Techniques To Practice for Track / Autocross

[Bishop]

Spent the day running around mountain / canyon roads and having a good time, and I got to thinking what actually matters as far as hardware goes on the car, and it dawned on me after I got home that I should identify, then practice the most used and helpful techniques for spirited driving, track use, and autocross. I thought about turning this into a poll, but not yet, perhaps later on if we get a few main answers.

BUT, my question is for those with the experience of on track, autocrossing, etc. What techniques do you find yourself thankful for knowing and being able to use properly and what kind of a difference does each make?

- I've mainly thought of double-clutch down shifts (I need an explanation, seems like a longer way to just rev-match).
- Rev-matching for downshifts
- Heel-toe
- ??

Offer up other ideas / techniques, define or apply what I said, and please please please give me your opinions on which ones are valuable to learn and practice, and how each applies (I've heard double-clutching will reduce wear on the clutch, I am curious how).

I can't stop people from saying whatever they want, but it would be really cool to have some experienced people chime in like Jim L., and others who race.

Thanks in advance, perhaps this thread will become quite helpful for people new to the track or parking lot.

[jlevie]

A double de-clutch down shift is the preferred technique. Its advantage over a rev match is that it will eliminate wear on the gear syncros. The process is; clutch in and transmission to neutral, clutch out and blip the throttle, clutch in and select gear, clutch out. With practice it becomes almost as fast as a simple rev match.

Heel & toe is something of a misnomer in most cars as the operation is best performed using the area of you foot across the ball and not the heel and toe. What works for me (and the students I've taught it to) is to get the seat far enough forward to have a generous bend in your right knee when the heel of your foot is at the base of the accelerator pedal. When you go for the brake, keep your heel planted at the base of the accelerator while pivoting the ball of your foot just onto the brake. At the same time swing your knee to the left, which is what will naturally want to happen. To blip the throttle, swing your knee to the right while pivoting your foot towards the accelerator. If you are having difficulty in getting enough throttle, move the seat a bit closer to the dash.

Other skills to practice on the street include learning to stay eyes up and out, always focusing attention as far out in front of the car as possible, and developing the habit of frequently sweeping the mirrors.

[CincinnatiKid]

Looking ahead and through the corners is probably one of the most important skills to get down. And you rarely downshift in autox, so I wouldn't focus on that too much.

[kronus]

^^^ One quote has stuck with me and helped me out a lot: "when you're taking a corner, you should already know how you're approaching the next one"

[laz]

Double clutching isn't all that useful with synchros ... just rev match well and the synchros will sort it out.

You can practice left foot braking on the street. It can make you faster, but if abused it can also make you slower.

[Hallen]

What they said ^

The rest of it is just feel. You know the limits of your car in various situations after driving hard on the track. Well, you know YOUR limits anyway. You may get close to the car's limits, but most of us don't push it hard enough on a track day to get past the limits.

When driving on the streets, any street, you should be smart enough to get nowhere near your limits or the car's limits. Leave yourself a very healthy margin because lots of unexpected things happen out in the real world. Leave your really spirited driving out on the track. That's one of the most important things you learn while driving on the track. When you are near the limit, you have almost no tolerance for unexpected things, oil on the track, a unexpectedly slow car (although on track days, you better leave enough room for that), a dog walking across the street on a blind corner, dogs and cats sleeping together, etc. All of that will happen to you and you better have enough time, experience and performance left to deal with it when out in the real world.

Your mind learns how to speed up with the car out on the track. When you start getting it, things "slow down" for you. You notice more things. That's something that track driving teaches you too. So, just be careful. Do track days to get the feel. Then, use a very healthy safety margin out on the streets.

[Philo]

One simple thing I can think of is to have both hands on the wheel. I know it sounds silly, but most people like to hold the shifter. Only remove your hand to shift, otherwise it should always be on the wheel.

[jlevie]

Double clutching isn't all that useful with synchros ... just rev match well and the synchros will sort it out..

That works just fine until you wear out the syncros, at which point you have to learn to double de-clutch or replace the transmission.

[Ferdinand]

- I've mainly thought of double-clutch down shifts (I need an explanation, seems like a longer way to just rev-match).
- Rev-matching for downshifts
- Heel-toe
- ??

Heel-toe, or whatever you want to call it, is simply the act of applying brakes and blipping throttle with the same foot.

Rev-matching, in either upshifts or downshifts, is once you have the shift lever in the selected gear and are releasing the clutch pedal, it's usually nice to have the engine rev-matched to the road speed in that particular gear, otherwise you get a nasty jerk.

Double-clutching is to ease the load on the syncromesh system, blipping throttle in neutral to spin up the gearbox to match the road speed of the output shaft, before sliding the lever to select a lower gear. One of those clutch releases and engine blips is done while the car is rolling in neutral. It's purely to be nice to the synchros. The second clutch dip is the final rev-matching to match the engine speed to the road speed of the selected gear.

All of these can be practised in normal driving. You don't have to be racing to benefit from this. But ultimately the idea is, when braking hard into a corner, you want to be simultaneously down shifting so you're ready to get back into the throttle as soon as possible, already in the correct gear when you want to be accelerating out of the corner.

Here's a technical writeup with illustrations explaining what's going on inside the gearbox and why double-clutching is always a good idea.
See post #46 and #49 in this thread: http://www.specialstage.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8452&page=5

[Danny]

Learn to heel toe. Its truly an asset when tracking.

[Adrian_Visser]

Learn to heel toe. Its truly an asset when tracking.

Hell it's a huge asset in smooth everyday driving if you ask me.

[StereoInstaller1]

Podium Stance is crucial

[87e30]

Hell it's a huge asset in smooth everyday driving if you ask me.

I love working on heel toes everyday.

But I keep rolling/spraining my ankle... which is making the whole thing a bit harder.

[Bishop]

I'm no good with heel toe in the BMW. I could do it in the Subaru, but the e30 just seems cramped to me.... I spent all day today (when I was driving to and from work, etc... ) practicing double-clutching and it was notably smoother than my normal rev matches... Will continue to practice everything...


OH, and thanks a TON everyone for the response. I was hoping this would turn out this way, and not like typical r3v threads.

[ak-]

The e30 is too cramped to literally heel-toe for me too and many ppl as well I'm sure..
I learned to use the ball of my foot to brake, and the outside rim of my foot to blip.

I think that's also what jlevie was trying to describe.

And I recently tried to learn the habit of double clutching instead of rev-matching with the clutch in now like I used to..