Accident avoidance is all about car control at the limit of adhesion. You will find that as you progress in this hobby, accident avoidance will become second nature as you will develop the ability to "sense" when you are at the limit of grip, and counter measures to enable you to increase grip to better be able to manuver.

Driving my pickup to work on a 40mph roadway, a young child in a bicycle came DIRECTLY into the street from behind a beautification fencing. This was in the middle of a block, with no crosswalk or intersection.

I had to threshold brake, check mirrors, ease off the brakes to enable some steering and then counter steer to correct the slide. All happened in a split second, and I was so close, I nipped his front bike tire, but due to HPDE training, I can promise you it saved the young boys life!

Was an eye opener to me and hope it shows the types of abilities that you develop naturally as you are enjoying track time in an HPDE environment!

 

1. Only because my vision was up. I normally trail brake that turn, which seriously limits maximum braking. When it started to unfold I straight line braked.
2. Situational awareness. I knew I had a fast coming up behind me and didn't want to completely slam on the brakes. I knew I had time to give the guy behind me a bit more space.
3. I had the time and I wasn't 100% sure which way he would go or the guy behind me. Figured I was slowed down enough to make it on the left, the guy behind me, potentially faster, could go right.
4. A car spinning with two feet in will generally go in a straight line or go to the outside of a turn. At this point he was two feet in at this point.

In the last moments as I closed on him I was thinking he had better hold two feet in. At 0:45 he releases his brakes before stopping and I ditch further left in response. Look at the direction the car is traveling. From 0:40 to 0:45 it is a straight line, even though the car is spinning. At 0:45 he starts moving backwards left across the track - that is where he stopped braking. If he had maintained two feet in until stopping, I could have safely passed by on the left on the pavement rather than in the grass.

Here is another example of a perfect two feet in, by yours truly a couple of weeks ago:


The round red brake indicator is connected to the brake light. The Brk indicator only shows forward gs from normal braking, it won't show anything braking backwards. Watch the brake light and tach. 1000 RPM is idle on my car if it is moving. I did release pressure on the brakes before the car stopped, but it was after it stopped spinning as I was hoping to be able to reverse the car quickly as I was a sitting duck at the exit of T20. I also did not stall the motor.

I've also got another video of an instructor in front of me doing a perfect two feet in, but I would have to get permission to post it.

Once once has lost it and a spin has started, the only thing left to do is two feet in and wait for the car to stop. The tougher judgement call is when to give up trying to catch a spin. In this case, there wasn't anything to hit nearby, so a two feet in spin was less risky than aggressively trying to catch it, have a tank slapper, and wind up in one of those walls.

That said, the root cause of the spin was an early apex. Then I was a bit ham fisted with the throttle, and then too slow on the hands. The only thing perfect about it was the two feet in at the end.

-Mike

 

Holy ****! I bet that shook you up more than any incident at the track.

-Mike

 

VERY nice job there. As a parent I thank you.
I believe that our DE drivers are going to be better at safe driving on the street. Thanks for giving me an example.

 

Mike,

Your speed was just less than 50mph when you started to break loose.

Was there something on the track that caused that?

 

Yeah, the loose nut sitting behind the steering wheel of my car.

That corner is more than 90 degrees. I had a brain fart and apexed too soon, then lifted and got back on the gas, and finally did not steer the front wheels fast enough to keep them ahead of the rears. From the path, I also pinched the exit. No way to figure this out for sure without a camera and data.

-Mike

 

^can you drive over those rumble strips / stripes


IMHO this is one of the best online resources for HPDE
a good read....
http://www.redlinerennsport.com/DriversEdEd.html

 

This is a must read for anyone getting into DE events. I can tell you John is a great instructor and if you get really lucky he will take you around The Glen in his NA 944 and show you what good driving and momentum really means. No problem keeping up with much faster cars IF you have his skills. Amazing mechanical skills as well.
I would also suggest you go to a car control clinic. Our region runs one in April at NHMS and you get skid pan time, evasive maneuvering drills, and autocross. It's really a great place to try threshold braking and what happens when you step over the line, as the speeds are slower and there's lots of safe runoff spaces. As our car doesn't have ABS it's a great chance to find the absolute limit with no bad consequences. Plus, it's really cheap, which is always good. A lot of the DE instructors show up to teach so you get a lot out of the day.

Buzz and Sally, looking forward to the Spring is a Long Time Coming DE at NHMS
Buzz

 

I would be very interested in such an event, do you know what month?

For sure, John is the fella that works on my car.

He has been somewhat of a mentor to get me going in right direction at DE.

Another Rennlist member was nice enough to make a compilation of my first DE(no camera in my car) of him passing me for two days. Yes, WW thanks for video, John went over it with me when he teched my car and also my PCA DE log with instructor comments.

^can you drive over those rumble strips / stripes


IMHO this is one of the best online resources for HPDE
a good read....
http://www.redlinerennsport.com/DriversEdEd.htm

That is how this whole discussion started, I asked him if it would be appropriate to ask instructor to teach me.

 

It was in April. It was a PCA event and will be on their website this winter. Can't remember if it was also listed on Motorsport or Clubreg. Might be a drive for you but worth it if you can't find a comparable one closer. We're willing to drive almost four hours because it's worth it. Since we have a track car it's also a good way to test that everything is good for the first DE.
Buzz