Here's a topic for some thought provoking discussion. Is car control a lost skill? With all of the amazing abilities of the new cars, ABS, PSM, etc, and the new suspensions that just work better, and the tires with incredible grip, I feel that many of the newer generation of drivers are just circulating around the track in a kind of cruise control mode. They know the line, and they know what they are supposed to do in terms of when to brake, how much to brake, where to turn in, when and how much to get back on the gas and so forth. And with all the correct emphasis on being smooth, some of them are going quite fast, but I wonder with how much real control?

It seems to me that nowadays, too many drivers are spinning off the track, or into things. I remember when I started PCA DE's. I had been autocrossing for 12 years, and then finally got the opportunity to get a Porsche 914 and get on the track. Needless to say, I was hooked, and autocrossing fell by the wayside, but the car control skills that I honed there I still have today. And pounding around the track in a pure momentum car with skinny tires does wonders for smoothness and keeping your speed up.

But to be really fast in that car, you had to be right on the limit, and that meant once in a while having the car get very out of shape and being able to hold it, and bring it back. And back then, just about everyone had a momentum car!

It's quite different today. Not too many people get on the track after years of autocrossing. It is usually right off the street in a fast car. And even after pounding around the track for a few years, I wonder just how many drivers really have developed the skill to catch the car when it truely steps out, that long lurid slide when the car really gets sideways, and bring it back. Or once it steps out, is it gone? I have more, but I'll save it until I see some responses.

 

Hey, plenty of us are still driving momentum cars! Put another way, classifying a car as a "momentum" car is simply a matter of what you're running against! My idea of a horsepower car is others' idea of a momentum car!

IIRC it was Mark Donohue who said "unless you can leave black streaks from corner to corner, you don't have enough horsepower"...

 

Yeah, it was Donohue who said that, and I think of my car as a momentum car too. There are plenty of turns where I am trying to get on the gas as soon as I possibly can. But even driving to keep your momentum up is just a sign of driving knowledge, it still doesn't mean that you have or are learning car control. But it certainly helps when you are flying INTO the corners!

 

At 27, I may or may not qualify as a "whipper-snapper" in your eyes, but I started off autocrossing in a 1990 BMW 325is with ABS. That car went to a few track events after 2 years of sporadic autocrosssing. I'm now running an '88 951 with no ABS. On the track, ABS is the only electronic assistance device I've ever known. I'm not sure if I fall outside of the group of "newbies" that you're basing your hypothesis on, but since I can't drop $40k+ on a dedicated track car, my PSM and ABS currently reside in my left foot and my two hands.

From what I've read of your abilities, I'd be happy to let you instruct me at an event, in order to "evaluate my car control abilities". So far, my previous instructors have all had positive comments on my car control abilities. I have a lot of work to do in all the other areas, though.

-Jon

 

Larry, that is an interesting question you pose. I have no direct experience with PSM, ABS, or any electronic assistance at the track. I don't have a background in auto-x, but I have driven a few karts and I gained alot of familiarity with oversteer driving rwd trucks in the snow for years (yeeeehaaa!!). I am pretty sure I don't have the skill of Gilles Villeneuve, but I feel confident.

Just out of curiousity, how effective are these aids? Does it take the fun out of it? I understand ABS pretty well, but I know little about PSM and others like it.

It is interesting that you bring up the art of car control and the concept of momentum driving at the same time. I am a newbie with probably too much HP. I had an instructor with a stock class 930 and he gave me a sheet to study before he took me on the track. I think it was titled "Momentum". This was from a turbo guy to a turbo guy. He explained the concept of how maintaining momentum was paramount to all things on the track (aside from safety of course).

I guess the way I see it, if I were driving a F1 car, IndyCar, ALMS car, I would seek to preserve momentum. From what I understand, that is how you go faster.

 

Larry,

Let me assure you that car control skill is alive and well. Maybe in the DE world its role is getting a little bit less obvious, but in club racing it is right in front of you each and every lap.

When I started out in motorsports in 1991 with POC in So Cal, there was not ONE race car in that club that would not get totally smoked by a stock GT3 or 996 Turbo street car. The times that a cup car can easily do would have been considered impossible.

I think as the cars have gotten faster, the number of people pushing them to the limit has gotten smaller. Therefore on a given day you don't see as many people sliding around.

