Larry Herman

For the purposes of clarity, I will refer to softly sprung fairly stock suspended cars as "street cars" and rock stiff, monoballed, limited compliance suspended cars as "race cars".

As previously mentioned, I too have found that most street cars do not require all of the minute adjustments that race cars do. They track smoothly and can be driven right up to the limit because the grip of the soft suspension does not change much due to bumps and road deflections.

Race cars will dart all over the place as the tires load and unload due to bumps and undulations. The front tires will lose a lot of grip, and then regain it just as quickly. You have to stay ahead of that, because if you hold the wheel too steady, the car will twitch big-time as the front tires regain their lost grip. And many other items, bumpsteer, shock valving, etc can induce steering deflection that results in busy hands.

There are 2 items to consider when you watch someone steer. The first is how many little corrections there are vs big ones. Street cars usually do not need the little adjustments that you have to make to on race cars. The second is where are the corrections being made? Usually I find that the small twitches occur from the point where I pick up the throttle until midway past the apex, while the big turns (unless I've screwed up) occur from the apex out to trackout.

The corrections themselves speak volumes. Little twitches of the wheel are usually to correct for variations in front grip, while big twists of the wheel are to keep the rear tires hooked up.

Finally, there are certainly race cars out there whose suspension setup is not optimal, and they do require far to much adjustment to drive at the limit. Once corrected, they would be smoother and faster.

Veloce Raptor

Larry the Cable Guy & I are on the same page. Larry just used 427 more words to express it than I did.

Larry Herman

Mmmmmm 427!

Veloce Raptor

I just KNEW you'd pick up on that one!!!

AC coupe

I'm very much leaning to the "bad set up" or perhaps worn out tires theory...

If you look at the Ferrari F430 gt2 clip at the bottom, there are plenty of corrections but none of the flailing...same track, same day.

multi21

We don't know the set up of the RSR, but I have a question for the long time 911 drovers, we have three videos. One a front engine car, obviously driven at 7/10's. A rear engine car and a mid engine car at 10/10s. Could the fact there is minimal weight on the RSR nose under acceleration exasterbate the wheel play? My theory is that he is "hunting" for front end adhesion.

My background is in karts and of course there is hand movements in karting, but very small movements unless your trying to save it. You don't have such torque that the front end gets light, everyone knows karting is more momentum based and how close can you come to the edge of adhesion without going over.

I've always been told I'm a smooth driver, but going from the M3 to the GT3 (my first rear engined car), I find myself "hunting" and moving the front wheels left and right more than I ever have because I can literally feel the front wheels getting light under acceleration. Is this plausable?

Veloce Raptor

Rear engined cars do take a bunch more attention to drive near or at the limit.

Greg Smith

I think what alot of people are overlooking is that whether this "sawing" done by X driver(non-pros in general) is neccessary or not for X situation. I've seen quite a few videos of slower drivers sawing at the wheel, and they certainly weren't on the edge of traction. Maybe they were doing it unintentionally, or maybe they saw the video above? Who knows, I do know however that sawing at the wheel sure makes you FEEL like a race car driver and faster .

Inbetween DE's I examine my videos and one thing I've worked on is my smoothness. I used to saw at the wheel alot more than I do now, I am much smoother now and also much faster. Just because you're sawing at the wheel doesn't mean you're at the limit.

Dan in Florida

"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough".

-Mario Andretti_

cgomez

Thanks! Good to see some share my thoughts and conclusions (I'm the cable guy - CG....)

My post from the comments section on the Blog (in case not everyone has gone there):

Right on... This is what I've been saying for quite a while in all forums.
It all depends on the car. What I notice through time and experience (both driving and watching) is the following rules:

Smooth steering:
-Usually on nicely setup cars with streetable suspensions and predicatble tires. Differences in surface grip usually get soaked up by some rubber in the suspension or suspension movement and there's little you can fix/improve with the steering.

-The driver that drives at the limit this way is usually very good applying multiple corrections through the turn with the two other steering controls: brake (LFB mostly) and throttle.

"Jerky" steering:

-Most stiffly sprung racecars (or DE cars) with stiff bushings (or none wathsoever - metal to metal). All surface changes go through the steering and so require fast corrections when at the limit. Unforgiving tires with a narrow band of slip coeeficient (grip while sliding) will also require very fast corrections.

- Cars with poor handling (IMO) that require to be thrown into the turns (like the AWD Subaru STi... sorry Josh...) and then be caught.

Larry Herman

Not to worry. Veritable Retard wasn't trying to usurp your title and foist it upon me. He's just trying to be funny.

Deetz

I have some issues with the "one steering input rule" as it applies to street cars:

1.) slight corrections are needed as the suspension loads up and the rubber bushings distort.
i.e. you cannot be as precise as with monoballs, but you can predict after a time.

2.) with a higher horsepower car, you gotta unwind as you exit out post apex, or your gonna have the rear end come around.

3.) for the sake of symetry (awd like the 996TT or Mits EVO) you need to trail brake a little and wind in progressively to apex (opposite of #2)

hence you're not really driving a "constant arc" - it's either parabolic or hyberbolic depending on your tires and frame of mind ;-)

Any comments?

Veloce Raptor

Fukken A. Lookit da big brain on Larry!

Larry Herman

Deetz, I am not sure what you mean by one steering input. If you mean one turn-in and then hold or unwind from there, for the average turn, that is the proper way to drive IMHO. If you mean lock the wheel in one position, then I would have an issue with that too.

Slight corrections for grip are to be expected. Corrections for improper lines are not.

I do not agree with winding the wheel all the way into the apex. By definition, you have to be slowing all the way to the apex also (turn 17 at Sebring being one example of that), and that rarely happens. We had an EVO. If you tried to tighten the wheel and accelerate, it was understeer city.

Veloce Raptor

Yeah, the fastest drivers I know rotate the car somewhat aggressively at turn in, and then spend the rest of the turn unwinding lock and applying power.