38D

For those that were at Daytona this past weekend, you may have seen Randy Pobst walking around. He was co-driving Jim Cipriano's 993tt in the enduro. While a group of folks was talking to Randy, he made a comment that most amateurs setup cars to oversteer too much. Pros tend to setup with a tiny bit of understeer as it is both safer and faster, mostly because it makes the car easier to drive. I had always thought pros liked a tiny bit of oversteer. Thoughts?

Larry Herman

I don't know. My car had lots of both this weekend!

Still, you can drive around understeer on corner entry, but on turn exit I would think that anything more than the slightest amount of understeer would make you slower.

M758

Well,
I think it is very hard to make those general statements. If you are noob to racing or in DE I'd think there is alot of understeer in the car. Maybe Randy is talking about the realy fast amatures. These are ones that are looking for that last bit of speed. They get it with oversteer.

Pro's like Randy however rather have a little understeer as it makes the car more manageable and comfortable over a race distance. So maybe the thought was to dail in a tiny bit of understeer and the car goes maybe 0.1th slower, but is quite a bit easier to control and drive. Pros realize that "easier to drive" is quite important if you are going to be racing the car for 3hr, 6hrs, 12hrs, or 24 hrs. Plus it may be better for dealing with traffic and may allow the car to get oversteer during a run or the day and still leave some margin for driveability.

The more I think about it I would agree that for an enduracne race set-up you would want just a hint of understeer as in this was you can much more easily control the car. If setup with oversteer it maybe faster for a lap or two, but you risk destroying the rear tires and fighting the car thus becoming fatigued very early on.

forklift

I have spoken to Mike Levitas and Dave Empringham about this and both of them said they prefer some understeer. I specifically remember Dave saying, "you can be a lot more aggressive with the car." Dave also mentioned that w/ under you can trail brake more IIRC. With Mike sitting shotgun he thought I needed more understeer and the car already had plenty, or so I thought.

At Summit this past weekend I had just a tad too much under and then went to too much over. Major corrections in the chute at around 100 gets your attention real fast. Still working on the balance w/ the new suspension.....

forklift

Here Randy says he likes slight oversteer on entry and slight understeer at exit: http://www.randypobst.com/index.cfm?..._sql=Position:

How can you set the car up for that?

AndyT

How many 993tts you guys see down there in C class ?

M758

ride heights & damper settings for a start.

There was a nice article in grassroots motorsports on shock set-up. It covere compression, rebound and high speed/low speed settings. Also included was cheat sheet on tuning a car with understeer/oversteer in corner entry, corner exit and mid corner.

I used it as guide to help tune my 944 spec car.

lawjdc

I think that Joe has it right. A small amount of oversteer may be fun for a few laps during a practice or qualifying session, but you must slow down drastically once the rear tires go away.

TD in DC

Well, the contrary is also true . . .right? If you have too much understeer you will have to slow down drastically once the front tires go away . . . or you will just be slow from the start.

I bet the pros are talking about minor deviations from perfectly balanced. Anything else will force you to compromise, or so I would imagine.

Veloce Raptor

I have to agree with Mr. Pobst on this. An easy to drive car means a less tiring car, which means more physical & mental energy available for planning your race moves & adapting your tactics & strategy to race conditions.

Mark in Baltimore

I'm finding out that I like my car with some understeer, for exactly the reasons Levitas and Empringham say. I find that I can be very aggressive with the car and that the back end sticks well but breaks away progressively. Maybe the pros would jump in my car and say it has too much understeer, but, in my hands, it feels simply wonderful. I'm still gaining more confidence in the car and myself.

I always figured the really fast guys liked oversteer but at this point in my learning curve, I wasn't too concerned about what they like since the car feels good to me, the lap times bearing that impression out.

Veloce Raptor

A car with a small amount of understeer will rotate nicely with throttle & the understeer will go away at that point. A car with oversteer will rotate WAY too much with throttle, thus delaying when you can get to WOT. That is why the pros like the former--they can be on the throttle more & sooner in the corners, and unwind steering lock way sooner.

genikz

That was in the first edition of GRM I received. I've been hooked ever since...

bnewport

Do you have an issue number?

Greg Fishman

None, this was a GT1 car.