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Making your car go faster: Part 1.2-- the driver (long)

(section 2 of Part 1)..

Practice takes seat time, pure and simple. It's not enough to just get
out there and zoom around, if you're doing everything wrong. Lots of
novices try to drive too fast too soon, and in doing so they learn some
terrible habits that will be hard to unlearn. The best way to learn is
to have a competent instructor providing feedback and guidance
constantly. However, this is rarely possible, and lots of us find
ourselves out on the track alone quite a bit. Here's some things I try
to practice on track days:

- - Be smooth. If you can learn to be smooth, the speed will come later.
Remember that fast laps are rarely the ones that look the most exciting.
Pitching the car sideways in turns scrubs off tremendous amounts of
speed. Slamming on the brakes unsettles the balance of the car. Every
book and class on driving emphasizes this point: you have to be smooth.
How to be smooth? Practice gently turning in to a corner, instead of
trying to square it off. Try to get through the turn without making
steering corrections. Your goal should be to drive through the turn by
smoothly turning the wheel into the apex, then smoothly turning it back
out to straight ahead. Everytime you make a significant steering input
you scrub off  real speed, as well as providing significant weight
transfer. Squeeze the brakes and accelerator. When you shift, use your
fingertips and shift slowly and gently. Getting excited and slamming the
shift lever around won't help your laptimes or your transmission. 

- - Practice consistent lines. There's lots of lines around a race track,
and the one that works for the Club Fords might not be the one that
works best for your 3200 lb M3. When you're just beginning, assume there
are two: a dry line and a rain line. Have someone teach them to you,
then practice them constantly until they are burned in your memory.
Ideally you will have reference points set up for braking, turn in,
apex, and track out for every turn. Sometimes at schools these will be
cones; look for something permanent (a mark on the asphalt, fence post,
whatever) that you can use after somebody hits a cone (I personally make
it a goal to try to run over every apex cone set up in a driver's
school: I don't do this maliciously, but I make it a rule to practice
using EVERY INCH of the track; you'd be surprised at how many people
don't).

- - Keep the car balanced. I used to hear this all the time, and wondered
exactly what it meant. It means exactly what it sounds like: ideally you
want the same amount of weight on each of the four tires all the time.
Since you can't do that, except at rest, you have to constantly strive
to stay as close to it as possible. In my next installment, I'll discuss
how suspension setups affect weight transfer, but for now assume your
car is totally stock. Try to visualize a scale under each tire as you
drive. Braking causes the front tires to weigh more than the rear tires;
accelerating reverses the equation. Braking and turning left causes the
right front tire to weigh the most and the left rear to weigh the least.
If you slam on the brakes at the end of the straight, the front end will
become extremely heavy relative to the rear: the car will no longer be
balanced. Squeezing the brakes results in less weight transfer, so the
car remains more balanced. See how it works? One of the main reasons for
smoothness is to maintain balance. 

- - Use your vision. Generally when we learn anything new our vision is
narrow and focused. With experience our vision becomes broader and more
general. When you're first driving on a track you will look right in
front of the car. Experienced drivers have learned to look up and out.
They focus on where they want to go, not on where they are. You can't do
anything about where you are, since by the time you see it you've
already run over it. Look where you want to go, and the car will follow
your eyes. Try this: when you reach the turn-in point, look at the apex.
When you get to the apex, you should be looking at the exit or track-out
point. Try to notice your peripheral vision as you drive; you should be
able to see to the sides without moving your eyes. 

- - Focus. Remember how super focused you were the very first time you
drove a car? Later you probably didn't think anything of tooling down
the freeway tuning your radio, chatting on the phone, drinking coffee.
The more familiar something is, the harder it is to stay focused on it.
Track driving is the same way. This is one of the reasons why
intermediate and advanced drivers are more likely to have a shunt than
novices, IMO. On a racetrack, the difference between a so-so driver and
a great driver is concentration. Fortunately, this is something that can
be practiced. As you brake, FEEL the brakes as they approach traction
threshold. Focus: can you brake a little harder, or are you at the
limit? As you put the power down out of a turn, focus: the car may
oversteer--are you ready to counter steer? Sense the attitude of the
car: can you feel a slight kick-out to the rear end before it's way out
of sorts? Who's behind me; who's in front? Are they faster or slower? If
the car in front spins, where am I going to go? 

These are all things that I work on when I'm on the track, but they're
also things I work on just driving around town. You don't have to drive
fast to do this, you just have to practice. For example, try placing
your tires exactly where you want them. Can you tell where they are? Can
you just touch the edge of the pavement with your outside tires coming
out of a curve? Can you come to a complete stop without the car rocking
back? Can you shift (up and down, heel and toe) so smoothly that it
feels like an automatic transmission? These are hard skills to develop,
but fortunately they can be practiced on a daily commute, or driving to
the store for milk. I practice them in all my cars, including my 6500 lb
Suburban (ok, not heel and toeing <g>).

Practice these until they are natural, and you'll be a faster driver
without spending a penny on hop-up gear.

John Browne
BMW CCA
BMW ACA Puget Sound Region
M3 LTW (PeeKay)
Suburban 2500 (Godzilla)
326 iX (Spunky the brave little car)

copyright (c) John Browne; all rights reserved