Footage from Watkins Glen September 25-26th GVC Chapter

[F34R]

i forgot you were going to be there. should have come said hi!

I was with Denis most of the time, I asked who else was there. He said you were there, I went to your car but could not find you. I loved the writing ALL over it! possum on almost every fender!

And thanks Denis for the ride while you bed in your new pads! I cannot wait to finish mine!

[Ferdinand]

Sent home for spinning? maybe if you did it repeatedly. I'm not condoning intentionally spinning in a DE because that's simply not the point in a DE. It's not a race school. Safety is #1 priority. Having said that, pushing your limits and sometimes going over them (and handling it safely) won't get you sent home unless it's egregious. It's all part of learning.

In Porsche DE events, if you so much as drop two wheels off the track they'll pull you in for a talk. Do it twice and you're sent home.

I can see why they do that though. It's not racing. They don't want people wrecking their cars, or much worse wrecking somebody else's car. But it scares me that at Driver Education lapping events they teach people how to go faster and faster without first teaching and practising skid control.

On ice, you can practise all your driftin' techniques at relatively slow speeds and it doesn't hurt the tires or stress the car. Understeer, oversteer, big slides while driving completely sideways, it's all controllable, perfectly safe, even fun, if practised often enough. Obviously it's NOT the fastest way around a track. It's a necessary skill though for car control, because you definitely do NOT want to experience your first big slide or spin while doing 100+mph on the track at Watkins Glen!

It's why I like winter events so much. Everything happens in slow motion. You can see a skid coming from a long ways off, and have plenty of time to react. If you screw up and spin off, there's usually a soft snowbank to catch you and you're not going all that fast to begin with.

The theory and techniques are all the same on dry pavement, but things happen waaaaaay faster. If the proper reactions haven't been practised to the point where they become instinctive, then things can get out of shape very very suddenly.

It's like back when I was taking flying lessons they taught us how to recognize and recover from an "incipient spin", meaning the wings had stalled and the plane was trying to rotate into a spin. It's real easy, opposite rudder to stop the yaw, then push the nose down to regain airspeed. No sweat. Piece of cake.

Except they never showed us what an actual spin looks or feels like. For that we first had to book a plane that was stressed for aerobatics.

The first couple of times my instructor demonstrated. Throttle off, hold the plane level, keep easing back on the stick as the plane slows, until finally the stall warning buzzer sounds, then the wings start fluttering as it begins to drop into a stall. All normal so far. Now kick in full rudder to swing the nose around to start the plane spinning. At this point we'd usually take the normal corrective action to recover from the "incipient spin". Except, if you wait just a little longer and let it go,... Holeeeeeeey crap!

With the wings fully stalled out there's nothing to resist the torque of the engine swinging the prop over. The result is, when you kick in full rudder, instead of simply yawing around in a flat spin, the plane insteads violently flips over onto its back, then points nose straight down, while the whole time the entire plane is rotating. You end up looking straight down at somebody's back yard, with everything spinning around this guy's swimming pool, whap, whap, whap. And with each rotation the plane is dropping like a rock losing altitude at an absolutely terrifying rate.

Right away I can see why people die doing this, because the instinctive reaction is to pull up to get the nose away from pointing straight down like this. But of course, that's completely the wrong response and only makes things worse. You need to take a deep breath, stay calm, first kick in opposite rudder to stop the rotation, then hold the nose down to regain forward airspeed. It's not at all a natural or instinctive response. Closing your eyes and screaming, or puking, that's more the natural reaction.

Proper recovery techniques MUST be practiced before they eventually stop being terrifying and simply become an automatic reaction, especially for responses that need to be applied immediately and decisively in a sudden emergency, without a lot of time for thought and planning.

That's why I don't like DE track events training people how to go faster and faster without first teaching and practising spin recovery techniques. Typically all they preach is "both feet in". Clutch in, stand full on brakes, and hope the car stops sliding before it hits something.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, if it's done right away. It's better than hesitating then, not sure what to do, doing the wrong thing.

[JRKOUPE]

Sent home for spinning? maybe if you did it repeatedly. I'm not condoning intentionally spinning in a DE because that's simply not the point in a DE. It's not a race school. Safety is #1 priority. Having said that, pushing your limits and sometimes going over them (and handling it safely) won't get you sent home unless it's egregious. It's all part of learning.

