mooty

i am a slow learner.
i tried karting. and i got black flagged constantly b/c they can smell burning brakes. it appears that i simply cannot control my left foot well....

after years of practice, i now can do it without embarrassing myself too much, but still it is not easy for me.

mooty

you are right, i DO turn my whole leg at times in certain cars. so after a 200 miles track day, my hip and knee both hurt a lot more than my century bike ride.

amaist

If you have to slouch to twist your foot then I think the seating position is too far back. The clutch foot should be slightly bent in the knee when the clutch is fully depressed.

When I go to the gym and stretch one of the exercises is to twist my ankles so I can turn it better for H&T. In some cars you need to have pretty flexible feet.

BTW a BMW M3 is easier for me to H&T by just rolling my foot than a 911 GT3. But that's just me and I am sure it's not universal.

bobt993

I think if you knew Larry, you would assume he has factored in all variables of the car/driver. Larry has been on the track longer than most listers have been off training wheels. I agree with him on this subject as car/driver combos that have seen the most promotions over the past year ( in our region), have tended towards newer higher horsepower cars.

Mooty's point on heel toe is well stated. If you modify your technique, you can H/T almost any car. It takes one lap to get into the groove and confident with the peddles.

I am surprised we can still fill pages on H/T considering how essential it is to driving on a track. It is like saying learning to trim a sail is only important if your racing sailboats.

wlittleman

On my car (a Nissan), the brake and gas pedals are so far apart that I had to swing my heel >40 degrees to h/t. I also found it cumbersome and imprecise using the heel to blip the throttle. I installed some OMP aluminum pedal covers that lessened the gap between the gas and brake pedal, so now, I just have to twist my ankle about 15-20 degrees and roll my foot so that the outside edge of the ball of my foot blips the throttle. I think it works very well.

Furthermore, I found narrow racing shoes or those trendy puma sneakers with thin soles to really help feel out the pedals. Surprisingly, I find h/t barefooted is the best, but that's taboo.

On another note, this video is interesting. Gilles Panizzi's footwork is too fancy for me to follow. He does not appear to be h/t on his downshifts.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=3oT9nQfMXKc&feature=related

wanna911

Good video, shows that you can still go fast without the heel toe, avoid unsettling the car, and it's NOT essential for a DE.

That being said, I wouldnt go without it. But I still dont think it should be a prerequisite to advanced solo.

srf506

Good analogy Bob, but I think today its more like "get the boat in and out of the slip w/o using the motor". People in today's cars are usually driving autos, or maybe a tip-style tranny. One reason I'd never valet my car is most of those bone-heads don't even know how to drive a manual anymore, much less know of technique as advanced as HT is. As cars get more advanced and we go to infinite trannys it'll get even worse. It'll be like driving a big golf cart.

Bryan Watts

He's driving a rally course in an AWD car...on half of the turns, he WANTS the rear end to step out, he never really looks to be doing any full on, limit of adhesion, braking, he's mostly braking from fairly slow speeds, and he's in a AWD car which means a non rev matched downshift isn't going to lock up just the rear tires and cause a spin. That doesn't really carry over to braking down from 160 on a road couse in a RWD, **** heavy, Porsche at all. With ABS pumping at 120 mph, and the nose pointing into the ground, if you don't rev match a downshift, you might find yourself facing oncoming traffic before you finish releasing the clutch pedal.

He's also a rally driver, which means he's probably pretty accustomed to computer controlled rev matches, clutchless shifts and sequential transmissions...perhaps he doesn't rev match out of habit alone since he's not accustomed to having to use the clutch pedal.

MTosi

It amazes me that this thread is 7 pages. Hell toe = essential . It is becoming a lost art though, I mean F1 drivers dont have to do it and they're the "best" so why should any of us? When you think about it, it's possible to get into formula one without knowing how to heel toe. Also there are plenty of people who "heel toe" but they are plain awful, just sit at turn one at lime rock and watch, very rarely do you see someone come into the braking zone smoothly transition from gas to brake, and then go through thier downshifts and have the attitude of the car does not change. Alot of cars you can see the nose lift off, and then plant again, lift off, plant, because when the go for the match they release pressure one the brakes. Ill never forget sitting at turn one at lime rock during the first rennsport and watching Jacky Ickx come into the corner with perfectly matched and smooth downshifts. The difference was simply amazing compared to the other drivers. It has take me 2 and a half years of driving on the street both heel toeing and double clutching to feel that I am truly profficient at it. Also there is a reason Panizzi has never won a WRC championship... As Bryan said hes prob used to the sequentials in the wrc cars, also as he pointed out big dif between slow speed rallying and being at 150mph, a little slide at 60 is easily corrected, at 150mph its a whole different ball game.

Larry Herman

Agreed, it is a ridiculous argument. It's supposed lack of importance is propagated by those who don't know how to do it, and cannot or will not learn. All 3 of my boys have learned how to properly and smoothly do double-declutch downshifts. It's just a natural rhythm in the braking cycle.

MTosi

Larry good to hear you taught all your sons. From the day I started driving I have been double clutching and heel toeing (thanks to my dad, ex prof racer and skippy instructor). It makes life a hell of a lot easier because there is no more challenging way of shifting than double clutching and heel toeing. Once you know how to do both of those you can, single clutch downshift, In certain cars shift without a clutch, match with sequantials, you chose to shiftany way you please once you have those skills. But unfortunalty in this world of instant gratification, a skill like that takes ALOT of time to learn and some people aren't willing to take that time. In my opinion unless you have alot of funds to go to the track on a regular basis, you realy need to do it on the street, I cant see any other way to become profficient at it.

John H

Mark,

Are you channeling Ray Calvo? BTW I copied that image to use (with your permission of course)

forklift

When I managed a moving company I had to learn how to drive a tractor trailer (class A) and learned double clutching then…..and then shifting and downshifting w/o the clutch. Learning how to match revs in the Freightliner helped a lot when I got to the track.

Larry Herman

It's one of those things that you have to pass on. I, on the other hand, had to learn it myself. I used to autocross a 1966 Spitfire in the '70s and the only way to get it back into 1st (straight cut) was to double-declutch. Won many an event with that car because I was one of the few who didn't have to lug 2nd coming out of the tight turns.

MTosi

Despite it being a skill for the track, I actually learned how to double clutch on his old plow truck since it is only synchroed in one gear. You have to perpetually cycle the gear box to even get it to go into gear and to "heel toe" with the mile between the gas and the brake (I have the feeling when the dodge engineers designed the pedal cluster they werent thinking about heel toeing) you have to side foot it (foot horizontal to the floor with toe on gas and heel almost kicking the gas) . Hence why I have no sympathy for people who complain ohh I cant do it in my car.