Wheel to wheel racing. Tips and Techniques

A smart driver will beat a dumb driver.  (Coming from my years as a crew chief).

In reply to LanEvo :

Did you ever watch the show top gear?  In one episode Jackie Stewart took Captain  Slow  ( James May)  and showed him how to perform at actual competitive speed.  

So speed is something that you can learn.  I know I did.  I read everything written about driving at racing speeds, how to win races, and driving techniques.

The first time I went racing none of that worked, I was way over my head and it took a while for me to catch up with the performance of the car.  If I missed a week I lost a little time so I stayed focused on driving as much as I could.  By the end of my first full season I was much faster.  

Dont try to make the car faster,  the cheapest speed gain is between your ears.  Try things and don’t go by your impression, go by what the stop watch tells you.   Have your wife, friend, old racing geezer, someone show you your times.  Then get a faster someone to critique you.  Don’t be offended, don’t get defensive,  listen and try, give it a fair honest try, see if it does improve your times.  

In reply to dean1484 :

That May be true in an apples to apples comparison.  However a smart crew chief can make even a dumb driver better.  

In reply to frenchyd :

I’ve gotten slower as I’ve gotten older. I don’t really have the balls to enter corners as hot as I used to. I’m now overly cautious and tend to overthink things.

@LanEvo; Stirling Moss said the reason he retired after his big Goodwood accident is that upon his return his speed was OK but he had to actual think about what he was doing rather than it being second nature.

I've actually told a student "don't think just drive" his technique and under standing of the fundamentals was excellent but he kept thinking instead of doing. It was akin to a golfer changing their swing mid swing.

While I've always thought of myself as a strategic driver I've decided I'm actually a dumb driver because I keep trying to stay ahead of cars that while they may weigh 200-250lbs more are sporting 40-80 more horsepower. My normal race involves passing 2-5 cars by turn 3 then getting raped down the straights. I've lead 3/4 of the first lap only to be totally helpless once we get to the back straight.

Now for my tips and tricks:

Learn to rotate the car; whether you do this be learning the fine art of trail braking or set the car up like kart kids do, so that it rotates on trailing throttle. 

If you can't rotate the car you'll never learn how to get maximum traction out of all 4 tires at the same time. You need to be able to go from the car squirming on threshold braking to transitioning via trail braking to maximum corner speed to unwinding early to free up the car and picking up the throttle so that you attain maximum exit speed.

Learn to be fast on cold tires; it's one thing to be warming up the gearbox & rear end (motor should be at minimum temp when you leave hot pit) but I see way to many people crawling for the first half a lap. It's possible to be gently with the car while using the maximum grip of tires that aren't completely up to temp. You will need this skill if you don't won't to be passed by my 105 whp Datsun. If you don't have this skill get yourself to an autocross. Oh and no lame excuse about cars on slicks, I autocross a Formula car on slicks, sure it's skatey but it's not undriveable. 

Learn to drive off line, if your going to drive around the outside off someone don't you think you actually ought to find out what the traction is like off line? Practice all your passing lines. Your competitors may think you lack concentration because halfway through practice your lines appear eratic.

Pace lap weaving may get the junk off th tires but it won't get a lot heat in them; my personal opinion by virtue of road racing bikes first is you're better off using sharp braking and some slight wheel spin to heat up the tires.

Do not fall into the trap off thinking out braking someone automatically means popping out and standing the car on the nose. If you can carry more corner entry speed via technique or set up (rotate that car) you'll be able to pass someone at a point that's halfway between the turn in point and the apex. This will give them nowhere to go so they'll be no over and under repass.

Set up passes in practice; use cars that are significantly slower or faster to practice various passes. The more comfortable you are passing in places where people don't think is a passing zone the better. See cautionary note below

Give people room; you need to leave people space for 3 wheels when racing hard and room for all 4 if there are huge speed differentials.

When it comes road racing, especially amateur, contact is not OK. Agreed upon bump drafting is exempted. My attitude is if you're such a driving sensation why do you need to shove your way past, any hack can do that. 

That's all I can think of for now.

In reply to Tom1200 :beautifully written and well said. 

Just remember the car that passes you on the straight is a car and not the driver.  I’ve lost to faster cars and I don’t care.  My private snide compliment after the race is I say how fast the car is.  

A real compliment is” you drove a good race” or “nice pass” in other words I’ll respect the driver if he set me up and out drove me.  

The real joy is beating the faster car by out driving him. 

I learned how to drive on ice. Go find a frozen lake and start throwing the car around. You’ll find you can get some real good speed up if you are sensitive to traction.  You can turn smoothly and hold the speed or lose it all by going a tiny bit past the limit.  

The great thing is you don’t even wear out your tires.  

You can also learn the technique driving a dirt track. I know a oval isn’t terribly interesting but every 15 seconds or so you can find out if you were faster or slower.  

