Well, seeing how as the only cars I've really driven before my WRX weren't really performance cars, I'm a little behind on some of the driving techniques used by some of you. All I really know is the heel-toe method for shifting, but what are some tips you can give me for getting the most out of my WRX? I'm talking some basic stuff, too, don't assume I know anything, lol. :dunno:
Track Go to Brainard for a track day, you will learn more in one day for $300 than you will on the street in 1 year. Check with some of the clubs in town they have many track days to choose from. AutoX is also a great way to go. Mike
In my *opinion* subarus in general respond better to aggresive style turn-in and gas, otherwise the subaru "body lurch" makes "race" lines feel really squishy. Note: I play in gravel and mud more than roads.
You'd get more out of a DCTC day as a first timer then heading straight to BIR. The next DCTC day is July 28. We even have an instructor on this very board. http://northstarbmw.org/
well I suggest hold it to the floor, keep it pointed the way you want to go, and shift when it gets in the red:eek4: :roll: :laugh:
I always make sure to double clutch so I don't blow the welds on my intake manifold while living my life a 1/4 mile at a time (10 seconds).
know the limits of the car/tires and what happens when you push it. Best way to do this is experience. A key part of his IMO is fighting understeer, going to fast and the car isnt turning? braking may not be the answer, try lifting off the gas and the back end should rotate around nicely.
I am not sure what exactly your looking for. Though there are many techniques to learn, the most important is developing your sensory. IMO this is the key to making all the other techniques work together, without it your just driving a routine, with it you are the car. Heighten sensory will allow better, safer and smoother driving. Maximizing all of the car's input data will allow you to get the most of your car in any condition no matter what you're driving. "You cant expect a different result from doing the same thing." This is a skill you can practice on the road safely. Below is a small article from Russ Bently "Speed Secrets." He is someone I have personally trained with and have found his training and material to be very effective. Enjoy! C http://www.speed-secrets.com/race_coaching_articles.html http://www.speed-secrets.com/images/TECH_TORQUEpartthree.pdf "Getting into ‘the zone" -Essentially, it can be summed up by input-process-output. If you recall, information from our senses goes into our brain/computer, it is processed by our software/programming and we then get some form of output: our performance or skill. Looking at this model of how we perform the act of driving, it becomes clear that if we can improve the quality and/or quantity of sensory information going into our brain/computer, the output should be better. -PERHAPS THE most effective coaching tool I’ve ever used with drivers is something I call ‘Sensory Input Sessions’. In fact, it’s the most used coaching tool by all of our coaches. The reason? It works. You need to make them part of your pre-season testing if you want to improve your driving. How do they work? Simple. Head onto the track with the sole objective for 10 laps or so of taking in more sensory information with your vision. Focus on everything you can see. Next, do a kinesthetic 10 lap session, where your only objective is to take in more information through your sense of touch, feel, balance, and sensing of g-forces. Finally, use 10 laps or so to focus solely on what you can hear. Ideally, you should stop after each sensory session and ‘debrief’ with yourself or a coach. By doing that, you become more aware of what you’ve soaked up. Interestingly, a large percentage of drivers turn their fastest laps ever while doing Sensory Input Sessions. There are two reasons for this. First, while doing them, you’re giving your brain/computer more quality information to work with. And second, while doing these, it’s almost impossible to drive in the conscious mode – in the ‘try’ mode. When you’re completely focused on just taking in more quality sensory information, you cannot help but drive with your subconscious mind.
The line was "granny shiftin', not double clutchin' like ya outta!" I liked that movie, but the dialog was CRAP
Or reduce the amount of steering input. If you attend the MAC Novice School, they cover the friction circle in great depth. It seems sooooo counter-intuitive that when the nose of the car is pushing, you should steer less, not more, but it works, and it works way more quickly than you'd think. I had a chance to practice this a few times back in April, and you'd be amazed that you can literally feel the tyres hook back into the pavement as you unwind the steering wheel just a little bit. It was so extreme, it actually caught me off guard the first couple of times. Mad AutoX Skillz FTMFW ! Stuart.
wow, this thread made me think about tips from my wrx and i can't even imagine driving it anymore to give any, it behaved sooo much differently than my sti.
