And Todd;

What may be the best thing to come from this is that you now see your car is not set up correctly. A 944 should never snap oversteer. In fact, no car should, even a 914 or 911. I have never done anything in particular to set my car up - just the bascis - and it handles flawlessly. Lucky or skilled? Yes!

You know... the only time I experienced snap oversteer in my car was when the rear alignment was wacked out. Toe OUT in the rear. It was FRIGHTENING. You should have to MAKE a 944 wag its tail if everything is right. I've always wondered how you managed to spin it so many times. Now I figure it may not have been you?

 

John, normally your advice is good, but this is just not true. Even a very well setup 914s will snap oversteer if not driven absolutely correctly.

 

Wow, what a thread.
I've been out of town so I just read the whole thred.

First off, thanks TD for posting your experience. Many people would not have had the maturity to do so.

Secondly, it was nice to see a "momentum car" for a change instead of all those cup car videos!! (I have a 944 S2 track car).

Now for my $.02

Yes, you were somewhat early and you did not track out as much as you could have. This was evident on most of the corners you took. Keep in mind in a lower HP car you're loosing momentum by scrubbing your tires more than you need if you don't use ALL the track.

I agree with the understeering analysis. It was very well presented and shows the need for your car to be properly sorted. If you do that you migfht find the 2 seconds you referred to earlier.

Once again, thanks for your post. This has been one of the most useful threads I've ever read.

 

We have had this debate before, and I will continue to to say from experience and physics that a well set-up mid-engined car will NOT snap oversteer unless driven by the ham-fisted. A low polar moment of inertia car IS tough to STOP spinning.

A short wheelbase 911 is relatively easy to induce snap oversteer (although nowhere near a bad as the legend has grown to describe!) for exactly the opposite reason that a mid-engined car is not.

 

Interesting tradeoff between tracking all the way out (larger radius and longer distance covered which slows you down) and tracking out only as much as needed (more tire scubbing to slow you down). Is the rule ALWAYS that tracking all the way out is faster? Seems to me that in lower speed corners it might not be. Perhaps this is a question with no universal answer dependent on corner topology, entry speed and car HP.

 

Chris , If your not tracking all the way out, your not going fast enough. Regardless, it is important to practice tracking out. My blue student at Shenandoah in the rain had to work on this and I stressed it in the dry. Of course it rained really good and we avoided a big spin ( big tail wag instead) by enforcing this discipline.

In a complex turn with entry into another, you will compromise the 1st to gain more exit speed on the second, ie " not tracking all the way out" or an late entry into the 1st turn allowing proper setup into turn 2. Again, if your not needing to track out, please practice letting the wheel out. Eventually you will need to use the track completely and even start using the extended patches you see added at every track in existence. See you at the Glen.

 

Hmmm...

Well... I don't really fit in them. If what you say is true, I'm glad!

 

The rule is;

You are always looking to free the car up. If you want to maximize speed, you never want to have the wheel turned more than is necessary to make the corner. If you have room, straighten the wheel and use it. Certain corner complexes do require what Bob was talking about, but single corners beg for a straight wheel.

If you pass the apex, and you cannot straighten the wheel and free the car up, you need to change your approach to the turn so that you can. If you can straighten the wheel and still not make the track out, take your other foot out from under the throttle and get on it! A nice simple way of thinking about it. The hard part is in the doing!

 

Funny thing is that I just stumbled across this old thread, which outlines exactly the type of thing I was experimenting with at Watkins Glen: https://rennlist.com/forums/racing-and-drivers-education-forum/275652-when-to-apex.html

I typically use all of the track everywhere. Based upon the thoughts outlined in this older thread, which I have also read in several other sources, I was trying to increase speed and/or move the apex earlier when I was not struggling at all to keep the car on the track at track out (i.e., I still could have plenty of room at track out if I wanted it).

Now that I reread the older thread, it occurs to me how much my car may actually be understeering and how this affects my ability to "drive the rear of the car," which is what I was trying to do.

Very interesting to put all of the information in this current thread and the older thread together. Having started in a 996 and now in my 944, I am not sure I would know what it feels like to drive a car that does not have a tendency to understeer. It is hard to diagnose something like that when you have never experienced the opposite setup!

 

Since this appears to be a thread of inspired navel-gazing, and John/Redline and I are, apparently, in the minority among opinions here (innie ? outie ? cotton lint ? doritos crumbs ?), I'll toss a few more items:

There is a camber change between the apex and the exit curbing in T10...it actually begins out near the curbing, then is more subtle as the track rolls flatter. It's very obvious if you're doing a track-walk, but there are limited opportunities for track walks at WGI. It's not very obvious in-car.

