ColorChange

As a newbie, my current approach leaves me agreeing with Bob. My focus on the car changes as I go through the turn. At turn in, fronts, balance and mostly rears on track out. This is a much bigger requirement on the 911 than on the Lambo.

Z-man

Excellent thread: got me thinking about a lot of places where I need to focus on.
Geo: I like the concept of 'You can't hit what you can't see.' Last year, I saw some video a friend of mine shot (Brian P) while he was following me around at Summit Point. I couldn't believe how far off the apexes I was! Since then, I have focused more on hitting my turn in, apex, and track out points. (USE THE WHOLE TRACK! Is what Jupeman would say whist riding shotgun in my car!) While I certainly don't spend too much time actually looking at the apex, at turn in, I will definately look at it via my primary vision, and then quickly focus on track out and further while keeping that apex in my periferal vision.

That said, I drive with my EAR and my REAR! Let me explain:

1. Understeer/Oversteer: There's a part of your inner ear that tells you if your moving left/right/forward/backward. When a car gets into a sliding condition, your inner ear tells you something has changed. At that point, if the car is oversteering, I will feel the 'sliding sensation' in my butt as the back end tries to step out. If my inner ear tells me that I'm sliding and I don't feel it in my rear end, then I'm understeering. Once I process all this information between my ear and my butt, I know how to react to the attitude of the car.

2. Speed in a corner: As I build up speed around a track, my entry speed into corners also increases. At some point, there's a greater jump in entry speed. Then, my inner ear again tells my noggin' that somethings a little different: the corner's coming up faster. At that point, my brian sends some signals to my rear and the sphinker muscles start to contract. At that point, I know I need to be smooth, easy and deliberate on the throttle to make it through the corner! It's basically a signal that I need to choose carefully what I do in the next few seconds. Think of this as if you were diving off a high-dive: that's the same feeling I get when I build up my speed in a corner. If my inner ear tells me the speed I'm carrying is one that it is used to, then I know I'm going through the corner too slow, and I want to get out and kick myself in the butt for over-braking a turn again!

3. In a spin: My ear tells my brain there's too much sliding going on. My brain says, "Oh S$&t" but my rear end says, "NO!" causing the sphinkter to once again quickly react. Sounds gross, but think about that next time you see that other car's nose coming at you!

I suppose my ear and my butt are good friends! (Sounds weird, but they do work together) Between my ears telling me about the attitude of the car, and my butt telling me what it feels, translate into what I need to know about how the car is handling.

So what wheels do I focus on then?
-Z.

dgz924s

Being new I will add my 2 cents in hope of correction! I drive with my eyes and a$$. My eyes are focused on where I want to go and my butt to feel which end is working and compensate accordingly. I really pay no attention to either end but rather all 4. Am I wrong?

M758

I really tend to drive the backend of the car. Sure you have to consider the front end, but that seems to come pretty easy. What I concern myself with and spend my racing time working on is keeping the back end of the car underneath me. My biggest concentration is not what front tires are doing, but are what the rears are doing. If the car does not want to turn I don't think fronts... I think I need to get the back end to rotate. My other concern is getting the back end rotating too much. On in steady state cornering where I might get understeer do I worry about the fronts. In those cases I tend to adjust the balance of the car to dail the understeer out. I personally feel that steady state understeer and corner exit understeeer SUCKS. Those MUST be removed from the chassis to get fast lap times. A little oversteer is preferable in those conditions as one can "manage" the oversteer, and just be slowed down by understeer. Corner entry is different in that a little understeer can be managed by trail braking. Of cousre doing that turns the understeer into oversteer which can them be managed.

So to me you kill understeer with set-up and attempt on track to manage the oversteer. That is fastest way around the track and is why I "drive the rear of the car".

924RACR

I've always found that my hands do the best job of telling me if the front end has grip or not (understeering), thanks to steering feedback. Of course, I AM driving a manual car, which has its advantages...

M758

Scott interesting observation of Bently's rain driving.

In 944-spec I had good friend driving his spec car. Both his an my cars were very similar even for a "spec" car, yet he was quite a bit slower. I even showed him all my lines had him do lead & follows to no avail.

Well one day whe did a rain day at local track. It was blessing since it was with ideal rain conditions with drying tracks, dry to rain, light rain, heavy rain and all on safe "nothing to hit" track.

He learn ALOT that day. Turns out he hand never been comfortable with driving with the back end being unstable. What that ment was that if he felt any rear end instability he would figure he messed-up and would slow down next lap. Well in the rain the car was never stable. As he drove he began to pass alot of other folks on the track and his confidence in his ability to manage oversteer grew and grew. Soon after this track day we raced together again and we now traded class recorded setting laps on that very same track.

SundayDriver

Scott, I very much agree on the rain driving and sliding. The big problem in the rain is finding the edge of grip without crashing. In the dry, you go a bit over the edge and can recover. In the wet, that same little bit over the edge is long gone. If you can always have the car sliding in the rain, then you know where the edge is.

Now I say that coming from cars that are very tunable. In the Radical, on full rain tires, I would disconnect both front and rear sway bars, along with a brake bias adjustment. The car would push like a pig, which is exactly what you want in the wet. I could slide the front end through all the corners with little risk of the tail snapping aroud. I always knew what the limit of grip was, because the front was slightly over it all the time. It was actually a much more comfortable way to drive in the rain than trying to stay under the limit and go fast.

