Yea I make it a point to always downshift (and revmatch) going into the turn. I've messed up once or twice, and yep, chirped the tires. Not fun

I didn't mean relax as in start whistling and humming lol. But I mean, you do NOT want to brace yourself for impact. That's a very bad idea (ie tighten and stiffen up your body). That will make you absorb the impact bluntly, resulting in a larger force = greater trauma. You wanna loosen up and kinda go w/ it. Hence why they train marines to "go w/ the punch" instead of taking it standing hard. It's also why drunk drivers often have less severe injuries than those they hit: they weren't aware, and weren't bracing for impact. The victim saw them coming, tensed up, and took the impact HARD. But yea, great theory, I dunno how effective we can be in it in practice - unless you're a stuntman who crashes for a living lol

Wow...see I thought hitting at an angle greatly increases the chances of a rollover, so you wanna hit something head-on.

 

You can almost see me letting go of the steering wheel in this vid. Take my word for it. The manual steering rack in the FC is so slow IMO that it makes recovery of a bad situation very hard. Quickest way to re-center the wheel from opposite lock is to simply release your grip on it and let the caster do the work. Would you do this in a formula car or a GT car with a properly quick rack? Nope. But here it's an effective way to accomplish your goal.

http://www.kyrotary.com/rrxp689/loose.wmv

 

I wanted to quote the above post but its just too huge. I just wanted to back up some points with my personal experience.

1) better to hit on an angle than head on - I was involved in a 120mph crash, the driver ;lost it and was going about 100(the dash froze) when we hit the rail/poll at about a 45degree angle. We bounced off, flipped on the side , slid about 100+ feet and then spun around and landed back on wheels. If we hit head on doing 100 im sure we would have all benn killed. The impact was so had that the front 2 seats were twisted at obscene angles (one trapping my leg)

2) Better not to tence up - Same crash as above. My idiot friend was racing a volvo, i recieved a text message and looked at my phone seconds before he lost it. i was looking down, unaware. I was the only person (4 in car) that didnt recieve any type of muscle strain or injury, just bruises. I didnt tense up since I didnt know and thats why i was spared painful muscle injuries/whiplash.

3) You can learn from videos - This may sound dumb but i basically learned to drive manual from watching BMI., I had one around the block lesson and all the rest came from watching BMI. By my 4th day of actual practice i was impressing exerienced drivers. thats sounds dumb but im just tellin u what they told me.

EHH just my 2cents

 

That video was worse than the one I posted! All I see is hands moving faster than I can keep track of! But yea...for someone who's def. not racing a real race car, I use and only recommend letting go for a sec. If you do a quick search on this forum, you'll have pages of threads of ppl who lost control, overcorrected, and well...everything went straight to hell from that point on.

Of course you can. It's no diff than taking a ride w/ an instructor, or having him instruct you while he's riding shotgun. I think videos are BETTER, tho because when you're watching an instructor drive, you can only catch so much so fast. Video, you can rewind, replay, rewind, replay, etc. And multiple angles can be shown on one screen. As for when you're driving, the LAST thing I'm trying to figure out is technique. I'm working on learning the track. Trying to LEARN and master a technique isn't what I'm trying to do at that given moment. If I've seen the technique 1001 times, and practiced it on my own, I can IMPLEMENT it on the track, and just focus on learning the track and improving my time. Plus, seeing/visualizing things helps a lot...

 

I don't normally watch IRL races but did catch most of this past weekend's race. During on of the few crashes the driver actually let go of the wheel just before impact. Different scenario entirely but worth mentioning.

 

That would be a situation like Jeremy is talking about. Letting go of the wheel before hitting something solid in an open wheel car to save thumbs and wrist bones.

 

<on learning stuff from watching videos...>

I disagree... on "TV" you don't get the real feel of actually driving... the world's a lot different behind the wheel than it is behind the TV screen... now, if you're already an accomplished driver, then maybe you can get more (e.g. I understand there are lots of professional racers that learn tracks better by watching videos playing playing video games with that particular track in it...).


Better or not, I'd rather be in the car...

 

LOL hands down man. Just that some ppl rag on learning from a video, that's all. It's a valid source of info...just not the ONLY source

 

damn... I would have crashed...

This going along with what FDNewbie was asking... is there ways to "teach" someone what to do when something goes wrong? In the instruction I've been given, it's all about when things are going right... obviously, you can't force someone into a spin on the track and then tell him/her to do something... but perhaps there's a skidpad type thing that is done to show car control?

I've heard they do that sort of thing at the Skip Barber type classes....

 

The Mid-Ohio School has the skid car. They have a Civic, some kind of Honda anway, with casters at all four corners. They can adjust how much weight the casters carry and make the car tight, loose, or have no grip at either end. The car will easily spin at 5mph is pushed incorrectly.