Chris Cervelli
Premier Motorsports

 

The downside of PSM in the instructional environment is that it prevents you from understanding how royally you just screwed up. I'll count my self out of the survey, more or less, as I'm outside the norm - I actually develop PSM-type systems (generically referred to as ESC now) for Bosch on the day job.

At least in some cars you can mostly turn them off, but PSM is set to come back on as soon as you touch the brakes (if needed), leaving you to feel that you saved the car yourself. Then again, on the other hand, the wisdom of putting such expensive cars in harm's way without the safety benefit of such system could be questioned too!

I still lean towards turning off only TCS and teaching the student to drive hard without ESC interventions... In fact I think having the safety net of ESC may help some students build up speed more quickly than otherwise - those who might otherwise not risk it. Perhaps.

 

Lost skill? No, but it is a changing skill. I suspect that every generation of drivers has looked at the younger generation, both of drivers and of equipment, and shaken their heads slowly as they reflected back on what once was. (Remember that '63 VW beetle on the dirt track/icy roads? Now THAT required some real driving skill!)

Let's talk about how to build skills in a DE environment. Autocross is a great discipline. My first aggressive driving in this car was at a winter Solo II in steady rain. Did I catch that first big step out? Nooooo! Did it hurt anything? Just my face caused by my big grin! A day of autocross in the wet and another day at autocross school in the wet (with a nice, big skid pad) were great learning environments. A DE with PCA? Good, but the skills come at a different pace when you dial it waaaay back because there are other cars and obstructions around and the speeds are so much higher.

 

While perhaps it's true that many of us tend to outgrow AXing from a seattime to hours spent perspective, there's no doubt in my mind that I've progressed faster and have remained safer as a result of doing a substantial amount of AXing, prior to and concurrent with my move to the track. Early on I had a couple of instructors who were apprehensive as they knew I was an AXer (to the non-AXers we're all just a bunch of madmen) To a man, they all praised my car control skills by the end of the session. To me this goes to the heart of the safety issues that have been discussed here so much recently. The most important performance and safety device is the guy behind the wheel. The more experience and seat time the better. Put another way, AX is the supplemental vitamin essential for a healthy balanced track diet.

 

Started out auto-crossing for two years (back in 99)... found out... Cones are for Kids !!!

I went to Roebling Road with NCCC for a high speed event !!!

Those clowns at the NCCC event told us.... NOTHING !!!

So I went down to Florida for a 3-day school with Justin Bell !!!

Finally learned a bit about.... car control with John Paul jr.

 

I think this pretty much nails it. The cars are so capable that people simply don't develope the skills they did when tires were skinny and hard, and springs were soft. Frankly, not many people CAN because the speeds are so easily high it outstrips most people's nerve! Do it in a slow car.

Me? I think about getting an old 911 and REALLY learning to drive. Then again why would I want to spend all that money and time trying to keep something running? So instead, I throw crappy tires on my old bucket and do it that way.

Last year was such a tuning year, and it really paid off. EVERYONE should look at the liar in the mirror, and retune like this on occasion.

 

Larry Herman's dissertation has so many angles and nuances that I'll pick a few and give my beginner's opinion on some. After all we are the subjects of this discussion.

First, I think I some what agree with Chris when he said:

"Lost skill? No, but it is a changing skill. I suspect that every generation of drivers has looked at the younger generation, both of drivers and of equipment, and shaken their heads slowly as they reflected back on what once was. (Remember that '63 VW beetle on the dirt track/icy roads? Now THAT required some real driving skill!)"

But, i would like to put an extra spin on this....I think the improvements of the past has all been MECHANICAL improvements in chassis, suspension, brakes, tires etc.. Being mechanical improvements, they are an easier pill to swallow than the ELECTRONIC aids that we see today in the form of ABS and PSM. So, I can truly understand the initial concern posed in this discussion. But, some may argue that the world is moving from being mechanical to electronics, and motorsports is no different....

I will only talk about PSM which has been called the "devil" in various occasions. ABS is a little bit more widely accepted.....I can only say that the merits of PSM is wholly dependent on the situation. A teenager in a curriculum to advance into any type of serious racing will only impede his advancement with these aids, especially if they are going to be banned when it really matters.

For a recreational novice DEer it can only help......, first, it lets you learn faster by allowing you to push harder and make mistakes,...even though PSM saves your *** in these circumstances, it lets you know when you screw up. It's like training wheels with positve and negative FEEDBACK that helps improve driving skills.

