Gripping versus drifting, etc

[brink]

I'm starting this thread in the hopes of getting an instructional conversation going here... looking for other people's experiences and insights regarding racing, technique, and car handling. This is in relation to autocross/road course racing. This may end up being rather long, just to warn you. Also, I'm using the term "drifting" loosely. My car is FF so it's not precisely a "drift", per se; but I'll use the term to describe the motion of the car so you know what I'm talking about. Don't get your panties in a wad.

So, yesterday I attended a BMWCCA autocross. The local bmwcca group typically races at tirerack, on their test track. The course they lay out is typically designed to favor BMWs -- namely, a lot of low speed, tight turns that the BMWs can whip through with their low-end torque.
This is a rough approximation of the course from yesterday. Yellow dots are cones. I used two colors for the path because there are a few crossovers. That is the actual tire rack miniature road course. For size perspective, the lanes are about 1.75 car widths.


The issue I had with that layout, and the reason I'm posting for feedback, is this: as I ran through the course, I found several places where I could use throttle lift oversteer + LFB to just whip my car into place so it was at least facing the right direction. When I did that, my time got better. We had 8 runs + a bunch of fun runs at the end of the day, so I had some time to experiment with this, and over the course of the day I perfected my ability to get the back end loose. I've done it in the past, but this is the first time I've been able to intentionally do it in a consistent manner.

HOWEVER, I always felt sort of dirty doing it that way -- like I wasn't cleanly driving. At my very first autox event the instructor said something along the lines of "you should always grip, never drift. You'll only get worse times if you push beyond your tires' grip limits."

The thing is, I *do* get better times if I can find appropriate places to whip the car around, such as at the second turn above. Further, there's a guy who frequently attends autox events driving a 300z and he ALWAYS drifts around sharp bends. And he gets excellent times.

Also, as soon as I started trying brief moments of oversteer during slaloms, my times worsened. So I concluded that drift isn't always your friend and isn't always applicable.

My reason for even *wanting* to drift is for two reasons:
1) I read an article on racing where they did a study indicating that the main determining factor for times is your speed through the slow sections like turns, not the fast parts like straights and high-speed sweeps.
2) my car is underpowered and heavy, there's no denying it.
So my rationale is that since I know I can't accelerate well at an exit, and know my handling (in its current suspension incarnation) is lesser than other cars there, I need to find the best way to get through a corner quickly -- if I can't follow a nice line at speed, I need to just rush in and correct my trajectory at the middle through oversteer/drifting.

Lastly, a BIG part of my thinking relates to the general setup of my tires/suspension. The susp. is all stock, and the tires are 195 width Yokohama Avid T4s, an all season "performance" tire. They have better than average grip and sidwall strength IMHO, but they aren't race tires by any stretch of the imagination. So, there's that contributing to my inability to work the car through a turn at speed. All I have that helps me is the whiteline rear sway.

Oh, I'll also add that when I went through the hard turns at a reasonable rate without drifting but following a nice line, I got worse times by like 3-5 seconds (on a 50 second course)

Any thoughts, comments, recommendations? Is grip driving not always the way?

[Foolish86]

If you notice that most GT cars are powerful and have great suspesions, therefore they can follow a steady line around a curve and then steadly speed out of it.

On the contrary, a drift car, take the AE86 for example , is a light, perfectly balanced car with equally good suspesion, only some would say that they are underpowered. However, there secrete is not power; it is how well you can combine oversteerage with grip and throtle.

No, there is no need to fly around every corner sideways. That would only slow your overall time. But the corners in which you would have to drastically slow down to conquer, would be better suited for oversteerage/drifting.

However, when racing with others that are grip driving, you should always be sure that your style would be approved. Because no one wants to be side-swiped when they are driving a $40,000 car.

[brink]

Heh, yeah no kidding. I would only consider it in solo 2 situations where it's just me.

But yeah, it seems like a lot of peope are either All Grip = Good! or All Drift All The Time!, there's no middle ground. I think the truth is really somewhere in between the two and really situational.

[Foolish86]

That was the very point i was trying to make. Thanks for clearing it up brink.

[silverstreakin]

very interesting topic! wish there was a place out here to drive like that.

i think your suspension setup now has alot to do with you getting better speed by getting oversteer through the corners. with you having stock spring/struts with a rear sway bar that is beafy, its going to naturally want your back end to get loose when you are cornering hard. i would say for you, that getting a bit of lto would be good for your times.

now, if you did some more work to your suspension, youd be amazed at how it wakes up the handling of your car. *this is from personal experience on 2 completely different cars ive lowered* that even if you only lower a car an inch, the difference in cornering speed greatly increases. it really woke my corolla s up when i lowered it. right before i got rid of it, i delivered quite a bit of pizza in it. i put those trd springs to the test, and found that they were quite better suited to drive keeping all the grip i could. of course, it had the power to pull out of corners too and nice grippy tires too. my truck with nothing more than it being lowered 2 inches, is enough to greatly increase my cornering speed. i would say about 10 mph.

now, on the other hand, i got a bone stock s2k too. i could tell you that i would have minimal slippage with that, but there is no way for me to quickly go around those turns without getting loose on the rear. but thats almost any high end cars exit from the corner.

so, i would say if you wanted to get better times, 1 get a bigger engine, 2 upgrade more suspension. either way, i personally have alot of respect for someone that knows how their car handles at the limits hats off to ya!

[SmokingTires]

You suspension set-up isn't limiting you too much. It's really your line that seems to be.