Understanding the physics behind the car's behavior is a big key. It's good to actually understand what's happening and how to manipulate the car. Traction circles is a big concept. Tires only have so much grip, but you have several ways to use it: turning, braking, accelerating. You can only do so much of each before you run out of available grip. Weight shifting is another big key. The more weight applied on a tire, the more traction it will have. Braking moves weight forward and adds front grip. However, at the same time, you use up some of the tire's grip to brake. This limits available turning grip. All of this stuff flows together. Trail braking is a good technique that describes this. You come into a corner, brake to slow and you start to turn in. Part of the available grip is used to slow the car, another part of the grip is used to turn the car around the corner. You can either brake hard and turn a little or brake lightly and turn a lot. At the same time, you move weight forward, hard braking, a lot of weight forward, light braking a little weight forward. The front end gains grip and the rear end loses grip. You can also brake for a moment and let go. Braking slows the car and moves weight foward, but letting go of the brake right after allows full turning grip because you give back the grip used to brake. This is common to drifters when doing a breaking drift. You tap the breaks, let off and right when you let off, turn the wheel. This adds a lot of usable front grip and full turing power to pull the front end in and slide the rear end out. It's just a step beyond trail braking where you're goal is to maintain traction right at the limit and drive around the corner. In this case, you go beyond the grip point and purposely oversteer the car to begin a slide. The mixture of all of this stuff creates the end result of what the car does. Depending on your inputs as well as the car's setup, it will do certain things. It does take some time to learn how the car reacts to various amounts of input. Depending on the car or suspension setup, your car may favor heavy steering and lighter braking/acceleration. Another car may favor heavy braking/acceleration and only need small steering inputs. I generally find it depends on the stiffness of the suspension as how neutral or not netural the suspension setup is. In a fully stock trim car, it will understeer strongly and it takes a LOT of effort to get any form of oversteer. This means heavy braking, heavy turning(not at the same time), basically large movements. A more neutrally balanced car can get away with a light tap of the break and a small flick of the steering and the thing will just rotate right around. Stiffer suspension allows for quicker movements but less weight transfer. Soft suspension requires slow, large movements and a lot of weight time to move things around, but when you do get weight shifting around, a lot can move. There's really a TON of stuff to think about, but it all boils down to your generic run of the mill physics, pure science of a objects and forces. It's fun stuff to learn, but application of the concepts take time and practice.
sometimes...once you learn everything...there are more to learn....the most difficult is smoothing the rev matches and heel-toe out...while putting an amount of braking into it too! but...slowly try to learn..take your time...never rush into things...
yeah heel-to-toe is great technique, and with the way the pedals are set up in these cars it just takes a little practice to perfect, once you do you will reap the benefits
Yeah, there's always more to learn and there's always room for improvement. Heel-toe, thankfully, is pretty easy in our cars as the petals favor it nicely. I've driven a few cars with quite unusable petal locations for heel-toe. Heel-toe with braking takes some practice. A lot of times, when you heel the gas, you'll press harder on the brakes too. It takes some active thinking to keep yourself from doing this. It's also harder to do under light braking. You will notice heavy braking a bit easier as the brake petal is down further and the gas easier to mash with the side of your foot. The firmer pressure is also easier to modulate than when trying to do it under very light braking. I generally just skip heel-toe and just blip the throttle instead to rev match and brake seperately when only needing to brake very breifly or very lightly. One thing I still need to practice on: left foot braking. It's something I've done oh so little of, and I'd like to get comfortable with it at some point in the future. It's just not that useful during daily driving. For NA cars, it may not be greatly useful either. I know with turbos, you can maintain boost by staying on the throttle under braking. I don't know, I've done a lot of hard driving and even transient stuff with drifting and never felt a tremendous need to actually left foot brake. I don't know. At times, you do find yourself bouncing back and forth between the gas and brake while balancing weight, but at what point is left foot braking actually more useful? Oh well, I might as well toy with the technique since it exists and is used quite a bit. Maybe I'll actaully favor it after I get the techique down. Who knows... Practice, practice, practice, it's the only way to get better. Eventually, it will become common place and second nature.
