For the time attack guys, Traction Control on or off?

[PowderfaceTr.]

One should be making identical setup changes to all cars on a per track basis. the cars have geometry to make them all neutral. if a track has a tight corner you could be compensating with tuning when you just have cornering problems, your looseness going in, you yourself could be making the rest of the corner a problem when in fact it really isn't. As a driver it's very easy to mislead yourself into believing how your car is reacting through a corner. Just let the computer do the work. Only after you have a neutral handling car entering the corner& through the middle do you attempt to work on adjustments.

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png

[ddeflyer]

Originally Posted by PowderfaceTr.

One should be making identical setup changes to all cars on a per track basis. the cars have geometry to make them all neutral. if a track has a tight corner you could be compensating with tuning when you just have cornering problems, your looseness going in, you yourself could be making the rest of the corner a problem when in fact it really isn't. As a driver it's very easy to mislead yourself into believing how your car is reacting through a corner. Just let the computer do the work. Only after you have a neutral handling car entering the corner& through the middle do you attempt to work on adjustments.

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png

First off, these car are not configured "neutral" from the factory; they are setup to understeer (or at least mine was, the acceptable range for alignment could get more neutral on the margins of specs).

Secondly, I was talking about the line you drive a car on and how that varies between platforms. It is frankly unpractical for all but the most well outfitted of race teams to customize their car's configuration for every event. Beyond that, even with that level of customization you will still be seeing variation based upon inherent properties of the platform. Going back to my example of eating a berm, a heavy car is going to behave differently compared to a light car.

Thirdly, you seem to be making personal implications about my corner handling. You know nothing of me, my car, how I have set up my car nor how I handle corners. I am more than willing to admit that there are corners that I have issues on, but you have no idea what those issues are.

Fourth, if a driver has an issue balancing their car on a corner then yes, it is good for that driver to improve their technique before trying to fix that corner with the car. This is not the same, however, as the configuration of one car allow techniques (and using those techniques) that another car cannot achieve.

And lastly, "Just let the computer do the work." that is exactly the opposite of what you keep saying you do (that is, that you are so smooth that there is no VSC/TC interaction). I am going to make a strong statement here: if you are really doing that ("Just let the computer do the work.") then I honestly hope I never meet you at the race track. People who do that are usually a danger to themselves and those around them.

[PowderfaceTr.]

so when i hit an fresh oil slick coming into corner #1 the traction control kicks in briefly. On the following laps I just adjust until the car doesnt activate safety devices then thats my new fast line. it could be chunks of tire dust or even puddles TC shows you were to adapt for the conditions. i dont need to know you to know you are sensitive to the subject. possibly there was a time in your career that throwing your car into corner was best thing you had. who cares how somebody drives. until they hit you your just gonna have to cross your fingers and learn to drive defensibly in time attack.
the irony is I barely keep the thing out of the wall. It swappe ends, get way loose, and nearly spin out with little to no warning. Sometimes i dive down towards the infield for no reason I ever did figure out, and once coming off the banking it rebounded off the suspension stops hard enough to bounce the whole front end in the air still a good laptime

[acro]

Originally Posted by PowderfaceTr.

so when i hit an fresh oil slick coming into corner #1 the traction control kicks in briefly. On the following laps I just adjust until the car doesnt activate safety devices then thats my new fast line. it could be chunks of tire dust or even puddles TC shows you were to adapt for the conditions. i dont need to know you to know you are sensitive to the subject. possibly there was a time in your career that throwing your car into corner was best thing you had. who cares how somebody drives. until they hit you your just gonna have to cross your fingers and learn to drive defensibly in time attack.
the irony is I barely keep the thing out of the wall. It swappe ends, get way loose, and nearly spin out with little to no warning. Sometimes i dive down towards the infield for no reason I ever did figure out, and once coming off the banking it rebounded off the suspension stops hard enough to bounce the whole front end in the air still a good laptime

I honestly dont know whether to laugh or cry

You know what im gonna sleep

[CSG Mike]

Originally Posted by ddeflyer

puter do the work." that is exactly the opposite of what you keep saying you do (that is, that you are so slow that there is no VSC/TC interaction). I am going to make a strong statement here: if you are really doing that ("Just let the computer do the work.") then I honestly hope I never meet you at the race track. People who do that are usually a danger to themselves and those around them.

