by Ross Bentley
Having walked tracks for years, I now never walk it until after I’ve driven it at least for one session. Often, I found that if I walked a track before having a little real experience, I would get false thoughts and ideas of how to drive it. What may have looked like a third-gear corner while walking the track may really have been a fourth-gear corner. Then, before I could really start to learn the track properly, I first had to unlearn the false thoughts and ideas.
One of the best ways to learn a track is ride it on a bike. You can feel the shape, bumps, and elevation changes better than you can when walking it, while still having the time to take in all the minute details. Shutterstock
So what I do now is first study a map of the track just to get the direction clear in my head. Then I explore it during the first practice session, trying different gears in the various corners and concentrating on the most important turns first. Then, at the end of the day, I walk it to really work out the details, checking my thoughts and ideas regarding track surfaces, banking, reference points, areas where it is safe to run off the track, and so on. And then, if possible, I try to do a number of laps in a street car at very low speed. This helps program every last detail into my head.
LEARNING A TRACK
When learning a new track, you face two hurdles before you will be able to drive consistently at the limit:
• Discovering and perfecting the ideal line
• Driving the car at its traction limit on that ideal line
It is usually easiest to focus on learning a new track in that order: the line first and then driving it at the limit.
When first learning the ideal line around a track, it is important to use all the track surface, even if that means forcing the car toward the edge of the track. At the entrance to the turn—at the turn-in point—it is easy to drive the car to within inches of the edge of the track. At the apex, you need to be right against the inside edge or curb. And, at the exit, drive the car to within a couple of inches of the edge, even use the curb or drop a wheel over the edge to see what it feels like (remember, you’re driving relatively slowly at this point).
I hear a lot of drivers talk about how they can always find the right line for a corner simply by following the path of dark black tire marks, “the groove” they call it. They’re wrong. The dark black tire marks are a result of drivers trying to tighten their line or make a correction: either feeding in massive amounts of steering, causing understeer, or controlling the back end of the car from a slide (oversteer). When walking a track, follow the path of a really dark tire mark. It usually ends up going off the track to the outside or spinning back across to the inside. The ideal line, or “groove,” is usually just inside of the really dark black line through a turn. So, yes, you can use the dark black tire marks as a guide, but don’t follow them.
It’s important when you first learn a track to force yourself to use every inch of it, to make it a habit, a programmed, subconscious act. As your speed increases, the car will naturally flow or run out to the edge of the track. If you are driving the ideal line, and you don’t hold the car in tight (pinching it). Remember to let the car “run free” at the exit. If you hold the car in at the exit, you have greatly increased your chances of spinning, and you are scrubbing off speed or you can’t get on the power as early as necessary.
Before moving on to the second part of learning a new track—driving at the limit—the ideal line must be a habit. Driving the line must be a subconscious act. It is difficult to concentrate on two things at once, the line and the amount of traction you have (“traction sensing”) to determine whether you are at the limit or if you can carry more speed or accelerate sooner or harder.
After the ideal line becomes a habit, a subconscious act or program, you can begin to work on driving at the limit. The key here is sensing the amount of traction you have (traction sensing). With each lap, begin accelerating a little earlier and harder out of each corner (actually, remember the corner priorities: fastest corner leading onto a straight . . .), sensing the amount of traction available. Keep accelerating earlier until you either begin to run out of track or the car begins to understeer or oversteer excessively. Remember, the car must be sliding (understeering, oversteering, or neutral steering) somewhat, or you’re not driving at the limit.
ILLUSTRATION 12-1 In some cars, running your inside tires over the curbing can help load the outside tires, providing them with more grip. Of course, this depends on the size and shape of the curb. Additionally, running over the curb usually straightens out the corner, increasing its radius.
Once you feel you’re getting close to the limit under acceleration (on the ideal line), then begin to work on your corner-entry speed. Working on the fastest corners first on down to the slowest, carry a little more speed into the turn each lap, until you can’t make the car turn in toward the apex the way you would like, until it begins to understeer or oversteer excessively in the first one-third to one-half of the corner, or it hurts your ability to get back on the power as early as you could before.
Don’t forget that when working on the acceleration or corner-entry phase, that just because you sense you’ve reached the limit, you can’t go faster still. It may be that the technique you are using now results in reaching the limit, but by changing that technique slightly you may be able to accelerate earlier or carry more speed into the corner and raise that limit. For example, you sense the car is beginning to oversteer too much under power on the exit of the corner. You’ve reached the limit with the way you are applying the throttle now. But if you apply the throttle a little smoother, more progressively, the car may stay more balanced and not oversteer as much. Another example: You carry more and more speed into a corner until it begins to understeer as you initiate the turn. You’ve reached the limit with the technique you’re using now; however, if you used a little more braking while you turned (keeping the front tires more heavily loaded), or turned the steering wheel more “crisply,” perhaps it wouldn’t understeer at all.
