward, and you can just go deeper if the braking didn't have the expected result.

And of course it's all in the tires. How to take the curves, what to expect from the braking, is the same for all the curves on the track with the same asphalt.

Wild Weasel

Sure. I understand all that in theory. I just don't understand how drivers can get right to the limit that the tires are capable of without going too far and crashing.
I'm having this discussion with some friends as well and I think there's a much bigger "natural talent" component to this than I was expecting.
I made the analogy to stopping on ice skates. When I was learning, it seemed impossible. I'd turn the blades sideways and they'd dig in and I'd crash. Until one day I didn't. It worked and suddenly I knew what it was supposed to feel like. Then I could work on it and improve.
I was wondering if I'm missing that feeling when it comes to driving. If there's a feeling of being on the edge where it just feels right. Obviously there'd still be a world of difference between that feeling and what the pros can do, but just getting to where you're in the ballpark and can work with it without just crashing seems like it would be a sea change for me. Right now I feel like I need the car to be fully planted and gripping for me to go around the corner. Pros can feel when the rear is slipping a bit or the front is slipping a bit and then deal with that. For me... if something is slipping then it's gone all wrong and the ESC is now bailing me out.

I mean... that's not entirely true I guess. If the whole car slides a bit while tracking out then that's fine. And understeer happens and that's fine. But I don't feel like I'm bringing the car to that limit and then working in it. I feel like when it gets there, it's gone wrong.

TXE36

Quite a few years ago we had an extraordinary event at TWS where Andy Lally came out and drove about 40 cars. The deal was two days of open track and Andy would take your car out with you riding shotgun for 3-4 laps. Every car was new to Andy and he did not have a problem "adjusting". Andy had never driven TWS before either - again, no problem adjusting.

At the driver's meeting it was decided that whatever car Andy was driving would have flashers and lights on since he was moving from car to car so quickly during the two days. Turned out it was not needed as nobody had an issue spotting Andy in their mirrors even though you didn't know ahead of time which car he was in - the lights and flashers were unnecessary. I mean is was freaking obvious as his exit speed out of corners was much higher than the usual drivers of those cars that day. It was obvious even with cars I hadn't seen before.

At dinner I asked Andy if his skill was "nature or nurture" and part of his answer was (paraphrasing) part of getting to his skill level was not caring about the car and one of his big breaks was getting a team owner that "didn't care if they had to shovel the car into the trailer at the end of the day". I don't equate this at all to the idea that one has to have offs to really know the limit - but I do see that when really pushing it, worry about damaging the car will hold somebody back.

He is the video clip of when he drove my car faster than I've ever driven it. Dual purpose E36 M3 with NT-05 street tires. His car control skills were phenomenal. From the passenger seat the car was always happy despite the wheel movements and that it was sliding around a lot. Always felt completely in control and it almost felt like the car was barely touching the pavement:


(Anybody who has dealt with old BMW "snap on" shift ***** understands the frustration at the end when it came off in Andy's hand.)

Veloce Raptor

I think it's also two additional things:

We are more attuned to very minute details of slip angle etc that the car is giving us every millisecond, and how these details change constantly

And we just drive faster

Wild Weasel

I imagine that concern about wrecking the car is what will keep me from getting to this mystical threshold that I'm imagining. I'm not so much asking here because I think I can get there. I'm just wondering if it exists as I imagine it.

Like... if I could throw away any concern about crashing... would there come a moment where it just feels different and manageable. A moment of revelation where it just all feels different and then you work with that to improve over time rather than working a giant level below that.

swftiii

Novice here, but I think this is a key at least for me: "not caring about the car and one of his big breaks was getting a team owner that "didn't care if they had to shovel the car into the trailer at the end of the day". I wish I didn't care about the car and needing to drive it home and deal with the CFO if I overstepped my limit with the car.

Just my thought.

Wild Weasel

Yeah. Most of us will never have the opportunity to take that step without fear of repercussions.

I'd just like to have an idea of what it's like to take it in a more hypothetical context.

CosmosMpower

I think the main thing is the pros have incredible car control, doesn't bother them if they find and exceed the limit, they can usually save it. A lot of beginner HPDE guys are really scared to find the limit because if they accidently exceed it they think they are going to end up in a wall. Before I started doing track days I autocrossed for many years which helped me develop some good car control. I scared the hell out of my first instructors when I transitioned over to HPDE since I was willing to let the car slide a lot more than they were used to with a green/blue student.

As far as learning a track I think if you have solid fundamentals you can apply those and pick up a track pretty quickly. I went to Hallet this past weekend, having never driven there and was pretty much running consistent times by the 2nd or 3rd session at speed, super fun track by the way.

ProCoach

“Pros” who crash cars don’t get to where they want to be, and don’t last long when they get there, if they do.

The pros I know and work with are VERY attuned to their sensory inputs and what the car is telling them. If it won’t DO something, they won’t push that SOMETHING. Ams do...

”Pros” push the car to the point where it pushes back, but if you slow down time, they do it at a rate that allows them to fix the dozens of times they are slightly over the edge, before it turns into a heaping pile of rubble.

Lastly, the best pros have so intimate a knowledge of car, tire and track physics that they often push in a calibrated way to look for weaknesses, so they don’t discover them until it’s too late. Ams do not...

TXE36

Agree with you about the car control.

HPDE newbies that are autocrossers are always so obvious during that first session. The really good ones learn how to dial it down a bit (faster speeds mean less rough), the bad ones make for a looonnnnggg weekend. Fortunately most of my autocross experienced students have transitioned very well.

No doubt, and I don't believe Lally has a crasher reputation, but I do think having "permission" to trash a car or two has to help mentally even if the "perk" is never taken advantage of.

CosmosMpower

There is a wide spectrum of good and bad autocrossers as well. The really fast autocross guys aren't jerky and abrupt with inputs. It's the ones that suck that scare me the most. It did take me a while to tame the overdriving on the big tracks but I never lost that sense of being able to slide the car and feel comfortable.

certz

This and to the OP's question it is 1,000's of hours of seat time. Don't forget, it's their job. While we are grinding at a day job, they are at the track testing or reviewing data or instructing, but nonetheless at the track in cars. Depending on their situation with a team, they may be constantly switching cars looking for a ride - may be a Porsche one day, then an Ferrari, Lambo, NASCAR, truck... - and they do not have the luxury of taking time to get up to speed or they could be out of a job.

My experience riding right seat with a pro is they are just ahead of the car. If they enter a corner a little hot, where one of us mortals may be thinking I need to slow the car and make the best of this screw up, they are thinking the car is going to rotate a little faster as I trail brake in and I need to get back to throttle to settle the rear a little quicker, then make steering/throttle corrections as I track out to make the most out of the corner. And by "thinking" I mean it has become second nature and they just do it. I had a pro do something similar to this at Road America T14 and we used ALL of the track with the rear hanging out a little the whole time. We laughed about it afterwards while I was cleaning my shorts.

ProCoach

Excellent post!

multi21

Getting into "your" street car with ABS etc after having extensive time in a much faster race cars or street cars without nannies makes everything else look like slow motion. To you it seems fast, to them it's just approaching the limits. There's probably more time to be shaved, but they aren't going to cross that line.