FTFY

[ddeflyer]

Originally Posted by PowderfaceTr.

so when i hit an fresh oil slick coming into corner #1 the traction control kicks in briefly. On the following laps I just adjust until the car doesnt activate safety devices then thats my new fast line. it could be chunks of tire dust or even puddles TC shows you were to adapt for the conditions. i dont need to know you to know you are sensitive to the subject. possibly there was a time in your career that throwing your car into corner was best thing you had. who cares how somebody drives. until they hit you your just gonna have to cross your fingers and learn to drive defensibly in time attack.
the irony is I barely keep the thing out of the wall. It swappe ends, get way loose, and nearly spin out with little to no warning. Sometimes i dive down towards the infield for no reason I ever did figure out, and once coming off the banking it rebounded off the suspension stops hard enough to bounce the whole front end in the air still a good laptime

Don't confuse trying to help and contain bad information with sensitivity. Your presumptuous personal attacks are, frankly, pathetic and really detrimental to civil discourse. As an HPDE instructor, I care about accurate (and frankly cautious) information being disseminated. I have seen too many mangled cars at the track to not care about what people are saying when it comes to basic car control factors. As one of my friends told me when I started off, when things go bad, they go bad quick.
And for your information, my personal style when I was beginning (and generally to this day) was to take things very cautiously; I never tossed the car into corners with abandon as you seem to think.

I get the distinct impression from your comment though that you are driving beyond your safe limit and relying upon the traction control to do your traction sensing for you. That you, as you say, "barely keep the thing out of the wall" speaks volumes. Frankly if you are saying that, you really need to step back and look at what you are doing wrong. Driving fast is about control. Control over yourself, control over your emotions, and control over the car. Without that control, you are just sloppy. If you watch a really good driver, they aren't just barely keeping it out of the wall; they are choosing to put the car where they want it. They could be putting it close to a wall, and if they are that is exactly where they want it. They know exactly what the car is going to do and what they can make it do and how that will affect the next thing they have to do.

Also, when you say "who cares how somebody drives. until they hit you your just gonna have to cross your fingers and learn to drive defensibly in time attack." you show an astounding amount of disregard for the people around you on the track. In close passing conditions or race conditions there is a huge amount of trust that is required between the drivers. A comment like that is exactly why I really hope I never see you on track. If someone is driving crazy I will pull off (and tell the stewards/event organizers). My body and life are worth more than a few minutes on track.

That you have random things happening that you can't explain also should be a major red flag for you that you need to understand more of what is going on. I suspect you could really benefit by consciously slowing down and learning to feel what the chassis is telling to you. These cars are wonderfully communicative, learn to listen to them and maybe one day you won't need the traction control to save your ass since you can save it on your own. Or better yet, you won't need to save your ass because you will have seen the issue before hitting it!

[PowderfaceTr.]

It beats your cars up pretty bad. I know people that spend more time learning bad habits with their hands than making good laps. It's for show best lap they did was reckless, nothing more. if you work out your steering muscles like me you could hold it steady and just flat foot it all the way until ABS . I can't say that I flick myself, but my mate does it compulsively. As in he does it when playing, skill building. Discussing skill building, im waiting for you to tell me how you get better at road driving

[ddeflyer]

Originally Posted by PowderfaceTr.

It beats your cars up pretty bad. I know people that spend more time learning bad habits with their hands than making good laps. It's for show best lap they did was reckless, nothing more. if you work out your steering muscles like me you could hold it steady and just flat foot it all the way until ABS . I can't say that I flick myself, but my mate does it compulsively. As in he does it when playing, skill building. Discussing skill building, im waiting for you to tell me how you get better at road driving

This is a conversation that I really should just let drop, but what the hell, I'll keep biting.

First, flat footing either the brake or the gas all the way around the course means to give up a huge portion of your control via weight transfer. I know for me some of my most important steering muscles are in my legs.