In the end, IMO, there is no way to learn what to do other than to be in the seat. Video games can show you tracks, lines, etc. They get better and better. They also can hone reflexes and even teach you physics. But you're still only driving by sight and sound. When you're actually in the car it's sight and your ***. That can't be duplicated watching vids or playing Forza.

 

For open wheel cars, and even normal cars at high impact speeds, it is best to let go of the wheel before impacting anything. If not, you can have your wrists broken by sudden extreme wheel movements.

The pros even do it.

 

Echo...echo...echo...

 

My thinking was along the lines of a simple spinout not impacts.

 

The front suspension is designed to do it. Its called caster. The rotating axis of a front wheel is actually in front of the vertical axis. (It isnt touching the ground)

Picture a shopping cart wheel rotating when spun and pushed straight.

I think its actually safer to let go then to correct and spin... Remember the corvette who ran into people at an autocross?

I didnt mean to bump this thread. It was at the bottom of the screen and i clicked it!

 

Glad he didn't kill the biker.

 

I used to let go of the wheel all the time in my Spec Miata...the rack felt so goddamn slow that there was no way any human could countersteer fast enough in some situations.

 

C. Ludwig is correct about letting go of the wheel especially if you're in a manual rack car and if you're not familiar with this technique go to a skid pad and practice it because it's absolutely necessary when saving a big unexpected slide. Excellent save in the vid which he never would of saved without the 3 or 4 very fast corrections by letting go of the wheel.

Regarding the vid it looks like passing the bike took him off line with too much speed which it appears he tried to brake (but probably not with enough finesse) then he forced the turn in rather than dealing the speed by staying of the gas and letting the car carry the speed to track out and beyond if necessary. Lesson here if I'm correct is don't be a hero, realize the mistake and deal with it the correct way by going off to the outside and not trying to keep the car on the track causing a spin to the inside and possibly hitting something.

 

Wow...was he ever lucky! Wonder how much he freaked out the biker he just passed? Bet he had to hit the binders. Like said above, hard to tell w/o seeing his hands n pedals but grandstanding is never a good idea at those speeds. He overtook on the left which put him into the corner on the wrong side, on a crest and hard to tell but I thought it looked like maybe some negative camber in the corner? Anyway, he was showing off and almost paid for it. Know the track and your limits BEFORE you really get into it.

 

Interesting topic.

Compare the two videos in the thread. By the time the 911 has moved enough to see the car oversteering to the left in the video, countersteering and/or throttle application should have already been initiated. The longer you take adding the correction, the harder it is to catch the car.

Now listen and watch Chris' video. You really don't see the car deviate from it's course. You see his hands gesticulating wildly, and you can see the car moving farther away from the corner's line, but the car is basically continuing in it's original path, until he gets it gathered up and starts moving back under full control.

This is what video can't show you. In both cases, I'm sure the driver knew, milliseconds before you could see it in the video, something wasn't right. He could feel it, hear it, sense it. How quickly you make the connection between 'aw ****' to 'ok, I need a correction' is the difference between a rather dramatic but successful tail slide and a 360 spin that could have killed that biker.

Was looking thru my old vids, I have a few examples but not as good as Chris' above.

PaulC

 

well thats the think about 911s because their engine is so moved back of the rear axles. That on hard acceleration sometime you get almost no traction on front tires.

 

Damn. Back from the dead! I used to drive race cars?!?!

 

About the steering issue... Letting go is the ONLY way to get from one lock to another quickly. In most situations letting go of the wheel and getting off of the gas while leaving it in gear will cause the car to continue in it's current direction while at the same time straightening out. I highly recommend doing this when at a track and not racing. If you're just at the track for fun or for tuning, basically everything other than an actual race, there is no shame and no loss in just stopping the car. No one will see it and laugh at you, they will praise you for remaining calm. It is better to screw up the lap than it is to make the situation worse and possibly cause you to actually crash. Just let go of the wheel and get off the gas, leave it in gear and wait... wait until the car either straightens out or gets straight enough to recover. Once the car straightens out it will most likely be pointed at the wall, that would probably be the right time to grab the wheel and fix it. And remember, if you're out of control and going pretty fast, a car that is going straight will stop faster than one that is sideways or backwards. So brake after straightening out unless you know that there is absolutely no way to avoid the wall, at that time it becomes a matter of scrubbing speed so I advise mashing the brakes until the lines burst. If you're experienced enough, you'll know what effect using the brakes while sideways will have, so do so at your leisure.

As far as the Porsche spinning, it's a Porsche. The motor being in the back is just wrong. Mid-engine = good. Rear-engine = WTF were you thinking. Just as you don't want excess weight over the front axle line, why the hell would you want it behind the rear axle line? I've driven Porsches before, and I've driven trucks with trailers. I found very few differences in the way they felt. I can't tell you how many times, over and over, I have seen racing porsches spin out while braking into a corner. Plus they wear out the rear tires like crazy. Just a bad design.

 

Looks like he got light in the rear when he crested the hill and lost it. Im not sure it could have been saved.