I kinda like this... guys like Shumacher, Andretti, etc, take your pick - they're not fast cause they've got big ones. I'm not as fast as I already am on track because I am fearless or foolhardy. I will say that fear does not limit my driving style, or not much, but I do drive with some degree of fear or respect for the track and the limits of the car. This may slow my improvement curve, but I'm OK with that.

While I do want to continue to push myself, it's in a slow, deliberate, self-conscious way, making the changes to my line and style based on review of data, video, and competitors. Making controlled changes to find speed, and to experiment with alternative lines. Not simply diving deeper into corners because I should be faster (as bigger ***** might imply), but braking later, or harder, or slowing down less, because my data shows that I'm braking too early, or too softly, or on the throttle too early (meaning there's more speed to be carried into the corner), or my speed trace is not continuous, etc.

 

While that's true there are those who are quick, seriously quick while not being that clean & clean and definatley have major *****.

One great example being greatest driver of all time, Gilles Villeneuve. He would be "all over the place" but boy was he fast!

And in general, I think drivers way back when there was no seat belts etc. just had to have major ***** just to be brave enough to drive those cars.
While you can develop bigger ***** (I personally think it's basically just confidence and skill how you can do that) there are those who naturally have more ***** than others. Same thing with skill.

Every one of us here in Racing Forum could practice, practice, practice, practice, practice for all of our lives and be a really good driver, yet still none of us could be at the same level as i.e. Gilles & Senna were.

They just had more skill and ***** so regardless of how much we'd have experience, great coaching, study or whatever, we'd never reach that level.

 

Still, it would be really fun to try!

 

I probably am not close enough to driving at 10/10s consistently that my opinion could matter, but saying that you need bigger ***** to go faster might be the wrong way to think about it.

Saying that someone has big ***** means that he (I would say "or she" but it just doesn't sound right in context )faces a substantial risk with really bad consequence by undertaking an action but he does the action anyway. The alternate meaning means that you are just self-centered, but I don't think that matters here. We are all self-centered or we woudn't enjoy such an individualistic sport.

Apart from getting in the car in the first place, I don't think that I ever face substantial risk with really bad consequence by undertaking an action on the track and choose to do it anyway. Why? Because I always think I am going to be successful -- I visualize myself making it through the turn -- so my turn in doesn't take big ***** because I am fully confident that I will make it. In other words, it doesn't take big ***** to do something if you think you are going to succeed before you do it. Now, I might well be naive or even stupid to have so much confidence in my driving, but that is another topic altogether . . .

I would never intentionally put myself into danger. When I do find myself in a pucker moment, it is because I have made a mistake, and from that point on I am doing whatever I can to save my *****, which I don't think is the same thing as relying on them to be faster. So, apart from getting into the car in the first place, I don't think going faster -- or saving yourself from disaster when you have exceeded the limit -- really takes big *****, although mine are plenty big thank you very much.

 

A senior instructor did this for me at the Glen a couple of weeks ago at T11. I was hugely overbraking. He moved my braking point in and helped me get on the throttle much earlier. I started getting some speed through the corner and could feel som significant lateral loading from the apex to track out. Good thing that previous instructors had taught me a good line through there because I started to need it.

I can NOT go fast unless I'm comfortable, but I trusted this instructor and his estimation of my skill level and I KNEW the car could go through there much faster having done it with others driving. I needed a gentle kick in the pants, asked for it and could not be happier with the results.

In class our instructor suggested playing with different lines and speeds in the toe of the boot. Given the camber, speeds and runoff, that is a good place to push with less risk than many other turns.

For T10 I learned to tap the brakes at turn in and then squeeze the throttle firmly to the floor. It's a FAST corner now, and one gets to T11 mighty quick.

 

Actually, this past plataeu I broke through, it was more of a lack of confidence. In my brakes that is. Allow me to explain:

In the past, at DE's, I would get a little bit of brake fade about 3/4 of the way through a session. Not terrible fade, but noticable. The last time I was at Lime Rock, for some reason this thought was very prevalent in my mind. So, I came up with a brilliant deduction - if I brake less, I'll converve my brakes. So each turn, I would brake a little earlier, and far lighter and less than I used to. True enough - I didn't have any brake fade issues that whole event.