The point is not to believe you’ve reached the ultimate limit just because the car slid a little one time. Once you’re used to accelerating that early or carrying that much speed into a corner, take a number of laps to see if you can’t make the car do what you want by altering your technique slightly.
Corner-entry speed and exit acceleration are related. If your corner-entry speed is too low, you tend to try to make up for that by accelerating hard. The hard acceleration may exceed the rear tires’ traction limit, causing oversteer. If your corner-entry speed was a little higher, you wouldn’t accelerate so hard and wouldn’t notice any oversteer.
Of course, if your corner-entry speed is too high, it may result in getting on the power late. This is going to hurt your straightaway speed.
To recap the strategy for learning a new track:
• The line: At a slightly slower speed (difficult to do in a race weekend practice session with other cars around), drive the ideal line until it becomes habit, a subconscious, programmed act.
• Corner exit acceleration: Working from the fastest corner leading onto a straight down to the slowest, progressively begin accelerating earlier and earlier until you sense the traction limit.
• Corner-entry speed: Working from the fastest corner to the slowest corner, gradually carry more and more speed into the turn until you sense the traction limit.
• Evaluate and alter your technique if required: Try accelerating more progressively or abruptly, trail braking more or less, turning in more crisply or more gently, a slightly different line, whatever it takes to accelerate earlier and carry more speed into the corners.
THE LINE YOU DRIVE
Late turn-in and apex, early turn-in and apex, or mid-turn-in and apex, which one do you use? There is no one answer to that question. Ultimately, it is up to you to figure it out.
If you’ve been driving on racetracks for some time now, you drive the line you do either because someone told you to, or because it just feels right.
Obviously, if you are driving a line through a corner because of the first reason, let’s hope the person who told you to knew what he was talking about. If not, you’re in trouble; and you had better find someone else for advice. This is why I suggest you also use the second reason to determine your line. Sure, having someone you trust give you an idea of where you need to be is okay for starters, but you had better move on to what feels right very soon.
Does that mean that you cannot go wrong with the “it feels right” method, that it will always result in the perfect line? Absolutely not! In fact, often a not-so-perfect line will feel good, at least if you rely on only one of your senses for that “feel.” For example, many drivers turn in early for corners because it visually “feels right.” They look to the apex at the inside of the corner and naturally turn the steering wheel to go there. Visually it looks right, but about the moment the outside tires are dropping off the edge of the track at the exit, kinesthetically it does not feel so good (sometimes referred to as the “pucker factor”)!
It is when you use all three sensory inputs to “feel” what’s right that the car will tell you what line to drive. And it will do that in an obvious way. It won’t be subtle. It will be direct, but only if you pay attention. And by paying attention, I mean being sensitive to what you see, what you feel, and what you hear.
REVIEW
To finish this chapter, let’s review a plan for learning a new track quickly:
• Preparation—Review any information you can get your hands on, such as track maps, in-car video, computer simulation games, and descriptions of driving a lap written by someone with lots of experience there. The best place to start to find this kind of information is the track’s website, then an online search, and then computer games. The main objective during the preparation stage is to become as familiar as possible with the direction the track goes and any references you may be able to use. One thing that is not an objective during this stage is to set too much in stone, to program every little detail you pick up from an in-car video, for example. Unless you’re driving the exact same car, only use the reference points you see on the video for what they are, reference points. Just because a driver (in a car that may or may not be similar to yours) is using such-in-such as a turn-in point doesn’t mean you should. But, and this is the real key to this, you can use the same reference point, but you may have to adjust exactly how you use it (turn in just before it, just after it, or whatever). Again, the objective in preparing to drive a track is to minimize the amount of brain power you have to put into what direction the track goes and what reference points you can use initially.
ILLUSTRATION 12-2 A mistake a lot of drivers make when they first go to a new track is to place too much emphasis on “learning the track,” which way the corners go and what the line is through them. If they put that much focus on simply driving the car at its limit, this information about the track would naturally come to them.
• Be a sponge—During the first few sessions, focus on soaking up as much information about the track as possible, just like a sponge soaks up water. Take in as many reference points as you can, and focus on specific senses to do that. In fact, take a session or two to focus solely on soaking up more visual information, then more kinesthetic (feel, balance, and g-forces), and finally more auditory information.
• Download—After each session, make notes on a track map of every detail of what you’re doing where on the track (shift points, where you begin braking, where you end braking, where you’re back to full throttle, etc.), and all the reference points you’ve soaked up (every crack in the pavement, the shape and placement of every curb, turn worker stations, signs, bridges, changes in track surface, marks on the surface, etc.).
