How to determine how fast should I enter a cornor and racing line?
 

Hi all, I'm new to the scene of racing; I just feel how useless I'm now. So, here is my story. I got my very first race yesterday on a mountain pass, and it was a torgue race in a club event. I was racing with a Honda Civic EG [1,500cc] instead of my 2nd gen RX-7 since the civic is more completed, my opponent was a JDM DC2 Type R which possible has been tuned to 300hp. I was out run by the DC2 quickly on the straight since my car got only 120 hp; I thought I could catch up in the cornors and had done my very best in the cornors, even oversteer the car in some tide cornors.

However, the DC2 just kept loosen me cornors after cornors. Technically his taillight was disappeared from my sight just withtin 5 cornors!! [there are 50-100m straights between each cornors] In the cornors, I had felt my car was in it's maxmum afford. Of course, that's just my thought. the truth is, even with 40-45mph [appox 65-70 km/h] in the tide cornors [may be looks silly to you guys, but it does really my best already], the DC2 seems still outrun me both in the cornors [without oversteer] and especially straights after cornors while my car would oversteer/slide a little bit after the apex, is that means 40-45mph is the maximum my car could do in those cornors? Or it's just the problem of myself? I was tring to ask for help after the race, but then I had forgot here is Hong Kong, not America, not Europe, not Australia, no one would helps unless you are really a friend to them.

So, is there some ways to determine how fast I could enter a cornor? I had took a video of this mountain pass, I can send it to you if you could help me out. :nod: To be honest, it's quit a shock to me since it's my dream to become a pofessional rally racing driver or show up in the rally tusmania with a RX-7 FD. After this race, I believe I should work much harder on racing technique. Is racing school the best solution? Or is there some good racing schools in Australia since that would be closer to my home town. Fianlly, a thousand thank you to all of you!!:nod:

Welcome to racing! I haven't done any mountain pass racing. But I do race on
a track. First thing, don't be too upset you didn't take home the big trophy on
your first ever event! Just ask your self, did I have fun? If your answer is yes.
Then you should keep going.
Now some say "practice makes perfect", which yes it does. But in the world of
motorsports you may need a little guidance in the beginning. Specially if you
haven't raced before. If you have some talent. Just a few days with an instructor
would give you some needed guidance and point you in a better direction on
making your self a faster driver. But this is just the beginning! You will not be
the fast driver your hoping to be with just a few days of lessons. To become fast
is not an overnight ordeal. Now if you have some talent and took some lessons.
I've seen some people get pretty quick in a year or two.
Now, being fast also sometimes means going a little slower. Being smooth is key.
If your under steering through the whole corner. Maybe try entering the corner
a little slower, get through the corner and then accelerate out of the corner. And
hit the key points in your corner as your instructor taught you. Where to enter
the corner, where to apex your corner, and where to exit your corner. If you
were not where you should be in even one of the entrance, apex, or exit of your
corner. Then you did something wrong. And need to evaluate the next time you
go into that same corner again what you did wrong the last lap. And how to
correct it. Be smooth, and take the right race line. Speed will come with those.
And over time your brain will learn a new faster speed. And not the wall your at
now thinking it’s the fastest you could go.
So remember for now, take the right racing line, be smooth, and have fun!
Good Luck and God Speed!

Usually on a track you have laps to experiment with braking points, turn in points, apex point. That being said, you just have to know your car and tires to know how fast to go into a turn.

The biggest thing that shows up on data is you usually want to go into a turn a little slower than you think you can. The result is that you can get the car rotated and on the throttle earlier to start the next straight sooner. Slow in, fast out. Don't try to make the car accelerate and turn at the same time, the tires are selfish, they will only give you 100%. More throttle only as you unwind the steering wheel otherwise you will push the tires past their grip limit. If the car is understeering in a turn, get off the throttle and/or unwind the steering wheel a little and then try adding steering input back in.

There are a lot of books on driving, start reading.

sounds to me that your competitor simply had a better car, eg. stickier tires, better set up, more power as you aleady mentioned. Or you may be overdriving the car , which is common for beginners.

Your best bet is to find a well respected driving school, buy some books on how to drive ( I bought Allan Prosts book on ebay), and just getting as much seat time as possible will eventually make you fast if you have some natural ability.

Through this process and experience you will find what your strenghs and weaknesses are and then its up to your determination to adress them and improve yourself.
Some aspects that come to mind are fitness; are you fit enough to hold concentration for a long period of time without getting tired, reflexes; is your hand eye coordination fast enough. A good way to knowor improve is join a tennis , pingpong or volleyball club and see how you do.