For example. The hair pins you talked about the 300z drifting around. I have ran a few races with Pat Wasburn (A 5 Time National Solo Champ). From what I gathered from watching him, and tried myself, the best way to take a hair pin is not fast and wide, or drifting. The best way to do it is too come in very high to one side, then shortly after the cone hit the brakes hard and turn deep. It will bring you closest to the cone and you'll have the smoothest fastest exit.


I'm actually reading a great book right now called "Stock Car Driving Techniques". It goes through and explains that braking early to keep your traction through the turn may loose time going into the turn, but will save you a lot of time finishing and hitting the straight.

The way too get the fastest time is to push the boarder of traction. Meaning you have to be going as fast as you can for how hard you are turning. Drifting it out would be considered losing traction. And that's where you start losing time.

You just need to find the best line into the turn. Come wide, brake early, and cut hard. traction is your best friend.


I suggest picking up the book. It's great for learning braking and cornering techniques.

[brink]

Interesting replies, both of you. Have to think about this and play around more

Smokingtires: your method you describe most likely would not work very well on my car in its current incarnation. To put it in perspective, driving reasonably I had to slow down to about 15mph to take those hairpins, and that was with LFB assisting my front traction. Any faster and it's understeer city. At 15 mph I'm well below the effective rpm range for 2nd gear, so I'm forced to either downshift (which costs time) or just lug through and accelerate in 2nd. I suppose if I were good enough I could heel-toe before the turn and get it into first, but Im not confident enough with my skills for that to be totally automatic, yet.

I will definitely check out that book you mentioned... I also want to get the book "Going Faster", can't remember who wrote it. From everything I've heard and the bits I've read at a friend's, it's an excellent resource.

I should also add caus I don't think I mentioned it, my "drift" wasn't some kind of showy, ass is all over the place kind of deal... just a slight slide on the rear end. I asked around and no one I spoke with realized I'd even broken it loose... but it was enough for me to hear/feel and experience a better trajectory afterward.

Oh, one other thing... I did learn that I wasn't really braking. This is an important thing to note. Typically I'm so subconsciously afraid of locking up the wheels that I don't brake as hard as I can. On a couple runs I consciously slammed on the brakes just at the limit of locking up and was amazed at how it improved the corner handling on the 90's. So, your point there has a lot of merit.

[ryuji16]

great thread guys... very interesting. but, for the noobs out here (me), what do all those acronyms stand for? like LFB and lto.

[brink]

No problem

LFB = left foot braking. Braking with your left foot lightly to increase traction at the front.

LTO = lift throttle oversteer. If you time it right, you can lift your foot off the gas at a turn to transfer the weight to the front of the car, which lightens the rear while planting the front... if you do it correctly you can get the car to oversteer. Incidentally, this is why you don't want to abruptly lift off the gas if you find yourself starting to oversteer on an icy road.

FF = Front engine placement, front drive
FR (not mentioned) = Front engine placement, rear drive
MR = mid engne placement, rear drive

[ryuji16]

great thx man... lfb and lto were my main concerns... as far as ff, fr, and mr, i learned those from gran tourismo

now that i think of it... i would do lto in GT3 and it would have that same effect. man, that game is amazing.

anyway... carry on fellas

[bgrieger]

Only downside for you is that you have the ff problem to overcome. Pushing the limits of traction is going to be done by the fronts first, and the rears then are somewhat along for the ride, hence you never really push all the tires to the limit...only the front 2, so you are at a traction disadvantage to many rear drives that can split the work up. A little lfb allows you to play with the rear traction in motion, putting them to the limit or a hair more, but at the cost of upsetting the balance in the corner, and presumably your exit speed (I assume you upset it at the apex to improve the exit angle?). If you are convinced that you've found a limitation in the car's capability on this type of tight course, you could try stiffening the rears up through tire pressure or the sway if it is adjustible. Perhaps run the fronts a little closer to standard inflation to get a hair more grip there, of course at the slight cost of turning input reaction. If there is a front sway, you could remove it and give it a go, though it may be too much for your needs.

I'm in agreement however, that the limit of adhesion is always the faster way around the track!

Another book to look through may be "High Performance Handling Handbook" by Don Alexander. Very good resource on the interaction of components and the net results on handling...a little product placement heavy, but the theory stands.

Bob

[Toysrme]

Time to use the hand brake like me! Juuust be sure you take that back rotor off and check the pads. I ate mine up real quick in a weekend of auto-x and crazy driving last year.

[SmokingTires]

^
The problem is los of traction will cause you to loose time. Although it seems quicker to get around because of the speed your taking it at, you have to wait for your car to grip again, and then go through the RPM range. And that tends to slow you down.

Jon: I understand where your coming from. Your driving a larger car that is under powered. And trying to get it back up to speed would be more of a problem.

What I would suggest is come out as wide as you can on the turns, cut hard (straighten out just a bit), jab the brake and then continue turning. It will give you a smooth line through the corner without lossing too much speed. And by cutting hard, you leave a straighter exit which will give you the time you need to make up the speed you lost.

The double apex should work well


You can try it out at the meet this month

[hopeful]

i think the 'drift and loose time' only applies to RWD vehicles, because when you think about it, by loosing traction at the wheels which put down the power during a turn, u can ONLY loose speed, even if u think by sliding out u can take the turn faster, you could probably do better by trying to grip the turn and then whatever you slide out is by fault of being on the edge of grip, and u'll see that those loss of grip moments, IF these moments had grip, u could really tear through that turn.

hope that made snese.

[Ostornadoe]

Hey toysrme, how hard is it to take off the rear rotor to check the pads? I think mine are shot from e-braking around corners... Also, is it hard to replace these pads? Thanks.