Of course, a side benefit of braking less was the fact that I was carrying far more speed into the corners, and the car was far more balanced at turn-in. After one full session of chasing my friend, Chris around the track, he came up to me and said, "I saw you back there, and every corner I said to myself, 'That Z-man's not using ANY brakes!'!!" Indeed I was using that middle pedal, but with far less force!

I think that event was my first intruduction to the wonderful world of momentum driving. Which brings up another point:

A way to get yourself around the track faster is to learn how to drive a slower car fast. Many folks call low hp cars "momentum cars." Actually, ALL cars are momentum cars - the high hp cars just mask that fact all too easily on the straights. That doesn't mean that there aren't any fast drivers in fast cars - it's just that those who learned on slow cars are fast not only in the straights, but also in the corners. I'm talking about the folks who have cut their teeth in 356's, 914's, 924's, 944...etc. They really had to hustle in the corners to keep their lap speeds up.

So, you don't need big kajones to drive fast - you just need a slow car!

-Z-man.

 

What would I give to be able to share the track with Gilles & Ayrton...

Or just have a friendly chat at the local pub!

Seriously, it would actually be really great to go to a track with absolutely identical cars with some of the truly greats and then try to keep up with them and be humbled.

Oh wait, it would be even better to do that and pass them!

 

I'm in the same camp as you Vaughan. I never do something on the track that is guided by my *****. I either am trying to make a calcuated improvement or as SD already mentioned, just found myself in farther than I planned and I work my way though it (and then work on doing it again only more smothly). I usually am thinking every corner about contact patch management and trying to get just that little bit more from it.

 

For me it's not money or car damage or getting home. Seat time and confidence is what does it. I am a super careful driver so I rarely if ever spin or get out of control, I take it to the limit slowly and until I am extremely comfortable I don't take it to the edge. Once comfortable then going over the edge is not a problem as you can get it back calmly. If you have big ***** but not the skills to back them up I don't want to be on the track with you.

One thing that you can try is driving a MUCH faster car, I recommend a Formula Atlantic or something like that, your Porsche will feel like a rent-a-car barcolounger, very easy to drive. Maybe even a formula ford would help but it seems people sho drive them with Skip Barber etc don't get any faster.

Good luck!

 

I'll vote for several of the choices offered so far, and tag on a couple more. This is 'racer-oriented', so please no nanny-ism about how none of this is appropriate for DE...yeah I know that...duh...:

Confidence - the self-knowledge that I can probably extricate myself from pretty much any racecar predicament that I get myself into...and most that somebody else forces me into. It's not bravado...it's simply knowing that I can handle it. Sometimes it comes out of nowhere. Example: a few years back, I'd made a transition from production sedans to open cockpit stuff...at first I was not sure of my abilities to keep up with the faster reactions & necessary corrections (those little fv#$ers react RIGHT NOW). Mid-Ohio race weekend...chasing a pack for position...coming over the hump at T8 and I was focused on catching them before we got out of Thunder Valley, as I could see that I was faster than them on the left-hander out of T-V. As I crested the hump, it felt like the whole world rotated to the left around my body, but I never broke concentration, and unconsciously applied the necessary correction...without lifting. I was probably 30-40 deg. sideways (the guy behind me gave me the traditional post-race "I got a pretty good look at your numbers" comment), but my confidence & commitment allowed me to not break concentration. As I got thru Madness, I had a quick "Oh my...that was cool" moment, before I sliced on thru traffic. I'd had other "Oh my...where the hell did I learn to do THAT ??!?!" moments before, but that was the biggest I had experienced, and it let me know that I could handle the accelerated pace of that chassis and class.

Lack of sentimentality - It's just a freakin car. Narcissism & 'car-projection narcissism' gets you to the bottom of the qualifying and results sheets. I don't like crashing...mostly because it screws up my drinking time and makes me work on cars (which I do out of necessity, but hate), but my weekend plans don't have 'DON'T CRASH' written across the top of them. If you wanna go fast, you're going fall off the track every now and then. Get over it. At the pointy end of the grid, off-pavement adventures and lurid spins are items of muted pride and big laughs, not embarrassment. Get over yourself, and remember the Professor's mantra: "If they didn't want you to drive there, they'd have put up a wall". If you're worried about embarrassing yourself and making mistakes in front of others...sell the car and take up cards...solitare, in particular.