As far as finding the limit everyone is a little different and have different driving styles and character. Some people will take small steps and brake a little later each time until they reach what i would call their confort level. Others will go past the limit and catch a
big slide, and next lap back it off a little .

The main thing is knowing/ feeling at what slip angle you are producing the fastest lap and experience will teach you that.

wouter

A few good books will get you going in the right direction.

A few days with a good instructor will get you going in the right direction at an even higher speed. :)



.

Some starter links:

http://www.nasaproracing.com/hpde/theline.html

Cornering example:

http://mahjik.homestead.com/files/ho...rnering_01.gif

Late apex example:

http://mahjik.homestead.com/files/ho...rnering_02.gif

The three main cornering techniques together to show the differences:

http://mahjik.homestead.com/files/ho...er_Apex_02.jpg

Some examples from Button Willow showing racing line through some complex sections:

http://mahjik.homestead.com/files/ho..._hrpn_prvw.gif


http://mahjik.homestead.com/files/ho...thill_prvw.gif

Thank you for all of the kindly replies guys, I'm really appreciate that! Last night, I practiced on that mountain pass again, and found out I have been overdrive my car. The mistake that I always make is going into the cornor too fast and understeer; and now I think I should work on "slow in fast out".

But there is one more question that I just find out. What's the correct motion in the cornor? Since I'm practice with my friend now, I could see there is quite different between him and me. When I'm cornoring correctly [just for me], the car looks like normal driving [of course faster than on the street]. However, on the other hand, when my friend is cornoring, the tail of the car comes off a little bit [about 5 degree or less than that] and my friend never has to counter-steer the car, the car just looks like a train running on a railroad. So which one is the correct motion the car should be in the cornor? Is there some video on youtube that I could study? Thanks a lot!

It's hard to tell what’s right and wrong when you’re not in the car. It's all a "Feel". Lap times would be the only true answer on what is faster.

But there is a thing called tire slip angel. This is a balance between traction and sliding. You can use this slip angel to rotate the mass of the car to get it pointed in the direction you want. This is also called "tail or trail braking".

I can remember more times then not, people coming to me and telling me they got a great picture of me sliding through a corner. But when looking at the picture you could not tell because the front wheels are pointing the same direction as the car is going.

So it is hard to see even in video.

One thing to keep in mind when trying to balance speed in cornering. You have 100% tire traction. If your using 40% traction to slow (braking) the car. You only have 60% left to turn the car. If you use any more then 100% something has to give up, and sliding starts.

Same with exiting a turn. If you’re using 80% of traction to turn, you only have 20% to accelerate the car. It's all a feel of balance .

This is only learned with seat time. Instructors’ do help, allot, but seat time is the best way to learn the "feel"

Good luck.

The better driver is able to control his car/balance it to get the most out of it or drive the fastest so how fast you enter and exit a corner is up to you and this is accomplished by using various driving techniques but whether you are using trail braking (very advanced) or trailing throttle oversteer etc... to get into and through the corner it's simply a matter of using what works for you and the car to go as fast as can go driving consistently from corner to corner.

As you become more comfortable and advanced at speed you'll start to carry excess speed and use it to slide the car in the direction you want your car to go and then apply gas. This is what people refer to as slip angle. In other words you're driving straight and braking and you release the brake with more speed than traction and the rear of the car slides 10 degrees and the front 5 degrees (basically a small 4 wheel drift) or whatever amount is needed (slip angle) to get the car pointed and placed right on the apex then you smoothly apply throttle doing the same thing on the way out to track out. this however is not trail braking although to create different slip angles for different corners you will manipulate the gas and brake differently for each corner to create more oversteer or less.

I think what the person in the post below is referring to as trail braking is actually trailing throttle over steer. You come of the brakes just as you enter the corner usually fairly quickly which allows for weight transfer to the front causing more front grip and less rear so over steer begins and you apply throttle as needed to increase or decrease the oversteer created by the initial braking.

Trail braking is braking a little later and smoothly carrying the brake all the way to the apex (ideally) then seamlessly releasing the brake and applying throttle. This is one of the most advanced skills of driving and after 10 years I still rarely nail it. It takes years and years of practice to just nail late braking consistly then adding trail braking takes that to yet another level.