• Mental imagery—After driving the track for a session or more, take all the information you know about the track from your preparation and your actual experience and replay it in your mind. The more repetitions you do during your mental imagery sessions, the more effective it will be. In other words, you will learn the track faster, and be faster.
• Drive the car, not the track—Finally, it’s time to stop thinking about the track and focus simply on driving the car to its limit. Usually, if you drive the car at its limit, even off line, you will still be faster than if you drove the perfect line but with the car not at its limit. It’s at this stage where you really forget about driving the track, and you just trust your mental programming to drive the car. Yes, you need to be consciously aware of how close the car and its tires are to their limits, but you don’t want to be consciously thinking about which way the track goes and where your reference points are. By now, if you’ve done all the previous steps well, the track should be well programmed into your mind, and it will be time for you to simply trigger it and go.
“If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll never get there.” It’s an old saying, but it perfectly describes why I’m discussing the exit phase of corners before the entry phase.
The goal for the exit phase of any corner can be summed up best by the following statement: The driver who begins accelerating first will arrive at the other end of the straightaway, and most times the finish line, first. That is what the exit phase of corners is all about, maximizing your acceleration down the following straightaway. But there are limits.
THE 100 PERCENT TIRE RULE
As I’m sure you already know, a tire’s traction can be used for braking, cornering, accelerating, or some combination of these three. In fact, you can use 100 percent of the tires’ traction for braking. You can use 100 percent for cornering. Or you can use 100 percent for accelerating. But you cannot use 100 percent for cornering and 100 percent for accelerating at the same time. You can’t even use 1 percent for accelerating if you are using 100 percent for cornering. You can only get 100 percent out of the tires, not any more than that.
The key point I want to make here is that overlapping your braking, cornering, and accelerating, without asking for more than 100 percent from the tires, is critical to going fast. It is your ultimate goal.
To drive at the limit, you must use all of the tires’ traction throughout the track. As you begin braking for a corner, use 100 percent of the traction for braking. When you reach the turn-in point and begin to turn the steering wheel, you must ease off the brakes, trading some of the braking traction for cornering traction, going from a combination of 100 percent braking/0 percent cornering, through 50 percent braking/50 percent cornering, to 0 percent braking/100 percent cornering. For some amount of time, ranging from a small fraction of a second to a few seconds, all you are doing is cornering at 100 percent. Then, as you unwind the steering, you trade off cornering traction for acceleration traction.
ILLUSTRATION 13-1 A tire can be used to do three things: brake, corner, and accelerate. You can use all the tire’s traction for one of these, or combine two of the forces at one time, within limits.
SPEED SECRET
You can only use 100 percent of the tires’ traction, and make sure you do.
That is the key to the exit phase of a corner: unwinding the steering or releasing the car out of the turn, allowing you to use the tires’ traction for accelerating. Because, as I said, the sooner you begin accelerating, the faster you will be down the straight.
Remember what I said earlier about being a g-force junkie? Often, to fill your need to feel g-forces, you will subconsciously hold the arc of a turn just a little longer than necessary. In other words, not unwind the steering and allow the car to follow an increasing radius. The longer you hold the car on a tight radius, the more g-forces you will feel, but the slower you will be able to drive.
ILLUSTRATION 13-2 Here’s the throttle trace graph of two drivers in the same corner. Both drivers come off the gas at the same point at the end of the straightaway, and they both blip the throttle for a downshift at the same spot. But notice the difference in how they got back on the throttle. Driver A in the top graph does a nice job of squeezing back on
the throttle; Driver B does something a little different: He picks up the throttle a little earlier, then squeezes fully on. In most cases (but not all), Driver B’s throttle application will result in a quicker lap time. Many times, this early touch of the throttle also helps balance the car, as well as improving midcorner speed.
ILLUSTRATION 13-3 If you don’t use all the track width, you’re giving up speed. By keeping the car even one foot away from the edge of the track at turn-in and exit, you reduce the corner’s radius significantly. In this example, the corner radius is reduced by 3 feet, meaning the theoretical maximum speed you can drive through the corner is reduced by more than a half mile per hour. That may not sound like much, but if you do that at every corner on the track it will probably cost you a few tenths of a second; that’s giving time away.
So unwind the steering wheel. Let the car run free. If you constantly think about this concept and keep in mind the 100 Percent Tire Rule, you will be more likely to consistently drive at the limit.
A quick, but important point for driving on an oval track, or any road course corner with a concrete wall lining the track, is the more you try to keep the car away from the wall at the exit, the more likely it is you will end up hitting it. Unwind the steering and let the car track out as close to the wall as possible.
When and how you begin accelerating in a corner also plays a critical role in the exit phase. Again, the general rule is the sooner you begin accelerating, the better; however, with some cars you need to be a little patient getting back to power. If you begin to accelerate too soon, all you do is unload the front tires, causing the car to understeer, and then you have to ease back off the throttle to control it.