In the latter stages of DEing it all depends on when PSM kicks in, if it's only when you exceed 10/10ths I don't see a problem there. Flying through corners at significant speeds with or without PSM requires car control skills. I know, the initial question was for situations where it really gets out of control, ...but when it really gets out of control would'nt you need all the help you want. UNLESS, there are skills to be learned at the limits of spin recovery that CANNOT be learned in any other way without the PSM kicking in, and those skills genuinly help you go through a track faster This is the one and only reason one may argue PSM to be a hindrance and no other. If one can learn everything within the limits of PSM that one can with a full out 180 recovery, then there will be no reason to fault PSM. (I am not talking about skills of recovery alone, but skills that actually would make one faster on the track).

One obvious thing that comes to mind is when PSM is a hindrance in trail braking which actually helps you go faster...now is this the fault of PSM or the threshold tolerance set into PSM prior to it intervening. I argue it's the latter....obviously the current PSM parameters hinder this aspect of learning with R-copmpound tires...but, if it is tuned well as to kick in only when you really screw up, I don't see any problems with it. Also, every other skill can be broken down to a similar explanation. (This is been observed only when using R-compounds, and PSM is not caliberated for R's from the factory)

It goes without saying that PSM can only do so much, if the driver is working against it and not helping it, there is no car control aid that can help, but such an individual should not be in this sport in the first place. But, how about those situations where the attitude of the car is beyond PSM alone and requires that liitle exra skill of the driver, I argue that todays "electronic driver" will at least do equally well with his skills and the help of PSM compared to an "old-school" driver with skills of recovery with no PSM.

In summary, for DE's where we push only in the 9/10ths or less and are never planning to go 10/10ths, I argue there is absolutely nothing wrong with PSM. For any thing more advanced it will be a problem only if PSM kicks-in prior to total failure, and there is some skills to learn going through a total failure that will later help you go faster, and I argue that eventually PSM will be tuned well enough to allow for the learning of all the car control skills that would be needed to go through a track in the shortest time.

sorry for the lengthy reply,...

Jeeva

EDIT: Larry, your observation of increased incidence of spinning is not because of PSM and it's detriment on learning...I would say in spite of PSM there is increased incidence of spin-outs due to the many high hp. cars in the hands of un-skilled drivers who are too impatient to learn before putting the pedal to the metal.

 

Jeeva, many good points. I got my car in part because it does not have PSM. Just ABS and a LSD and me, and I'm the weak link!

 

Ok, a lot of good ideas here. As far as ABS and PSM go, I think that they are probably an asset to learning the line, and how to drive up to the limit smoothly in a powerful car. For instance, pre-ABS if you braked beyond the limit of traction, you flatspotted your tires or worse. Now, you can test the limits of braking up to the point of ABS engagement, without flying off the end of the striaght or flatspotting your tires. Same with PSM. If you overdo it a little, you don't have to catch the car. The PSM will engage and save you. No question that this adds to safety, but what have you learned about car control?

I still feel that there is a sizable number of drivers going quickly because they are doing everything "by the numbers". I do not see how you can operate at the very limit of driving the car though without the confidence of knowing that if it steps out big time, you can save it. I have had my GT3 step out numerous times, and a quick flick of the wheel and a few quick burps off the gas and we just keep right on trucking. No harm, no foul.

One incedent that came to mind in starting this thread was in the hairpin at Summit Point where the car started to come around to the point where my passenger felt it. I played with the wheel and the gas and we just kept going. Later in the pits he said to me "do you realize that you turned the steering wheel almost a full turn, and then spun it right back? Where did you learn to do that?" I had no idea that I turned it that much. The only answer that I had for him was 12 years of autocrossing and 20 years on the track.

Maybe we (PCA) as a group need to have every DE driver spend some real time on a skid pad in order to get familiar and comfortable with a real sideways slide?

 

I agree with Chris C.. I think the level of driving at the big PCA club racing events is pretty amazing. I'm seeing a lot of "car control" going on in every corner. Not uncommon for several pros to show up as well, especially in the GTC3 class. I think it's good racing / driving. Very entertaining to watch and even better to drive. Lots of money being spent in the upper run groups that's for sure. The other orginizations like SCCA, and NASA don't really compare to the driving action I just witnessed at WG last week. Maybe the SCCA runoffs and obviously World Challenge, but PCA and the Porsche crowd has a lot to be proud of IMHO.