BrokeAss

David - please PM me w/ the name of the instructor if you don't mind. I want to see if he's instructing for region's DE program.

Par911

Leave TD alone, he's just trying to drive fast to pass me ! He knows I'm the track MVP .

BTW I don't see anything wrong with shuffle steering as long as you do it correctly, it's funny because the first intructor I ever had (from another region) yelled at me for shuffle steering and got pretty worked up about me even trying to shuffle steer while we were on the track. What was even funnier was the next day I had a great instructor(one from our region), and after the first two runs ; when we pitted, she made it a point to ask why I had my hands fixed at one position. She went on saying, "why don't we try something different, I want you to try shuffle steering". I was LMAO. I explained to her that I had been beaten up by my previous day's instructor for trying to shuffle steer, and he told me it was wrong. She laughed and said that there is no right or wrong way, just whatever works better for you. She also said some other regions do not allow shuffle steering and have strict policies against it. So for the rest of the weekend I shuffle steered, I felt more comfortable and had a more relaxed grip on the wheel. I also noticed how much my steering inputs improved over the previous day. Then again, I don't have power steering, a built in Latte holder, 100 extra HP, and a stinky cat .

Nice driving TD, I hope you are practicing your passing signals for the next DE.

ZBlue996Kam

Please inform the chief instructor for the event for any bad experiences you have with your instructor(s).

By doing so, the chief instructor will have first hand information to evaluate whether its just a personality issue or real teaching issue. He then can help the instructor to be a better instructor if it was determined that bad instructions were given to students.

By telling people so and so is a bad instructor is not fair in my personal opinon.

Kam

joseph mitro

hey guys, i appreciate all the advice you're giving TD. i'm new to the DE scene as well (having done only one formal DE and a few track days without instructors) so i'm picking up some valuable info here just lurking. i, like TD, try to practice the track habits on the street, like heel/toe and keeping the hands at 9/3 without shuffle steering. if only i could late apex the entrance to my neighborhood.....

i like the part about getting a 944n/a. my 944 was my daily driver until it spun a rod bearing. after rebuilding it i've turned it into a track car with suspension and rollbar/seats/harness. but it's not cosmetically appealing and if it's damaged it's not a huge loss. someday, maybe the M3 will lead a good enough life to become a track car.........

mark kibort

as an X instructor (very part time due to the racing schedule), and someone that has seen the ill effects of shuffle steering,(ie moving your hands randomly on the wheel as you approach and move through turns. sometimes for better leverage, most times mimicking street habbits), i can tell you two things. first, anyone that shuffle steers will endager themselves and others at some point. second, you NEVER see ANY of the best doing it. I wonder why?? there is a very good reason why. if you are shuffle steering you have no way to know where is neutral on the sterring wheel, especially when things go a little wrong. second you never need to move your hands more than 90 degrees on most track's turns. except for auto cross, (slower and tighter turns) there is no reason you need to move your hands. go aheat, watch a classic suffle steerer in the Hartley Viper video link. here is the best of the shuffle steerers and he is fast, but folks, i dont know about you ,but i havent spun that many times in my entire racing career including DEs as he did in this one race!

your choice, justify or correct.

as was said, there are good, great, bad and ambivalent instructors out there. some have never raced, some are fast, some are slow, it really doesnt matter.
coaching is about learning the beast way to help someone perform a sport and conveying it to the student. its also a responsibility of the coach to do research to find the best techniques whether or not they have worked for them.
as for making someone change overnight, its not the way either. its done in a smooth transistion over time. the video first shown on this thread, shows shuffle steering with no real purpose, other than a bad habit. most of this can be changed in the first day, whithout making the driver feel unconfortable, as in some turns he is doing it already (not many though!) Better to change it now, as its very hard to change a beginning racer, as at that point, their focus is on getting faster, and not rebuilding their style.

As a pole vaulter at all levels of the sport, i can tell you there were some pretty bad coaches and great coaches in the top ranks that produced top flying vaulters. (18+feet) some produced some high jumpers that had accidents that cost them their lives. others produced vaulters that for some strange reason, never had crashes! Hmmmm bad luck or better technique and style . usually, the later with some exceptions, as in auto racing!

Mk

Alan Herod

Oddly, I agree with Mark here to some extent. I would not call what we observed on the video as 'shuffle-steer', what we observed on the video was what Mark described, 'moving your hands randomly on the wheel.'