K


"...it's egregious..."

Im not religious at all...thats the point..go figure.

[kishg]

In Porsche DE events, if you so much as drop two wheels off the track they'll pull you in for a talk. Do it twice and you're sent home.

highly region/chapter dependent. pca events around these parts are a lot more loose than their bmw counterparts. usually resulting in more carnage. we usually follow a 3-spins and your out policy in bmw cca around here but two wheels off don't typically count as long as you kept it straight. i agree recovery techniques are quite important particularly as you go faster, we try and incorporate skid pad training at some schools but not all tracks will have those facilities. we depend on instructors to be on the ball figuring out when a situation is about to get out of control and command (yes command) the student to take the right action before the situation develops. it doesn't always work of course but generally incidents are fewer when there are instructors in cars imo.

[Ferdinand]

we try and incorporate skid pad training at some schools but not all tracks will have those facilities.

That's sadly true. But it's all part of the same mentality.

Yes, it's an excellent idea for people with high-performance cars to take part in track events to learn to drive their cars in a "safe" and controlled environment, rather than doing stupid things out on public roads. I'm 100% in favour of that.

But, it generally seems to be that track events are aimed at making drivers faster on THAT track. Turn in exactly here at this plastic pylon, clip the apex here, touch the exit curbing there, that's the ideal line for going fastest in this corner. Memorize that line, rinse and repeat, lap after lap. Now work on shaving a few more milliseconds off your lap times.

I must say I'm impressed with the late passing exercises shown in the Watkins Glen videos. Those are great! Usually the rule is that you can only pass on the straights, and then only after you've been waved by. Like, how often does that ever happen in real racing??? Passing is almost always done while outbraking someone into a corner, or out-accelerating leaving a corner.

Of course, DE events are not supposed to be about "racing". They're teaching you how to go fast on the best line, as though you'll always have an empty track all to yourself. Then, to go faster than that you'll need to upgrade your car with stickier race tires, and brakes, and sway bars, and lowering springs, and turbos, etc., most of which make your car less and less suitable for daily driving.

Eventually you'll know the perfect racing line, and your car will be tricked out to the max, and you'll be really, really, fast, all the while scaring the crap outta yourself because you're now going warp-9 in a car that's worth more than your house, and and you still don't have a clue how to recover from a spin.

Just look what happens at most typical DE events. If it starts raining, the guys with the really fast cars go wait in the pits because they're scared to drive in the rain when it's slippery.

Instead, check out what "SlapDash" did in the "Any E30 rallyists here? " thread. He has built himself a rally car. Most if not all of his events will be on gravel, mud, ice and snow. Rallying is all about skid control. To figure out how his new car handles (before attempting to do this at high speed between rocks and trees), he entered in a local AutoX event run entirely on tarmac. And, rather than waste money buying R-compound racing slicks to make his car faster on tarmac, he ran the event on "10-year-old bald snow tires"!!!

That's absolutely brilliant.

With those tires the car probably handled like a tub of water. But the whole idea was to learn how to control the car at the limits of traction. Instead of increasing the limits of traction with fancy tires making the car faster, he ran on the crappiest tires available to purposely decrease the limits of traction, meaning he could learn useful stuff about skid control without having to push to scary speeds. I love it.

[Massive Lee]

But, it generally seems to be that track events are aimed at making drivers faster on THAT track.

Well, bad instructors will teach you THAT track. Good instructors will teach you how to drive any track.

Lee

[kishg]

Well, bad instructors will teach you THAT track. Good instructors will teach you how to drive any track.

Lee

couldn't have said it better.

[Ferdinand]

Well, bad instructors will teach you THAT track. Good instructors will teach you how to drive any track.

Okay, I'll concede that I could have phrased that better.

Spend all your time lapping only Watkins Glen, even with many different instructors giving you their valuable input and advice to make you go faster, and sure you'll learn lots of useful stuff and it'll make you a better driver. But it certainly doesn't mean you're going to be setting any lap records on your first time out around Mosport. They're completely different tracks.

[kishg]

Okay, I'll concede that I could have phrased that better.

