I am without my 997.1 for the moment due to an out-of-town engine rebuild, and I am trying to make the best use of this time to prepare for the upcoming track season. I am reading the Kindle version of "Send It" by Dion von Moltke, which was mentioned in a thread here on RL. I am finding it to be very good (about halfway through it) and one of my goals/questions is related to it. Wondering what you think of my hopes/goals for the season.

1. Down track vision. This is such a constant goal, but I think I still fall short every season. I am thinking of moving my GoPro to my helmet to see if that reveals what I might be doing that I don't realize. I had one instructor tell me to keep my nose up and my eyes will be forced to follow. Any thoughts and experiences on how to make this a more consistent behavior? Sometimes I think driving around the Beltway creates bad habits since you do have to watch the traffic immediately in front.
2. Weight Transfer. I hear this all the time, but I think I don't apply it enough (at all?) to my on-track thinking. I know what it means, but I don't feel I translate it well to my driving senses. Do you have any keys/feelings you use to help translate this important concept into your driving so that you manage the car better?
3. Trail Braking. In reading "Send It", the author seems to reject this term and suggests using another one called Directional Braking. From the book - "Yes, it's our hands that turn the car, but it's our feet that get the car directed and angled where we want to go". He seems to say that if we treat corner entry as just a braking exercise, we miss the point. I think I get what he is saying, and I am anxious to try out that mentality on the track. Does his approach make sense to you? If so, how have you applied it?
4. Advancement to Black. I actually had not thought I might get to the Black level (PCA gradation) but I now think I have a decent chance. It seems like actual racing is probably not in the cards for me but advancing to Black, where unlimited passing (with a point by, windows down of course ), might be the next best thing for me. By the way, I now recognize that DE and Racing are almost two different sports. I am in awe of what racers must do on the track. I have read, and will reread, the expectations for the Black run group. I know I need to have a very good pace and be especially conscious of others since passing is everywhere. Mega situational awareness. Any advice from those who have done this transition on important ingredients to safely moving up to Black? I regularly get instructors to jump in with me so I will directly ask them this year about what I should be recognizing in order to make this jump.

Thanks for any advice you have!

Cheers.

 

For me THIS THIS THIS .... I am always focused on the car in front of me , because on the road here they are out to get you.

@dgrobs can attest
I need to keep my eyes up , and drive my own line.

 

^ THIS THIS THIS as well, constantly catching myself not looking where I should be looking.

 

I drive on the track like this as well. Constantly keeping my eyes moving, looking THROUGH or AROUND the car in front to determine what will affect them, hence me. You can often look through multiple cars on a straight and around them in corners.

Also, the tape trick. Place a four inch wide clear cellophane tape strip a third or so up from the bottom of the windshield just left of center gaze. Pay attention to how long, how many times and how much you look below the strip. Force yourself to look above the strip a majority of the time.

To get your eyes moving, put into practice a constant scan between center>left mirror> center> center mirror> center> right mirror> center> center mirror> center and so on. Can really help in developing spatial awareness, knowing better where the edges of the car are, et cetera.

I also see a lot of people sitting too low in the car to see the front edges of the car in relation to the edges of the road. Sometimes just a few inches can make a big difference.

 

Nah…too easy…

 

You had tremendous improvement with this over the 2 events we were together. Keep working on it and it will come. It got a lot better through the course of those 4 (5?) days. If it didn't, I would’ve said so. There was some really good progress for you with this. Keep it up.

Problem is that when you are fixated on the bumper in front of you, you end up driving the same crappy line they are.

Then there’s that pesky little safety thing. Remember us talking about “the car goes where the eyes go?” Remember that?
If you’re fixated on the car in front of you, and they do something stoopid and go off and into a wall, where are you going? Yup, into the same wall or into them driving them deeper into said wall.

You definitely had lots of progress with this last season. Just keep consciously telling yourself to keep the eyes up and the eyes out. 👀

You're getting closer…..

 

These two MUST go hand in hand if you are to master, or even use adequately on a regular basis, the second, which is the single best fundamental skill that is the greatest challenge to drivers trying to go quicker.

