mroberts

I'm a newbie, and don't have a nomex suit yet, so don't flame me too hard

During a DE, my instructor noticed I was keeping the clutch in through one of the corners - it was at the end of a long straight and I was ultimately downshiftign from 5th to 3rd.

I would come into the corner and put the clutch in as I got hard on the brakes, then shift and de-clutch as I exited.

He said this was bad, but didn't really explain why. Is it because I'm not able to apply power if I need to to get out of trouble ?

jerome951

I think mostly because it is difficult to declutch smoothly enough to not upset the car, which is troublesome when exiting a corner.

Additionally, in a turbo, you will want to be back on the gas at least at or before the apex to control the car and accelerate. You also lose the ability to control the car w/ the throttle.

Declutch while in the (straight) braking zone and before turn-in. Try to finish the downshift before you begin releasing the brakes so you don't end up potentially upsetting the car significantly at turn-in.

macnewma

I am also a newbie, so take this with a grain of salt.

This is what I understand. When you engage the clutch, you have disengaged the engine from the drive wheels. This means that you no longer have control over those wheels in either a decelerative or accelerative manner via your gas pedal. You are effectively reducing the amount of control you have over things such as drive wheelspin and weight balance. This is not desirable.

Beyond the lack of control you have while the clutch is engaged, you also are not able to acclerate out of the corner as easily since you have to reengage the clutch before doing so. This is at best difficult or at worst it will upset the handling causing you to lose control.

I'm sure one of the many experts that help us out on this board can chime in and give a better explanation.

Max

RedlineMan

Hey Max, et al;

For clarity's sake, I must offer that the clutch is ENGAGED when your foot is not on it, and DISENGAGED when the pedal is on the floor under your foot!

You want to get your shift done in a straight line and have the driveline engaged for all of the reasons stated; bascially for Smoothness and Readiness. After turn in is not the time to try and let the clutch out under ANY circumstance. That is a time for throttle balance, later on pure acceleration, and eventually even left foot trail braking.

In your newbie phase you will be having a hard time with timing your inputs and Getting your Business Done before turn in. The first thing you need to do is be in your gear BEFORE you are out of the braking zone. Otherwise you will never be able to get properly prepared for the acceleration zone, which for my students starts at turn in. You must rationalize that at this stage, you should give up trying to "be fast" in the braking zone so you can concentrate on learning how to corner. Shifting is not part of the cornering phase, it is part of deceleration phase.

You can do it the way you are now, and even get away with it if you are smooth, but ultimately you will discard it anyway, so might as well learn it correctly from the start. Until you can Heel & Toe effectively, you should do a Slipped Clutch Shift gently as you are braking, and get it done well before turn in. When you ease off the brake, you can get right back to the gas to provide essential throttle balance during turn in.

No sense reinforcing bad habits. Brake it now... and yes that is a bit of a pun.

oldtimer

Just another 2cents worth, if you are right foot braking seriously to lose speed, you get additional braking assistance from the engine as your right foot is off the gas, but if you disengage the clutch you are losing out on that. The engine braking effect is not trivial.....you try push starting a stationary car in gear to get an idea of engine braking !
As you develop more skill on decelerating and getting down into the right gear, you will be practising 'heeling and toeing' to get a smooth downchange, you disengage clutch with left foot, your right foot will remain on the brake but will blip the gas pedal before you move the gear lever into lower gear then engaging clutch. The aim is to minimise the disengage clutch time, riding with clutch disengaged is only recommended when you have lost control and get into a spin and want to avoid stalling the engine when you eventually come to a sharp stop....!

Sanjeevan

M Roberts, obviously I agree with all others and agree with their reasoning, but I want to go a step further.

This is my first year of DE, I was told by all my instructors that I am a fast learner, I got signed off on my first day of DE (REALLY DOESN"T MEAN ANYTHING), and advanced to a higher group in 2 DE's, and I found myself competetive in the higher group at my first time at mid-ohio (highly technical course) even compared to other 996's on the track. I think the only reason for that is I do my homework.

First, you have to read a few good books, you should start off with Skip Barber's book "going faster" (I started off with Ross bently's second book), you'll see what you are trying to achieve to be a competent race car driver, and you'll see that keeping the clutch to the floor throgh corners is simply disastrous, when you learn to drive the car to it's maximum potential. Also, there is tons of other stuff that you learn by reading a book and can set your goals, you'll never stop learning.

The reason I am telling you this is, if you don't know the answer to your question, you are NOT learning as quickly as you ought to learn, and there is so much more theoretical stuff out there that you have to be totally competent theoretically to learn more effectively on the track. I can go on and on with examples, but just read a book, put those habits to use IN YOUR DAILY DRIVING, review tapes before you hit the tracks, get a good night's sleep prior to your events, visualise at the end of each day or each run etc.(all of this needs you to know yourtheory of high speed driving), and you'll have a blast.