TD in DC

I can explain exactly what it was (Alan, your post sparked my reply, but my reply is not directed specifically at you).

At Mid-Ohio, I felt that there were some corners where I could not keep my hands in place at 9 and 3 on the steering wheel. This is in sharp contrast to VIR, where I do not have any problems keeping my hands fixed at 9 and 3. If you go back and look at my video for VIR, you will see that my hands remained fixed at all times, because I did not feel that moving them was ever necessary. At Mid-Ohio, since I felt that I needed to move my hands at some point (which opened my mind to the "possibility" of changing hand positions) AND because I was trying to keep a light touch on the wheel (as opposed to the newbie death grip), I apparently moved my hands far more often than necessary. I say apparently because I did not realize I was doing this while I was driving. I believe that my track vision has broadened significantly, the track has "slowed down" considerably, and I am very consistent (including my mistakes), but I still run into the newbie error of needing too much brain power to drive so I may not be as crisp with respect to one driving aspect if I am consciously concentrating on another. Here, only after receiving the criticism and going back to review the tapes did I even realize that I was moving my hands more than necessary.

Also, keep in mind that this was only one lap of many, and there were many portions of the course in other laps where I did not move either of my hands. Nonetheless, I do see how I could try to drive more, if not all, of Mid-Ohio exactly the way I drove at VIR.

I don't mean this post as a defense of my hand movement or driving. To the contrary, I appreciate the criticism because it makes me conscious of the areas where I need to improve, which are still countless at this point. Now, I have been able to watch the video again (way too many times) with this criticism in mind and I have something else to work on for watkins glen with ARPCA. Thanks to all for the comments.

Also, keep in mind that my instructors were working with me on many areas, so the fact that I did not do everything perfect is NOT a reflection on them. You can't make a pig's ear into a silk purse over the course of three runs a day, three days in a row. If you could, we would all be Schumis.

Geza

I happen to be a proponent of keeping ones hands fixed on the steering wheel. In the unusual case where this does not work for me (and there are none at Mid-O, for me, anyway), I'll keep my "outside hand" - the one on the outside of the turn - right hand on left turns, left hand on right turns - fixed on the wheel and slide my "inside hand" up the wheel towards the 12:00 position, just for that particular turn. This way, there is more range of motion with the inside hand before your arm contacts your body, yet the position of your wheel is always known, via the "outside hand".

It's funny that you didn't feel the need to move your hands at VIR; that's one place I use the technique describes above...T5 at VIR.

TD in DC

So many people have told me this, yet when I watch my video, it shows the wheel rotating more than 135 degrees in at least a few of the corners. This makes me wonder whether part of the problem is that I am driving too slowly through these corners. I mean, once my speed increases, will it decrease the amount I need to turn the wheel provided that I am managing the weight of the car correctly? A difference of 10-15 degrees would go far towards making it easier for me to keep my hands fixed. Perhaps this is part of the reason why I perceived MO to be a difficult track to keep my hands fixed.

Oaktree is the tightest turn at VIR, but my wheel only needs to turn a little less than 135 (maybe 130) which doesn't bother me too much so I can keep my hands fixed there. The rest of the corners are easy.

TD in DC

mark kibort

actually, that is true. one other thing is true, depending on how you enter the turn, is how much movement is needed to carry the line through the turn. a quick sharp brake and trail brake, will require much less turning of the wheel through the turn, while a slow entrance to the turn with slower inputs, can create a push and create more angle movement of the wheel to follow the line.

think about it, 135 degrees is only 45 past 12 o'clock. that not that far, and far better to keep your hands planted!!!! because of a great chance of the car getting bent out of shape in the tighter turns. (ie oversteer, hitting dirt, oil, water, too fast of entrance speed, exit speed, etc) with the hands in place, you are not feeling what the car is doing and instictively moving your hands accordingly. ever know why folks spin?? most of time, the rate of correction either exceeds or lags in rate or position, behind the movement of the tail of the car. meaning if the car was going to snap back after oversteer, and you correct expecting it to slide back, you are going to slide the other direction. on the same token, if you are sliding out (loose) and you correct at a faster rate, you wont come out of it and may induce a spin in the direction you were sliding. also , with respect to the hands, if you dont know where neutral positoin is without looking, your over correction or lack there of , would be due to having to LOOK at the wheel to find neutral. (ie having the hands in random places on the wheel)

Having said all that, the top drivers dont shift their hands. they just dont. I dont either. when you are pushing your car HARD, you are making lots of tini movements in response to what the car is doing. classic example is turn 4 (right) at laguna seca. watch the top guys go through there. they are sawing at the wheel like a lumberjack. (except faster) the car is very smooth, but the front wheels have a lot of activity. its called being on the edge by some and its analogus to "never let them see you sweat" they are car is smooth, working like heck in the car! thats how the fast guys do it.