"Trail braking" was a concept first articulated here by the Skip Barber Racing School in the early to mid Seventies, when Skip was racing professionally, had established his school and wanted to make a clean break from the "straight line braking only" concept championed by Jim Russell and later, by Bertil Roos.

It meant to SLOW THE BRAKE RELEASE past turn-in to concentrate weight distribution on the front outside tire contact patch to introduce greater slip angle at the rear as an aid to aim the car further down the road in an efficient and controlled manor.

It became corrupted to cover the simple application of brakes past turn-in, without the original, desirable end result being achieved.

Skip Barber Racing School in the 2000's renamed their original concept "brake-turning" to more accurately focus on the goal for executing this technique.

Dion von Moltke was a Skip Barber Instructor for the same period as I was for a decade, and as a result, adopted his own terminology, "Directional Braking" to differentiate the skill execution the same way the term "Brake Turning" did.

The car control exercises in a Skip Barber School, the kind that Dion has committed to memory, allowed for gradual increase in efficiency and effectiveness in mastering brake-turning and directional-turning.

Pitch forward exercises (stop-box) to develop Ross Bentley's Sensory Gathering Session capabilities and feel the front tire contact patches get larger as they subtract from the rear contact patch size.

Then, brake-turning or directionally braking in a lane-change stop box in order to influence and quicken the car's response to a steering input, especially in the slower corners. These low speed exercises, then getting on track, really help drivers assimilate what they need to make this work.

I work with few people who effectively brake-turn or directionally turn using brake release very well, out of tens of thousands.

They all think they're doing it, but they overslow TOO soon, well before the meat of the corner entry, that there is not enough energy in the car to create the needed surplus of slip angle in the rear at the appropriate time.

A worthy goal.

 

I try and explain proper braking this way:

The purpose of your brakes are to change direction, not slow down the car. We never want to slow down on a race track, we only want to change directions.
Once we are rotated and pointed in the right direction, we no longer need the brakes. Get off them!
We only want to reduce our speed enough to change direction, any more than that is wasted lap time.

It's an over simplification and there is a lot of technique to do this correctly, but I found this has helped drivers think about their brakes in a different way. In the braking zone they now have a different goal then they had before, it it helps them focus on the technique of trail braking as now the reason for it has an all new, but simple purpose.

 

Vision, courtesy Terence Dove (awesome Substack, BTW)

 

Those are great tips, Peter. I love this sort of tangible, and even physical, technique to resolve a deficient behavior. They are definitely going in my track driving notebook.

Thanks!!

 

Light bulbs... I am definitely not thinking enough about the rear of my RWD car in corners. Too much focus on the front.

 

I like your simplification - a new line of thinking for me to keep in mind.

Thanks!

 

LOL

 

Very descriptive way to look at “trail braking”. I would say i am definitely in the camp of doing it wrong.
Where can i find information on the pitch forward exercises from Ross Bentley?

 

I'm not certain Ross has formulated those. I've not seen any info from him about specific exercises very much, he's a "big picture" guy!

I referenced Ross only for his emphasis on going out with the express purpose of gathering sensory input and information, such that you can internalize and learn "what good feels like." That can be true for driving on the track pursuing almost any improvement, not just this one.

These are exercises in pro schools, specifically Skip Barber, that have been around for decades.

They are designed for the basic skill set curriculum, starting in the "low-speed" area, a large paved expanse with coned off, straight lanes with traffic lights suspended above for the threshold braking and lane change exercises.

They then progress into s single, turned end to a coned off lane with a stop box at the end. High frequency, rapid repetition exercises get people use to developing the pitch sensitivity they need, how much is possible when you do it right and how to BLEED off as the lane turns at the end while they're still carrying the brake in!

I've used them on track for over fifteen years with most of my private coaching clients to get them thinking the right way. I explain a very specific goal, at a specific, slow corner involving control input amplitude and timing, setting aside optimal entry to the corner. Of course, making sure there is no one immediately behind you.

You're not stopping, but simply developing the sensory perception of the weight transfer forward and then beginning to trade that forward bias for lateral loading. It's cool and it works. EVERY top driver executes this blending very well. They also all front-load the braking as aggressively as possible without unsettling unduly the car.

I combine this with data and video from a typical DE driver, track day or Club racer's car in our debriefs to MAKE SURE they are at least beginning to "do it right."