The Independent American Magazine for all Mini Owners
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Keeping Your Driving Skills Current f you examine the basic parts used in the following exer- cises (tire compound, surface, braking system, pressure on the brake pedal or throttle pedal, and radius of the turn), you will find that all but three of them are fixed and cannot be controlled by the driver. Only the pressure of your foot on the brake pedal, or on the throttle, and the radius you take through the turn are under your control. ABS Exercise In racing, we brake at the limits of the car’s capabilities without the use of ABS. It’s called threshold braking. It allows us to maximize the deceleration capabilities of the braking system and the limits of the tire’s adhesion at the same time. Go beyond the limits and the tires lock up, taking away all of the driver’s steering control as well as reducing the rate of deceleration and making control impossible. The beauty of ABS fot street uses is that if you are unable to stop in time to avoid an accident, it (hopefully) allows you to maintain steering so you can steer around the problem. Slalom In racing, we also go through turns at the tire’s limits of by Cindy Gift Motorsports Editor adhesion. This limit is never more than 100 percent of the tire’s capabilities. We set up the slalom event at a Motortober event to teach some very important techniques: Firstly, it gave partici- pants opportunity to go through an aggressive course and feel what it was like to go beyond the limits of the tires. Secondly, it allowed the instructors to teach the driver how to react and correct the situation when the driver exceeded those limits. In any front wheel drive car, when you exceed the limits of the tires, the steering goes away (we call it under steer, or “push”). This is easily corrected by maintaining the steering input in the direc- tion that you wish to go and lifting off the throttle until steering returns. Finally, we showed them (through multiple runs on the slalom course) that by looking as far ahead as possible on the course, they were better able to anticipate their speed and direction through the course. They became much smoother and more accurate drivers and actually allowed them to go even faster through the course. If there is a safe, legal place to try it out nearby, such as an empty parking lot, experiment a little before you need the skills on the street. Turns The majority of what racecar drivers do on the track is work within the laws of physics. As I explained above, how quickly your car is able to slow down is merely the sum of its parts – the grip capability of the tires on a specific surface in conjunction with the braking capability equals the maximum deceleration of your car. How fast your car can go around a turn is also a fac- tor of the sum of its parts – the grip capability of the tires on a specific surface in conjunction with the radius of the turn equals the maximum MPH achievable through the turn. The mistake most people make is to say that the safest radius through a turn would be then to drive the outside rim of the road. However, a larger radius can be achieved by entering a turn from the outside edge of the road, intersecting the inside edge and exiting the turn, once again, to the outside edge of the road, which maximizes the radius potential and your speed. 12 www.mc2magazine.com But where is the best place to turn in and intersect the inside edge? Generally, on a 90-degree turn it would be at the 45- degree point (halfway through the turn). But that isn’t always the case, especially in racing. A lot of factors come into play such as if it is proceeded by or is followed by a straightaway, if banking incorporated into the turn, if there is a crown in the road, and so on. The easiest way to put it for street driving is to turn in as soon as you can safely see through the turn to the outside edge of where the turn ends. Autocross The autocross exercise puts all of the above factors into play on a single course. A successful run on the autocross course in- corporats looking as far ahead as possible, gauging accelera- tion or braking distances, radiuses, etc. so that you are able to drive your car as fast as you can through the course, but within the car’s limits. And if at any point those limits were exceeded, an instructor sitting in the passenger seat was able to remind them of what they had learned in the earlier exercises on how to correct their errors efficiently and quickly. Practice Safe Street Driving While I wouldn’t suggest purposefully practicing the above exercises at your car’s limits on public roads, you can practice them safely on the street at lower speeds and still get very similar benefits. For instance, when approaching an empty 4-way stop intersection – with no one behind you – try gauging the brak- ing distance needed to use only 20 percent braking pressure. Then try it and see how well you do. While driving on the high- way, look as far ahead down the road as possible so that you can modulate your speed appropriately without using the brake pedal. When entering a corner can you guess how tight the radius of the turn is by looking as far head as you can and see what hints you can find to clue you in (placement of telephone poles, trees or the guide rail)? Can you use the centerline and the fog line on a road to drive through a corner at its maximum radius? Incorporating the basic techniques in everyday driving will make you a better and safer overall driver, and maybe even a little bit like a high performance driver, as well. Motor On! Cn en alo an i tr ce r n idy Gf in dirt oval racing s aci s tact h n u it, aka “M as g clctor f er by emai sc C i ii Cn ooper n or Ski ln . Her daily driver is a 2002 Cooper S s on th idy ig: s ,” h e v g Sch n p Bar f taf @mc2magaz as ov ber R aci itage ciool an n r i n cut. Sh ie.com. er a decade of e as e w d competes xper i - . Con- mini cindy I