I wouldn't worry about any of the above driving concepts until you are smoothly driving from corner to corner with correct entry speeds that you are able to control without missing apexes and correct exit speeds or using all of the track etc.... SEAT TIME with a competent instructor is your fast ticket to faster laps so
sign up for as many events as you have time and or money to attend and eventually you will go through the corners as fast as you and the car are capable :)

I cound not agree more:nod:

^Hey your username is my REAL name. I got a kick out of that :)

Thanks a lot for your advise gian. there are lots of new things start slipping into my brain now. seems i learn new stuffs every time after practice. now i have started to understand what you talk about the tire traction, it does all about the "feel". that's a long road for me to walk :)

I'm sorry for being respond so late man, i just got food posioning lately. And, thank you very much for your advise, I learn a lot with that, and now I know the different between trail braking and trailing throttle over steer.

By the way, it's really expensive to get a instructor [or class] here in Southern China, they would charge you like over 2,000 USD for a 1 day class. Even today I still regret why I didn't attand these racing classes [with cheaper charge and better instructor] when I was study college in the US. My current plan is try to get a work-tour visa of Australia and see if that's possible to get more involve into this sport. :)

Do you guys run any Autocross events over there? That is an excellent way to safely (and cheaply) develop your racing skills.

If you are not familiar with Autocross, take a look at the videos in the link below.

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Well, I wish we have Autocross here. in fact many people have tried to organize [any kind of race] but failed due to our stupid government just doesn't like auto sports; therefore, other than mountain pass touge that secretly organize by car clubs, we don't have any kind of race in Hong Kong yet. They do run some sort of races in Zhuhai [a city nearby Hong Kong], but I found out it takes at least 4k USD to get into one single race there. So I do really planning to move to Australia or where-ever places where I could easier to get involve into the auto racing world.

By the way, the grand old British-Hong Kong government did hold Rallies in 80s and 90s before returning to China.

Mahjik

good illustration for the entry and exit point of the turn. As for the speed when entering and exit. You just consider the Road condition and range.

Generally I've been taught that you want to time your braking such that you can get back on the gas as early and as hardas possible; the "wait until you see the white in spectators' eye, then brake" technique tends to pretty effectively prevent that and might be a good way to get the car out of shape.

One thing I always found extremely helpful with an instructor in the car was looking at data logs to see the difference between myself and someone who knows what they're doing - usually their inputs are smoother, but they're far harder on the brakes and on the gas. One rule of thumb that my last instructor in the UK gave me was that you always want the suspension to do something while you're in a corner, either by deflecting due to braking or accelerating; if you coast around a corner because you don't have any spare grip available to accelerate or decelerate, chances are that you're entering the corner too fast.

I think you're already doing it right by practicing on the mountain roads. That's the best practice. Other than that? Play Gran Turismo. Seriously. This game will teach you a lot of the basics and allow you to practice and evolve your racing theory.
For inspiration I like to watch all kinds of racing. You learn new techniques, methods, and different ways of doing this. Right now I like watching Best Motoring and Hot Version from Japan. But even Nascar, WRC, Rally America, any of those can teach you stuff.
But the best thing by far is to go and talk to the fastest racers. If they beat you, make them your friend. Learn what they did to set up the car, and ride along with them to see their technique. It only takes one ride to see the difference.

Well, I still doing that every Tuesday and Thrusday, and sometimes on saturday as well....however, it's getting tougher and tougher to do that lately, lots of people just park their car where ever [randomly] on the mountain road blocking me from practicing. In the past I could make 6-8 practice runs in one night, but now only 3-4 times would be consider as lucky. I'm not mad on them, since it's their right to be there.

Can't wait to get the work travelling visa from Australia, and try my luck to see if there any chances to get involve into the "real" auto racing

By the way, I start to understand what Fritz Flynn was talking about now. even though it sounds easy, trail braking is difficult to learn indeed. Actually I've been trying to apply trail braking in the corners. It does feels like all of the wheels are "drifting" by a small angle, and i could contorl the angle with the brake.

So now, I could exit the corner with much higher speed than I used to be. For example, I remember one of the really narrow 90 degree corner, I used to exit by about 40MPH; in the latest partice day [on tuesday], the speed when I exit was around 55MPH. But I know, there is still a long way to walk, and have tons of things to improve.

Again, thank you for the help guys!

the picture i attached is the 90 degee bend I talk about

I remember when I just started doing that, I thought I have to use all of the grip from the tire to cornering not reserving any as spare until you and one of the other fourm member tell me that. Then I found out if I entering too fast, it would be more easy to make misstakes and causes slower exiting speed.