SundayDriver

I think the biggest potential benefit for you would be if it gets your eyes up. Looking ahead will get your mind ahead of the car, and your car has the ability to leap ahead of you very quickly if you are not careful.

Carrera51

I drive with the back end. All that weight back there, might as well use it. Every now and then the car reminds me to be careful.

A few years ago, my wife ended up corner working at turn 10 at the Glen during one of our region's instructor days (they were short and she's experienced so she volunteered). She said she could see the lateral slide of the car as I went through the corner. At lunch, the guy working in the toe of the boot came up to her and told her something was wrong with my car. She explained to him that the car was fine, its how I drive and how the car is set up (for oversteer). He didn't believe her.

Don't let RSR Racer fool you. He knows what he's doing.

Premier Motorsp

I drive the rear. The front is easy to control and feel so you can let the unconscious do that.

Recently I realized I'd fallen into a trap. I am not yet 100% convinced but here my theory:

Like M758 I wouldn't allow understeer, ever. In general, in normal (striving for 98% of the car's potential) driving understeer is the devil itself for lap times. Once the understeer comes in, your options all involve decel. You want to have accel not decel!

Here is what I tentatively think now. I still set the car up with a touch of oversteer but I deliberately find understeer by upping the entry speed until the car just won't turn in without MAJOR help from the brakes. The entries feel pretty ragged this way, the car barely turning just in time to make the apex with the brakes on almost full to ABS. I am quite sure I am on the traction limit for the whole entry, but I am not sure the technique is a valid way to reduce lap times. I could just be making the car fight itself and be wasting the available grip.

I found an interesting thing as I got better at this. It allowed me to improve the apex speed so much that if I released the brakes abruptly, or got too much throttle too soon (and thereby upset the balance), I would go into a slide unlike any I had experienced before. In this slide, I had almost no steering control, countersteering had little effect, and the car would just slide on an arc until the scrubbing tires (and usually me standing on the brakes) slowed the car enough to regain traction.

There are not too many corners where I would do this. The slide is not recoverable unless you have plenty of track on which to burn off the speed. The experience was upsetting. I now have to ask myself whether this new thing is really the limit (and I have spent the last 13 years driving too slow), or am I just overdoing the entry speed and screwing up the corner?

Chris Cervelli
Premier Motorsports

SkipSauls

Great stuff, and it is the sort of thing that I've been thinking about when driving my new car versus the old car. In the old car (993 GT-2S) I felt "connected" to the rear end of the car, to the point where I often just "thought" about turning the car and it just turned. Granted, I was turning the wheel, using the throttle, and so on, but in my mind it was my butt that was calling the shots. Yeah, I know it sounds silly, but that's honestly how it felt. The 993 was very well balanced and had tons of rear grip, to the point where making the rear end break lose was very difficult. If my body (inner ear?) told me the car was starting to slide, my right foot applied more pressure to compensate.

Now the new car (996 Cup GTA) is much faster in almost any situation, but I just don't feel as connected to it as I did the old car. It reminds me more of a Boxster in that it's not as rear-biased and is much more neutral in almost any type of turn. The problem is that my butt doesn't feel connected, and I'm having to adjust my driving style as a result. When it starts to slide I don't sense it like I did the 993, and as a result I'm slower to react. It goes from sticking to spinning much more rapidly, again reminding me of how a Boxster feels when it breaks lose.

Over the winter I may see if I can either a) adjust the 996 so that I get a better feel or b) adjust the driver to the new car. I suspect that option b is going to be easier, and option a would probably only screw up a great car. But I'll always remember that connected feel that I had in the 993!

Again, great thread, perhaps the best I've seen in a while, and thanks to all of you who have commented on this subject.

RedlineMan

Welcome to the Knife's Edge, Skip.

Think of the old 993 as a butter knife. The Cup Car is a fine Katana; light, razor sharp, and tempered to perfection. The old car was soft, supple, and comfortable. The new ones are stiff and hard. Incredibly capable, almost boring in their efficiency, but at the price of forgiveness, for they have little. Anyone can drive them fast, but to be quick is hyper difficult. Fabulously high performance, but a cold edge that cuts quick.

Too much for me!

ColorChange

Awesome thread. Chris C, I think you're dead right.When you are truly on the limit with all 4 tires, you have no additional control over the car unless you slow down. It really is a trajectory launch.

JCP911S

Interesting question as I have never specificially thought about a "front/back" bias.

I drive an old 911, so I believe the car forces you to consider each end of the car in turn

The fronts are critical on corner entry.... very easy to understeer a 911 if you are not careful....I am very conscious of balancing brake and steering to pull the car toward the apex without braking the fronts loose.

At mid turn you are transitioning weight to the rears using throttle to set the rear tires, and I am focused on rotation of the rear and the feeling the car set (or not in which case a quick counter correction is needed)....then power to exit.

So I think it depends on where you are in the turn, and your attention is on the end of the car doing the critical work at each point.

Of course a more neutral handling car is probably totally different.

ringmeister

I prefer a car that is set up with power-on oversteer, (a pre-964 911 has a great feel.) After initial turn-in these cars are definitely driven from the rear end. To me it's way more fun.