[Dave-ROR]

Originally Posted by King Tut

Very interesting that he didn't have an instructor. I had also never heard that about Peter Cunningham (the RealTime Acura boys were my favorite racing team when I got into road racing). One of my least favorite parts about the HPDE learning process is the feeling of instructors to mention and talk about trail braking and heel/toe downshifts. These are both advanced techniques that are definitely not required at an HPDE level. They just aren't nearly as important as focusing on learning the feel of your car and focusing on hitting your marks which should be straight line braking points, turn in points, apexs, and turn exit points.

It reminds me of the story I heard from a BRZ driving instructor at the last event I went to. His student in HPDE1 was experiementing with trail braking, and the instructor elected to take the student out with him on track and show him the dangers of getting trail braking wrong. The end result was a spin off track and a dirty car. Even instructors don't always get trail braking right. When I get to a new track I generally don't trail brake for the first couple sessions. I will find comfortable turn in points and methods for each corner and then when it is time to find some speed I will give trail braking a shot in the corners where I feel it will be benefitial and see if it improves lap times. I was able to drop some tenths at NOLA by trail braking into 3 corners. The question you have to ask yourself is whether it is worth it to drop a couple tenths by trail braking to win an HPDE trophy.

Peter tends to brake, off, turn in, throttle. He was with us at Road America a few weeks ago with the RealTime TSX and the RTR Integra Type-R museum car (on loan from Honda for the event thanks to HPD).


I generally don't trail brake my first EVENT at a new track. Hell I've found myself only using it lately when I need rotation and not trail braking in general anymore.