If you make your initial turn-in before the '100ft' board, you'll have more steering angle cranked in past the apex than if you 'squared it off' with a later turn-in. Do it right...and you're unwinding the wheel (slightly, but definitely so) beyond the apex. Do it wrong...and you're eating the wall on the inside at the exit 'cuz you were still horsing the car. I've heard the "I did it the lap before and it worked..." story for decades. Well...we don't know what your feet were doing. We can't feel what the chassis was doing. "Hands on the wheel" is a fungible concept...hand position doesn't convey steering angle.

I race a bunch of different cars, the majority of which allow me to (with appropriate warm-up and tucking my skirt in) take the section of track from apex of T9 all the way to the 'breathe & squeeze' entry of T11 FLAT...abso-friggen-lutely flat...but only if I'm confident that I can nail the entry to T10 within a 5-10ft. window. That means the right side tires dancing with the white line/armco, and the car making the move off the right hand edge AT the 100ft. board...not before...not after. Any earlier and I have to burp the gas to induce some rotation...and going slower misses the whole point of the episode. Any later and I'm likely to make it into the gravel backwards, before the exit curbing starts. Someplace in the middle of this whole exercise, there is a 'rub the big yellow Goodyear letters off on the apex curbing'.

So...with about a million race laps at WGI...and another million in the instructor seat or just flogging the dog around...what do I still think ?

Early. Way freaking early.

Probably not the first mistake you've ever made on a race track. Probably not the last. Your development as a racer will require some additional server space in Rennland. Alert Intel.

 

Prof.

I am not arguing that a later apex isn't the way to do this turn. I haven't said that once in this thread. You can bet I plan to try that the next time.

There are only two reasons why I pointed out that I had made the turn like this numerous times before that weekend. First, I wanted to explain why I didn't view my car placement as an error that needed to be corrected. If I had viewed it as an error (e.g., I accidentally turned in early), I would have taken corrective measures far earlier. Second, I wanted to correct the misperception that this particular turn in was way earlier than my previous turn ins. It wasn't. Apart from that, I wasn't trying at all to suggest that the line I was taking was the ideal line for T10. I was experimenting, and my experiment went bad on this particular lap.

I don't mean to turn this into navel gazing. Far from it. The only reason I am so active in it is that it is a little difficult opening up your errors for everyone to see, and then hearing people speculate as to "why" you did what you did, and then keeping your mouth shut about it. Even with respect to innocent comments. John H. keeps saying that I "spin my car so much," which drives me nuts since I don't think that spinning my car 3 times (well, 4 with the wreck) over a space of 50+ DE days is "so much"

I don't think I am a bad driver. Nonetheless, I fully appreciate that I lack the type of wisdom that can only come from experience, and that I have much, much to learn. I am not the guy who walks around the paddock thinking he is hot sh*t. Far from it. The only reason why I post here is to try to shortcut the learning process and hear from guys like you.

 

I never stated that your apex was early. Rather, I observed that your turn-in was early. Very different thing. You can hit an apex while turning in correctly, early or late.. but there are different consequences to each of those three actions. You must learn to separate the elements such as 'turn-in', 'apex' and 'exit' before you can master this crap.

Read my comments re: 'angle of attack' in the thread you cited a few posts ago. I feel that is an under-appreciated/mis-understood concept, but a very important concept never-the-less..

Spinning isn't a bad thing. Spinning is an indication that you're starting to feel for the limits. I spin all the time, although I tend to do it in places where the consequences are minimal. There are corners where I choose to 'push the limits', and corners that I treat with great respect. At the SCCA Nat'l 8 days ago at the Glen, I spun twice in Sunday's race. Pretty fast one between the apex and the exit of T1, lost 7 positions but didn't hit anything...and about 7 laps later a spin in the Toe, lost another position. Still managed to finish where I started position-wise, and my fast race lap was almost 2 seconds faster than my qualifying lap (struggle with car set-up...kept tweaking and tweaking...different tires & different chassis set-up are driving me crazy). I learned a lot in each of those spins, and they were in corners where I knew I could get away with pushing the limits. I try not to test the limits in T5 or T6, or T9-T11 as the consequences are more severe.

Pick your poison.

 

Todd, many of us here very much appreciate your posting and responding. I'm learning a LOT from this discussion, and WGI is my favorite track.

 

Thanks Prof.

Yes, I meant to say turn-in. I mis-typed.

One of the reasons I posted that link earlier today was the "angle of attack" issue. I think that the angle of attack issue was leading me to horse the car through many turns, not just T10. I am wondering if I corrected the understeer, it would make it easier to achieve the proper angle of attack.

I also think it is easier, at least for me, to fight through my car and achieve the proper angle of attack in slow and medium speed turns. I frequently burp on the throttle to get the car to rotate in medium or slower turns, but I am, frankly, nervous about doing that in high speed turns. Plus, I hate to let up off the throttle.

I also think, in retrospect, it was stupid to push my limits in T10 of all places. Call me Icarus.

Thanks for your comments.

 

Icarus should have restricted himself to cloudy days.

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