Spend all your time lapping only Watkins Glen, even with many different instructors giving you their valuable input and advice to make you go faster, and sure you'll learn lots of useful stuff and it'll make you a better driver. But it certainly doesn't mean you're going to be setting any lap records on your first time out around Mosport. They're completely different tracks.

Obviously. No one is saying that either. However, you can learn the concepts right and apply them anywhere and up the learning curve.

[dude8383]

Obviously. No one is saying that either. However, you can learn the concepts right and apply them anywhere and up the learning curve.

I'll add by saying that I participate in different DE's specifically so that I don't get comfortable on just one track. I've participated in 2 events already, not including this one and both were at different tracks. Each track has its own quirks and the car responds differently.

Having said that I won't be purchasing R-compounds until I'm comfortable with losing control and regaining it. That will require some auto-x events and hopefully a skid control clinic (if I can find one). From what I understand the breakaway characteristics on an r-compound tire are not as predictable...

[kishg]

Having said that I won't be purchasing R-compounds until I'm comfortable with losing control and regaining it. That will require some auto-x events and hopefully a skid control clinic (if I can find one). From what I understand the breakaway characteristics on an r-compound tire are not as predictable...

Good decision. Get around 20-25 days under your belt before you switch. skid control clinic? are there empty parking lots around you after it snows? :) keep it sensible of course.

[Ferdinand]

skid control clinic? are there empty parking lots around you after it snows? :) keep it sensible of course.

Definitely the key is to keep it sensible and under control. If you're doing crazy stuff and just throwing the car at the scenery, then you'll get arrested. But if it's all at slow speed and safely in control, which it can be on snow and ice, and you don't look and act like a hooligan, then you can do useful practice exercises.

Drive in a straight line, not fast, and try swinging the tail back and forth, eventually working up to penduluming the car lock to lock, all the while trying to keep it travelling in as straight a line as possible. How far sideways can you bring it, while still being fully in control?

Two small loops, joined in a figure-8, is useful too.

In no time at all you'll have car control skills like this guy in his Mk2 Ford Escort! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P4HM5gqBNE

Track events are okay. But after 10, 20, or 100 laps around the same track, repeating the same corners over and over, doesn't it get boring? Rallying is so awesome! You get one or two passes of each stage at slow speed to make notes, then you do it once or maybe twice at speed. Conditions change drastically from when you've made the notes, after all the other cars have chewed up the surface, or it rains, or snows, or whatever. You don't get to practice any of it at speed. It's all about reacting to the surface changes as you find them. This is where car control skills come in, in a big way!

[kishg]

Track events are okay. But after 10, 20, or 100 laps around the same track, repeating the same corners over and over, doesn't it get boring?

Really depends on the track and who else is out there with you. The instructor group at a track like the glen can be quite entertaining. of course racing is even more fun. Agree on rally. I'd love to try that sometime.

[dude8383]

Good decision. Get around 20-25 days under your belt before you switch. skid control clinic? are there empty parking lots around you after it snows? :) keep it sensible of course.

Definitely the key is to keep it sensible and under control. If you're doing crazy stuff and just throwing the car at the scenery, then you'll get arrested. But if it's all at slow speed and safely in control, which it can be on snow and ice, and you don't look and act like a hooligan, then you can do useful practice exercises.

Drive in a straight line, not fast, and try swinging the tail back and forth, eventually working up to penduluming the car lock to lock, all the while trying to keep it travelling in as straight a line as possible. How far sideways can you bring it, while still being fully in control?

Two small loops, joined in a figure-8, is useful too.

In no time at all you'll have car control skills like this guy in his Mk2 Ford Escort! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P4HM5gqBNE

Track events are okay. But after 10, 20, or 100 laps around the same track, repeating the same corners over and over, doesn't it get boring? Rallying is so awesome! You get one or two passes of each stage at slow speed to make notes, then you do it once or maybe twice at speed. Conditions change drastically from when you've made the notes, after all the other cars have chewed up the surface, or it rains, or snows, or whatever. You don't get to practice any of it at speed. It's all about reacting to the surface changes as you find them. This is where car control skills come in, in a big way!

LOL well in that case I do this ever winter guys! I know what it feels like to lose control in snow but I'm not as comfortable in the dry and wet. The breakaway characteristics are a bit different. It's not quite as predictable at least for me...

That rally video is DOPE. I've done some of that upstate =)