Second, the general consensus is that ABS isn't necessarily the fastest way to slow down and it makes your brakes overheat faster.



In terms of how I learn to be a better road course racer/driver:

Time on track (I think I did about 50 days last year).
Asking other people what they are doing.
Having people ride with me to see what I am missing.
Riding with other people to see what I feel they are doing.
Close passing exercises. Actual wheel to wheel racing (now that is drinking from a fire hose).
Looking at my track time videos.
Looking at the data logging from my sessions.
Reading articles about skill development and progression.
Reading articles about car control.
Reading about how the systems on the car work so I can understand what they are doing.
Go Kart racing (great to improve slip angle and counter steering technique in a safe environment).
Autocross.
Observations of what I am doing driving on the street (ie. how can I make a random turn as stable as possible, trying to do the perfect rev match without looking at the gauges but instead my sense of speed and the sound of the engine, etc.)
Probably a whole bunch of other things.

[PowderfaceTr.]

Originally Posted by ddeflyer

This is a conversation that I really should just let drop, but what the hell, I'll keep biting.

First, flat footing either the brake or the gas all the way around the course means to give up a huge portion of your control via weight transfer. I know for me some of my most important steering muscles are in my legs.

Second, the general consensus is that ABS isn't necessarily the fastest way to slow down and it makes your brakes overheat faster.



In terms of how I learn to be a better road course racer/driver:

Time on track (I think I did about 50 days last year).
Asking other people what they are doing.
Having people ride with me to see what I am missing.
Riding with other people to see what I feel they are doing.
Close passing exercises. Actual wheel to wheel racing (now that is drinking from a fire hose).
Looking at my track time videos.
Looking at the data logging from my sessions.
Reading articles about skill development and progression.
Reading articles about car control.
Reading about how the systems on the car work so I can understand what they are doing.
Go Kart racing (great to improve slip angle and counter steering technique in a safe environment).
Autocross.
Observations of what I am doing driving on the street (ie. how can I make a random turn as stable as possible, trying to do the perfect rev match without looking at the gauges but instead my sense of speed and the sound of the engine, etc.)
Probably a whole bunch of other things.

i respect that but,

right there i can tell your knowledge is vast and a jack of all trades in motor sport im just happy to be a master of gettin more out of my car there is no need to be all McLaren MP4/5 hipster. you rev match cus you like to perfect a age old skill that has no use in today racing. its so easy to be good at operating levers let your magnificent brain concentrate on what the edge of VSA allows. its a fine line to not activate VSA on a fast lap. it takes full concentration. i just leave it in fourth gear cus theere is load of torque any more and you get wheel spin at high steering angle.

[troek]

[D K]

Im personally scared driving with traction control off.

What if the back end steps out???? Yikes!!

Or even worse: what if you spin???
Could you imagine?

[troek]

Originally Posted by D K

Im personally scared driving with traction control off.

What if the back end steps out???? Yikes!!

Or even worse: what if you spin???
Could you imagine?

i just sold my car to my neighbor after reading that. got a sweet nissan march now.

[Deep Six]

Originally Posted by PowderfaceTr.

so when i hit an fresh oil slick coming into corner #1 the traction control kicks in briefly. On the following laps I just adjust until the car doesnt activate safety devices then thats my new fast line. it could be chunks of tire dust or even puddles TC shows you were to adapt for the conditions. i dont need to know you to know you are sensitive to the subject. possibly there was a time in your career that throwing your car into corner was best thing you had. who cares how somebody drives. until they hit you your just gonna have to cross your fingers and learn to drive defensibly in time attack.
the irony is I barely keep the thing out of the wall. It swappe ends, get way loose, and nearly spin out with little to no warning. Sometimes i dive down towards the infield for no reason I ever did figure out, and once coming off the banking it rebounded off the suspension stops hard enough to bounce the whole front end in the air still a good laptime

Video or it never happened. Nevermind.....it never happened you seem to be living in a hypothetical world where TC can have an impact when your tires are covered in oil.........reality is: old man momentum is taking you straight where you were headed whether you like it or not and there aren't going to be any "following" laps

[brn12345]

Traction control off for sure.