I think on one of your turns (a right hander if i rememember and late in the lap) you didnt shift your hands. you can do it, you just have to think about it and think about how BAD it is to move your hands on the wheel. I think 180 degrees is a limit where your ams cross. at this point, or maybe slightly before, im sure you then need to let go with the bottom hand. I would advise strongly ever letting go with the top hand!

its the one thing that most instructors SHOULD start teaching and dont.

go watch the Mike Hartely WC GT viper video i left a link to. he would be slightly faster, maybe. BUT mostly, it would have kept him from spinning (3 times+), as it does most new racers.

Mk



d

mark kibort

check out this video of a race several years ago at Laguna. i just noticed that down the corkscrew, there was about 180degree steering wheel movement. most wouldnt have it any other way.

ftp://928m:928m@64.118.41.87/928MVid...apsvictory.mpg

Renn 951

Mark, I don't think it is fair to TD in DC to keep telling him he is doing something wrong if his hands don't look like the top pro drivers. You keep saying, "if shuffle steering is OK, why don't these top racers do it?" The fact is those guys have a different setup and steering ratio than what TD is working with on his own street car.

Let us refer to the "holy scriptures," Skip Barber's "Going Faster," page 225 in my edition:

"The number of turns lock to lock in a showroom stock car is much greater than that of a lightweight formula car. In many true race cars, you very seldom have to move your hands from the 3 and 9 position to get as much steering lock as you will ever need. Not so in a street sedan -- frequently, you have to reposition your hands in the middle of a steering correction to get enough lock to save the day. It pays to practice shuffle steer to ensure that you can get the size of correction you need when the time comes. Shuffle steer involves being prepared to quickly relieve whichever is the top hand on the steering wheel so that you can pull downward with the helping hand to add more lock than you could by crossing your arms."

So while you are correct, Mark, that the ideal setup is one where you don't have to ever move your hands, the ideal isn't always reality. I started doing DE's in my Audi S4, and when I got my 951 I found the steering ratio wasn't as quick and it was a lot harder taking some turns without my arms getting too crossed. An instructor 3 years ago suggested I try shuffle steering in those corners and it has worked out well for me. My 951 isn't exactly a "street sedan" as mentioned in the Skip Barber book, and neither is TD's 911, but they aren't Formula race cars either. In any event, no less an authority than Skip Barber does recommend practicing shuffle steering techniques. I think the approach the PCA Potomac Instructors take in encouraging students to try various techniques and see what works best for them is admirable.

I understand you have lots of racing experience, Mark, and you've figured out techniques that work well for you and that you advocate others use and you are trying to help them out. I admit I don't have anything close to your experience, but I do believe that on the track, as in life, some questions are better answered by starting with "it depends..." rather than starting with "you must always..."

Alan Herod

TD is doing a great job and he is progressing very well -- he is smooth and consistent and he is certainly willing to take criticism. If you go back to the first page - Greg cited what was going on without calling it shuffle steer. Others have described what we call shuffle steer, that is deliberately repositioning one hand on the wheel to initiate turn in, either for more leverage or to avoid crossing the arms. Some of us do not have harnesses or race seats. The difference in what you can do with these upgrades is phenomenal. If you look at the Cort video, he is moving his right hand between 2 and 4 on the wheel. This appears to be random hand movement and it may be for relaxation, because he is certainly relaxed.

ZBlue996Kam

Great point.

jerome951

I think mention of the Barber technique is not a fair comparison as we have a difference in nomenclature.

Barber (i am inferring from the description above) calls shuffle steering -- moving 1 hand to help pull the wheel down (and I assuming leaving the other hand in place), which is not the same as repositioning both hands before a turn, which the discussion thus far has focused on.

I advocate that if you NEED to shuffle steer, then do it. Most people find that they don't really need to shuffle steer. My concern is that it limits your range of counter-steer (without re-positioning the hands again) should the back end start to come around.

Just my $0.02.