Spend time learning the basics - Although it's been 15 years or so since I last did it, I used to take a winter break from the tundra and hit one of Skippy's Advanced Car Control Clinics every winter. A day on a wet skid pad isn't fast, isn't glamorous and won't impress your buddies at the bowling alley...but you'll learn more there than in 10-20 days of dry track lapping. Get over than narcissism thing again. I now get my winter fix by ice-racing...which is fun...but I have to prep & fix my own car, and the beach is under 24" of snow, and my hands get cold even when wearing wet-suit gloves. Go to Florida, beat on Skippy's cars. Money well-spent.

Finally - remember that this is a competitive sport. Be polite in the paddock...but don't be afraid to be an assertive asshat on the track. The meek may inherit the earth...but only after I'm finished with it.

 

Professor I gotta buy you a drink the next time we are at the same track. Sorry I missed you at the supercomp school this year.

I really enjoyed Skippy's Advanced Car Control Clinic that I took last month. In fact, I found it more useful than the three day school, except that I did get to learn Laguna Seca at the three day school.

I can't think of a better way to spend the day than intentionally inducing nasty TTO and TBO skids just so that you can practice saves in someone else's car with someone else's insurance. I did the car control clinic at LRP, where they have an awesome mini "autocross" style road course. We went from one session where we were trying to be fast, to the next session where we were trying to induce nasty skids so we could practice recovering. I took full advantage of the instruction to try to get the cars out of shape, and I was sliding and recovering all over the place. One of the instructors did not realize that we had switched format from "fast" to "sloppy" so he came up to my afterwards and said "you were doing really well recovering from those slides but you do realize that getting the car out of shape isn't the 'fastest' way around the track, right?"

 

Amen!

As suggested earlier, follow someone you know is a little faster and build into it within your skill level.
Last weekend at VIR I could not get my times below 2:09 and 2:10 (although it was mostly 2:13 - 2:15 due to so many stinkin slow people in the red group ).
It seemed as if I had taken steps backwards. I was in a rut. I kept saying to myself "what is my problem? Am I driving wrong? Am I just not on my game? What is the stinkin deal?" (I normally can run 2:07 and 2:08 consistently with no one slowing me down. My best time last fall was 2:06:69)
I then staged early - to avoid the slow cars for the first 2 or 3 laps - right behind 2 Cup cars. Before we caught traffic I did a 2:06:33, then a 2:06:23 following those Cup cars (Thanks Tom and Luis). Then even with traffic I was able to keep 2:08's, some 2:07's, and 2:09's the rest of the day, despite having to pass many cars. I realized I was just lazy with the gas and early on the brakes earlier in the weeknd. My line was fine and I just needed a reminder of what I could do by following the Cup cars. I am convinced I could have done a high 2:05 following those guys if we had clear track.
The point is, if you follow someone a litle faster, drive within your ability, and learn from them, you can go faster. Just don't over do it! They are faster for a reason (skill level or car or both). Follow and learn cautiously and have fun! But as Analokmike said above: Don't drive with bigger b@!!s than you skill will allow!

 

cheapest/best solution - drive a go kart.

turn 1, roebling road in a sedan - enter braking zone ~140mph, down to ~75mph for entry. long long right hand turn.

in a go kart- enter at ~95mph into braking zone...but don't brake. take turn FLAT OUT.

now you have *****.

 

ok, that was classic. sums it up for me perfectly.

plus that part about making sure you've got skill to back you up when you go for some of those moves that need *****. at the least, it should "minimize" your pain, if not make it go away completely. (better to graze at a shallow angle than head-on, right? )

 

One last suggestion (then I gotta go work for this habit!). Drive OPP (other peoples porsches). Trade cars for a session with someone, especially a faster car (at this point they should trust you or this thread is useless to you). I dropped .5 sec at VIR doing this recently and will continue to do it. What happens is you adjust your line to the unfamilliar car which in turn makes you pay attention to your old horse that is in a "routine" around the track. It is human nature to drive in a way that is most predictable and comfortable even if it is fast.