mhm993

Dan
Funny that Dave and Peter describe it as bending the car, because that's exactly the words I use to describe the feeling I get when I enter a turn fast enough to feel the back take a yaw angle, and then use the gas to pull the car back straight. I had never heard anyone else use that term.

It feels like I'm bending the car around it's center, directly around my seat, and I suspect it's the sensation of the weight shift and each wheel taking a slightly different speed through the turn when you get the "skidder" just right. I'll leave it to the experts to describe the physics, but once you experience it, you'll always know you're "bending the car".

And it's a really fun sensation and as Peter says, downright exciting.

333pg333

Just wondering if this phenom of bending might be more prevalent in a rear engine car? Probably not. I like Peter's description in post# 60.

Van

Well, then... I have some work to do!

RickBetterley

One way I think of 'bending' the car into the turn is that it seems more gentle/less abrupt than 'turning' the car.

Nordschleife

some cars/corners you can brake through to the Apex, some you can't.

Remember, even at the highest level of professional motor sport, most of the time you can drive round the outside of the car on the inside, it's a case of mind over matter(or self preservation). There used to be one corner at Barcelona that you could routinely take faster in a street GT3 on MPSCs than the pole sitter for the Supercup on slicks (during the pre-season practice weekend), because the actual shape of the corner lets you ignore the grandstand and the logic about not going off during a highspeed downhill right hand turn with some very hard objects close to the exit. Even in an RS6 wagon with 4 passengers aboard it was a great source of giggles.

The point of this anecdote is that most of us are 'sight automatons' - we do what our eyes tell us is the thing to do. I never told anybody how to drive that corner (not even our team), to my knowledge the other person to spot this oddity was a former European rally champion. I discovered this by watching F1 cars repeatedly going into the corner with 'maximum attack', and exiting with 'bags in hand'. Sadly this corner has now been spoilt.

R+C

disasterman

I actually spent a lot of time thinking about this thread before and during my race weekend. In answer to the original question about remembering where you brake.

I just spent my second weekend in a month racing at Mid Ohio with a car I changed radically from the year before (I am running 5 full seconds faster due to a new engine). I found that once I figured out a braking zone and turn in, I would "forget" about where I was braking. I would not revisit the individual brake points until I saw that a specific turn provided an opportunity for improvement (via video, data or "in race" event). I also found (for me) that turn one is the ultimate "forget" where you brake and work on bending the car into the turn. I found that starting the bend about 10' - 20' in front of the bridge allowed me to cozy up to the curb, and avoid to much loss of momentum.

This process allowed me to continue my improvement even during racing while protecting my tires. Turns where my braking was "solved" became automatic while areas that my competition was "out braking me" deserved "in focus" attention. I was able to run my fastest lap in the 17th of 18 laps. My times dropped from the 1:34's through lap 7, low 1:33's and 1:32's through lap 18. I made significant changes in two specific braking zones after lap 7.

ProCoach

Great realization and supported by the evidence!

Worker station, black-painted concrete...

Bet those two braking zones you improved had larger v Deltas, though.

Veloce Raptor

It means starting turn in relatively early, but with much less steering angle. This significantly reduces the drama of the turn, reduces the g loading and the loading of the suspension, increases contact patch throughout all of the radius of the corner, and allows significantly less & softer braking. It means almost making the corner less of a corner. It does NOT mean early apexing, but often it does mean that apexes will be significantly extended in length. Examples at the Glen would be T6, T9, and T10, where it really pays to sort of hug the apex curb longer, to set the radius & direction of the corner, rather than just apexing at a specific point.

+1

Seth Thomas

Great answer Peter!

To add to your quote "Pros do this really, really well." My thoughts on why Pros are so good at determining the brake release with turn in speed with tire grip is because a Pro is looking far enough ahead of the car they know where the car is going at the given speed. All of the information listed in this thread starts with your eyes.

Seth Thomas

Your're Welcome.

Veloce Raptor

LOL!

dan212

My bad... I should have quoted the exact phrase that I was curious about... I wasn't asking what bending meant (although maybe I am still coming to understand it in every context), but curious to hear how VR expresses bending with the float or coast that he referred to.

We've talked about the importance of brake release to blending into the turn (this a quick paraphrase). The brake release being key to the turn etc..

A good description of how the balance of the car shifts appropriately during that brief coasting period where "earlier throttle would put the car into the woods" during the overall bend process.

I suppose growing lateral load is what smoothly balances weight shift from front to rear as the car passes through the turn in coast mode e.g.. Not on gas or on throttle.

A description of the physics or dynamics that takes place during that brief coast in the end-to-end process sometimes called bending. I think I can explain it, but I was asking VR for his (better than mine) description that ties it all together.

Because each of us has talked about various elements of the process. Now we have to tie it together. VR and a few others added coasting to the mix. So now its time for an end to end description that we can in turn use to explain this to others.

Sorry I don't mean to put VR on the spot here.

VR: "This brings us to a very interestiing yet little-discussed point: namelyy, that many of the very fastest & smoothest drivers will carry so much entry speed at the point that they are fully off the brakes, that they need to sort of "float" or coast the car briefly before applying throttle. If they went to throttle immediately, they would likely leave the track, because the chassis hadn't yet fully settled with the high entry speeds. Instead, it is faster (and safer) to be neither on the gas nor on the brake for a small interval of time in the corner, and THEN go to the throttle..."

Veloce Raptor

Oh, sorry, Dan, that i didn't answer the sxpecific question you meant. I can only speak for myself here (and perhaps Seth LOL!) but in many cases, with high entry speeds, the blending of brake release and turning necessitates a short (usually less than a second) period where no brakes are being applied and no throttle is being applied, somewhere at or near the place of maximum steering input and just past it, as the chassis settles and the contact patches start working better. The term "float" is often used because, to some people, the car feels as if it is floating through that part of the corner, neither loaded on its nose (braking) nor its rear (acceleration).

ProCoach

Yes, but this happens after the "bending in" and/or "coast" moment.

^^THIS^^ is what everyone needs to try and do.

RIGHT ON!

A pet peave of mine is this new trend calling this phase "coasting" instead of "floating" or as my friend John Walko (ran Graham Rahal and Danica in FF2000 and Pro Mazda) calls "rolling speed into the corner."

My esteemed colleague Tonis Kasemets calls it coasting, but when he does it, he judeges the speed so precisely and the car IS "floating" so that there's just a blond (fine) hair between him and disaster!

When his clients do it, they're NOT AT OR NEAR the tractive limits of the tires. Their vel vs distance is actually going DOWN for an extended period of time at the transition rather than Tonis' trace, which stays steady or GOES UP!

I'm VERY wary of using the word "coast" to describe this phase because it does NOT encourage proper, forward-thinking, throttle positive and balanced behavior, IMO.

Go to my "Track Wisdom" page here http://www.peterkrause.net/Krause_%2...ck_Wisdom.html

Scroll to the bottom of the page to find out what I learned from Barry Waddell a long time ago...

jdistefa

Sort of interesting (if there are any skiers here) that we talk about 'bending' into the arc with patience and minimal edge angle to help carry momentum when coaching ski racers. Any more edge angle than necessary causes scrub, deflects the skier's center of mass too early (i.e. pinching or early apexing) and slows the athlete down on the wrong trajectory. Good skiers try to roll on literally just a couple degrees and 'feel' the sidecut. To a novice this would be imperceptable vs. a flat ski, but in fact the turning capacity of the sidecut has been very subtly engaged. Just like bending a car into the turn "early but not early" with just a wee touch of steering input "ahead" of the arc.