TD in DC

Blame. There's no need for blame . . .we are all friends here. In fact, I will take credit for it.

Veloce Raptor

LOLOCOPTER

UK Steve R

As a racing driving instructor in the UK we teach that it is essential not to allow your hands to wander around the steering wheel while racing

Hold the steering wheel at approximately a quarter to three position. Cross your hands but do not release grip from the wheel. Even if correcting oversteer it should not be neccessary to take more lock than crossed hands will give you. If your hands stay in one position on the wheel it allows you to feel and react to changes in grip far more precisely than if you allow your hands to wander around the steering wheel. Never let go og the steering wheel and allow caster to straighten the wheel. Often a driver will nedd to unload the front wheels at a different time than castor will dictate.

Steve R

Veloce Raptor

Hmmmm...Steve R or Ayrton Senna.....whom to believe?

Veloce Raptor

LOL...you REALLY need to get rid of that Valentine 1 cord hanging down...

TD in DC

With the skills of A. Senna, I am sure you could do just about anything you want. With the skills of TD in DC, and dare I say most of us here on this board, you would need to use the best technique possible to ensure the safety of yourself and your fellow drivers.

Veloce Raptor

(shrugging) I guess, as Larry said, we all have to find what works for us in various situations.

TD in DC

Yeah, I was just joking mostly, but I do think it is important to remember when watching these pro drivers that some of them can do things that, well, most of us amateurs just cannot pull off.

I mean, it is one thing for a pro like Senna who drove every day to do something in a certain way, but that doesn't mean that I, as a middle-aged attorney who only drives 30 days a year (and then for only about 2 hours each day, if lucky) and who has only been driving for 2 years, can run out and imitate the video.

Some techniques really are advanced, and some of us amatuers would be fools to try to run out and imitate those techniques right away.

It doesn't mean that technique X is right and Y is wrong, but that technique X might be safer for mere mortals.

As much as I would like to believe that I am a driving God, I know deep down inside that I am just another one of the mortal track rats who is addicted nearly to the point of engaging in petty crime to suppot the habit.

Larry Herman

Yeah, that Larry guy is pretty smart.

Actually there really is no hard and fast rule. Many times it depends on the car as much as the driver. As Steve R teachs, you keep your hands at 9 & 3 all of the time. That worked pretty well in my GT3 with the nicely weighted, fast ratio power steering. It was rare that I had to move my hands around, even when the back stepped out. If you did that in my RSA, you'd wind up in the wall. The manual steering is very heavy, and fairly slow, and so you need leverage and lots of steering wheel rotation to produce the same front wheel response that a quick 180° flick of the steering would in a GT3.

Larry Herman

Nearly to the point?? I thought that is what you based your career on!

TD in DC

I am very good at what I do

M758

Well if you look at both of Senna's drives in the Acura's you will see he does a different ammount of steering in both cars. Very minor had position adjustment in the longer tighter turns and only shuffle & wheel spining in the tight hairpin as he is "collecting" the car again. So even with him there are no hard and fast rules and you do what is the most comfortable.

As for }{ well... I think he just likes to shake his rear end at TD....

TD in DC

This is all true. Another factor is how fast you drive. When you are a newbie and driving well below the limit, you need to turn the wheel a lot more than you do once you get closer to the limit and can rotate the car with a lot less steering input. That is why you tend to see newbies shuffle steer a lot more than experienced drivers need to at the same places on the track.

TD in DC

He has never forgiven me for getting a '44. All of my buddies think I need to get an SC or Carrera so that we will all have roughly "equivalent" cars. They also keep telling me that my cars (i.e., 944 and 996) drive for me and that all the real men drive non-water pumper 911s. Further, if I really had ***** I would just get right to the point with a SWB LH.

Veloce Raptor

Which is exactly what I suggested at the beginning of this thread: it is a useful technique in slow, high steering angle corners w/o traffic, but not in fast sweeping low steering angle corners.