I don't want to sound like a know-it-all on my first year of DE, but when I can keep up and pass a 996 consistently driven by someone who has been to the track several times before at mid-ohio, I have to be doing something wright HAVE FUN!

macnewma

Sorry John...me is a moron. Thanks for the correction. It is not the first time I have botched that. I always thing engaging the clutch disengages the engine, but I know it isn't correct.

Max

RonCT

Everyone else pretty much summed it up. The biggest thing for me is to retain total control over the car in the event of something unplanned. For example, as you move through a turn and there's a slower car in front of you, an obstruction (somebody's body panel), or fluids (happened to me twice - coolant), you want to be able to either brake or accelerate as needed. Generally, I am either on the gas or the brake at all times on the track - no coasting.

A big next step for you is heel-and-toe down shifting. Hard to practice on the street (but you must start there), and easy to do on the track (because when braking very hard my pedals line up better - something I don't experience on the street). To threshold brake and safely downshift at the same time so you are in the proper gear when starting your turn is fantastic. A little trail braking if needed or if that's the best technique for the corner.

As you learn your car's dynamics, you'll find places where you used to coast in neutral that you will hold mild throttle, lift to rotate the car, then full on throttle to blast out. Amazing feeling.

Going faster is a great resource. Smooth is the best thing. When I was starting I realized that any time I tried to drive faster, I was slower and less precise and any time I consciously slowed things down and relaxed my technique improved and I got around the track much faster.

Here's a good link for you... http://www.grmotorsports.com/topten.html

Rick

mroberts,

When I was at the Skip Advanced Racing school there was a student that was doing this very same thing despite several 'friendly' discussions with the instructors. The issue is the effect on weight distribution.

If you release the clutch as you're exiting (I'm going to assume somewhere between apex & track out), the sensitive metric is how well you match your revs to your speed as you release the clutch. If you're perfect...well, you're essentially perfect. If you're in a high gear and the target revs are either equal or lower than what the engine is currently turning, you're essentially OK. However, it the target revs are higher than what the engine is currently turning (the engine revs up), the weight will shift forward - the exact opposite of what you want through that part of the corner. The odds of a spin here are fairly high.

The second thing to think about is the old cliche that "there is nothing as stable as a car under acceleration" - as indicated above, ideally you want to finish your downshifting & clutch release before turn in (not going to touch the issue of trail braking here) so that you can accelerate through the apex to track out and down the following straight. That will gradually ease the weight towards the rear and allow you to drift towards the track out point smoothly.

At this stage, you may not be pushing the car hard enough for any of this to matter but as your speeds pick up it will - trust me. So, focus on developing the right technique now while the speeds are moderate and enjoy many future DEs in the future.

One piece of advise for your next DE; find an instructor who is good at explaining things and ride with them - observer, ask questions and have fun!!

BTW - the student at the Skippy school managed to find the inside wall.

Cheers,

Rick

dgz924s

My 2cents....Never coast! Anytime. 2 choices, be on the brakes or on the gas. You will learn trailbraking much later so no need to even know how it is done.

brucegre

Wow dude, you must be some puckered around every corner if you are coasting. The good news is you are driving a 944 and it's being kind to you, the bad news is, if you keep this up, when you get bit, you will be going pretty fast.

The suggestion to buy Skip Barber's book is bang on, but in the meantime, here's why you don't want to coast. As you brake hard for a corner, the front of the car is carrying the majority of the load, and the front tires are at or close to their limit just braking in a straight line. In the extreme case, if you pop off the brakes suddenly as you turn in (a common mistake) those front tires aren't braking at all anymore, so you have all the grip available to turn - and no weight on the rears, so when the car turns, it rotates instantly - usually all the way around. You need to have the ability to manage weight transfer gently using the accelerator, so you can ease off the brake, and ease on the gas as the car turns in, settle the rear and go.

The easiest way to understand this is to find a quick sweeper, something you can take in 3rd, and approach the corner in 3rd gear so you don't have to worry about downshifting.

First time through, coast it as you describe with the clutch pedal on the floor.

Second time through, don't touch the clutch, ease your foot off the brake and onto the throttle as you turn in and balance it through the corner so you're holding a constant speed to the apex, where you can roll back on the throttle.

Third time through, leave it in 3rd again, but don't put your foot back on the throttle, so the engine braking is having some effect - which may prove to be scary, since the rear will want to walk around the front on you.

This will give you some feel for the three scenarios, and how the car reacts. Scenario #2 is the one you want, because once you are in the corner, you will adjust the car with the throttle, not the brakes and not the wheel (unless you've majorly screwed up).

It's all weight transfer, and you can't control it when you are coasting. Hope this helps.

Bruce

chilix

It's all feel and experience. Soon you're body will react out of instinct and naturally correct the car when it gets uneasy. Roebling Road in Savannah was a good track to learn weight balance of the car since that track is almost all sweepers.