It would be interesting to see data, if it were available, showing how drivers of modern cars with nannies progress over time, compared to drivers of older, analog cars. Some things that would be interesting to know - how "fast" they are, how many mishaps/wrecks/offs they have, consistency of lap times, smoothness of driving style. Obviously some of these things are subjective and may not be measurable in a meaningful way. Not to mention availability of any of this data in the first place.

I wonder if we'd see that some or even many drivers of the modern cars would hit a plateau at some point due less development of a "butt dyno". Total guess obviously.

 

That is part of the great debate , I follow allot of sports and play allot of golf , I think it's really difficult to compare different era's with the advances in technology.
Would Jack Nicklaus beat Tiger Woods with same equipment ? Physical training ?

Are you allot better on simulator because if you wreck you hit the reset button ? Probably !

Peter has been around awhile ( sorry Peter) he could tell you difference driving a car 20 years ago compared to now. I would assume everything is better , tires , suspension , weight reduction. I had a pretty good lap with my GT4 at Watkins Glen a couple of years ago and PCA Chief instructor ask me what my lap time was , I told him and he said was that you or the car ? LOL He gave most of the accolades to the car ! LOL

 

While the raw data exists, for both digitally enhanced drivers going to analog cars (i.e. moving from a modern Cayman or GT3 to Spec Boxster) and vice versa, it would be a tough task to sift through all of that to establish meaningful trends.

Drivers vary SO much in experience, motivation, goals, desired risk/benefit ratio, "feel" (butt dyno) and most of all, timeline for improvement, that I don't think it's possible to separate the technological intervention's effect on a driver's "controlled aggression," a KPI that is required to go quicker, or even approach the true limit of the car/tire/driver combination. But that's just my experience.

I do tend to agree with your sentence in bold, as I have observed this frequently in modern car drivers moving towards competing in analog cars.

The first time the car really begins to move, they STOP the movement. They find it incredibly difficult to discern between desired motion and undesirable motion. And if they can't get past this in an analog car (and even digitally enhanced cars), they'll never go really quickly...

It's the latter people who I send on for additional, one-on-one car control training to Tom Long or Johan Schwartz at the BMW Peformance skid pad in South Carolina, Team O' Neil, DirtFish or to Lee Carpentier for a car control clinic at LRP.

The most successful drivers making this transition to cars that MOVE underneath them learn how to SLOW the rate of onset and increase in movement.

Then, they must ALLOW the movement to continue in order to achieve the desired result (pointing the car down the road sooner or simply rotating towards the apex in a shorter distance covered).

It's really hard.

 

Yeah, such a debate could probably go on for quite a while!

To be clear though, I was thinking of current data from current drivers (some driving newer cars, some driving older). Not a historical comparison.

 

If your goal is to learn to drive and not have to unlearn habits and things the nannies saved your from, turn the nannies off. If your goal is to be the DE or track day "Hero" with a car you don't really know how to drive, turn the nannies on.

If the standard answer is "leave the nannies on" because the cars are just too capable for the newer driver without them on, we have an instruction problem or a driver ego problem or both. The nannies allow a newer driver to go faster than they know how to go on their own. This, in my mind, is a safety issue and the antithesis of learning to drive.

 

Wow, I hadn't heard about that - I've always considered E36 M3s ***** cats with no bad habits. Makes me wonder if those were actually 1996 1995 model year M3s, as those were "special" as in they were only made for one year (they were also the first E36 M3s). The 1996+ E36 M3s have a lot of changes in the front suspension. The mount points for all E36s are all the same but the the 95 has unique front control arms, front control arm bushings, top strut mounts and spindles. The 95s also came from the factory with a square setup - the 96-99 were staggered but I assume most track folks run square on all of them. What is clear is BMW was trying to tune something out. 95s are kind of rare these days.

The nannies on the 96+ models will not help you go fast - they are very intrusive - not at all like today's cars.

E36 M3 a super car - makes me chuckle. Funny thing is I refer to them as a Miata Plus to students. Much like a Miata, plus a bit more power, a bit more weight, a bit more room* and a bit more expensive. Also like a Miata, a very good public knowledge base (I was pleasantly surprised to find the E36 forum at Bimmerforums not only still alive, but thriving).

*A bit more room in track trim. For traveling to or from the track, definitely not like a Miata, more like a truck. I used to cart 5 extra mounted tires, tools, a jack, cooler, etc... Unbelievable the amount of crap one can carry in an E36 - its a clown car for stuff. And this is *with* a 1/2 cage.

 

It was a matter of people used to driving E30's and four and six cylinder E36's, then getting into something with ninety more horsepower, much stiffer, "square" as you say, and not changing anything they had been doing to compensate.

1995 was actually the first model year for the E36 M3, but they were super rare in those days.

In each case of the accidents, people were coming out of a super-long 200 degree medium speed (55-65 mph) sweeper, then when they whacked the gas, the car stepped out and they overcorrected. Really hurt the cars as they ping-ponged between the guardrails and then hit a maintenance building. All three of them.

After the first one, there was a lull. After the second, a drivers meeting. After the third, most of the folks in those new cars went home to think about things. The car was just a LOT more responsive, powerful and without any nannies, it was a handful...

 

That sounds like people were just being stupid. You don't change cars, especially to a car with more performance, and drive it just like you did your last car. Who does that???

 

Fudge! You are correct - I should have looked it up to make sure, the 95s were the special ones. I corrected my post.

The 96s were also the first ones to be OBDII, the 95s are OBDI.

 

I suppose you could call being caught out "stupid" but I think we've all been stupid, at some point in time... Especially if you do it long enough.

 

Caught out? Seriously? Let's see...I get a new car....it's a higher performance car...it goes faster.....it's suppose to handle better....let's go out and drive it just like we did our last car and see what happens!

That's not caught out.

Hell, when I upgraded my engine adding 100 HP some torque with the rest of the car not changing, I was very careful to get used to the engine and how the car behaved with it. The first thing I did not do was go out and drive it just the way I did before the engine upgrade to see how it would go.....

 

All off but with rev matching on.

I started using rev matching because the stock brake pads required so much force that I had trouble with heel-and-toe. I switched to Ferodo 3.12, and the force is greatly reduced. I might go back to heel-an-toe.

 

I started in 2006 with a new Cayman S. Two or three DE’s in, I turned off the nannies and promptly spun off. I club raced a 1986 944 turbo for 5 years or so, and it didn’t even have antilock brakes. A few years off, then another Cayman S with nannies for a year, and now the GT4 for a year. So I suppose, quite a bit of track time.

 

I sold my Cayman GTB1 car to a DE driver and he crashed it within the first few laps of driving it.

When I bought my 991 Cup the first time I drove it was at WGI. My first session I didn't get above 2:30. It wasn't until the end of the day that I got down to 2:00 and it was the rest of the next day until I got even lower.

There is the yeehaa mash the gas and go crowd and then there are people who work up to a new car.

I just don't want to be "that guy."

 

Nor do I!

That guy that crashed his new GTB1 car didn’t get caught out. He screwed up. Whatever happened to personal responsibility? You, on the other hand, were smart and took some time to get to know your new car. 👍