Once you’ve got the touch on dirt a road race track will be easy.

In reply to LanEvo :

Then you’ve lost the joy.  You’re thinking too much.  

Go find a frozen lake all by yourself  start out slow and work your way up to speed.  Don’t prep the car or tires, just go.  You won’t go fast enough to hurt anything.  

sit up, relax, and let yourself feel the car

Or it’s possible you’ve simply lost the feel of the inputs due to lack of practice.  Are you getting as many events in now as when you were younger?   At my peak I raced 10-12 times a year

as I aged it’s dropped to  one or two.  It’s still there but sometimes I don’t get it back. So far it’s just taken a little more Track time.  

Paul Newman said something along those lines in a interview I read about him in his late 70’s. 

My suggestions for the true rookie:  racing W2W starts long before the green flag.  Budget your time so you're ready before going to grid.  Nothing can throw you off as thrashing about rushing to the grid.  Granted, there are always problems that crop up in racing mechanical things but eliminate as many as you can far ahead of time.

To that end, establish a distinct routine as you head to grid

  Driver equipment (helmet,  gloves, ear plugs or ear buds, etc) always in sa me spot.  Set a routine or sequence you do things.  For example, I always got in my car without helmet, loosely fastened belts, put on helmet, had gloves resting on dash, drove to grid, cinched belts, put on gloves last.  Tho I'm not OCD, I even always put my left glove on first.  Your set routine can vary from mine but doing same way exactly every time calmed nerves, relaxed me as I was mentally in a familiar place I had been before.

As far as on track, almost always race off line in wet conditions.

As an instructor, noticed most rookies braked too early and too hard.  Also tended to apex too early on turns.  Try to make braking points and turn in later and later.  Eventually will add speed.

We have several road/circle track racers that use the winter on the ice to keep themselves sharp.   www.icerace.com

I'm not sure I understand the purpose of this thread.

No new knowledge has been given.....................unless you haven't tracked/HPDE/AutoX'd in say, the last 40 years?

In reply to z31maniac :

I’m sorry if you got the impression this was about new ways to go racing.   Maybe I should have said it’s about teaching and encouraging new guys 

or guys that maybe missed a lesion or two. 

In reply to iceracer :

Ice racing teaches you car control better than you’ll learn almost any place else.  

Not having done any of this , I've found it extremely interesting /beneficial.....thanks

In reply to 759NRNG :

Great ask any question you’d like.  I hope to get others like you involved and sharing 

Something that is often a surprise for those who have not experienced W2W racing (even if they have track experience) is how you can be lulled into not recognizing how fast you are going.  Most run groups have relatively comparable similar speed cars.  Because you're traveling in same direction (usually) things actually seem to slow down in close quarters;  i.e.,  you may be running side by side at 120 mph but if you're overtaking at 122 mph relative speed is deceptive...that is until something goes wrong.

Just an observation.

frenchyd said:

you’ve lost the joy.  You’re thinking too much.  

I wouldn't say I've lost any joy ... just gained a stronger sense of self-preservation.

I've gotten married, had a kid, lost a few friends to accidents and disease. The usual things that make you more cautious. Besides that, I've had a couple of big wrecks, including one in which I was hurt (not to be dramatic, but it was a "close-to-death" kind of hurt). I also suffered a significant hand injury that jeopardized my career (I'm a Gyn surgeon). All of that together leads me to drive with a bit more restraint than I used to. As much as I love it, this is just a hobby after all.

Go find a frozen lake all by yourself  start out slow and work your way up to speed.  Don’t prep the car or tires, just go.  You won’t go fast enough to hurt anything.  

Yeah, I lived in Canada for a bunch of years. Did a lot of ice racing and even some winter rally events. Used to instruct at winter driving schools in Ottawa and at the Team O'Neil facility in Dalton, NH. Pretty comfortable with sliding a car around all day in low-grip settings. More comfortable than getting sideways in the dry on Hoosier R7's at the top of Corner 2 at Mosport, for example!

2 simple things....

Get your hands off of anything other than teh steering wheel.  That shifter is not a hand rest.

Use your small muscles to steer the car.  Pull down with your right hand to turn right.  Don't use your shoulders to "push" the wheel to the right with your left hand.

Ovid_and_Flem said:

Something that is often a surprise for those who have not experienced W2W racing (even if they have track experience) is how you can be lulled into not recognizing how fast you are going. 

I noticed a huge jump in cost and wear-and-tear on the car with W2W racing vs. HPDE at any level. When racing, I find I push the car harder and I'm much harder on brakes and tires. Things break more often and my credit cards tend to overheat.

+1  to Ovid and Flem.

One big way things go wrong is one driver not realizing  another car is coming by. Train yourself to be aware of the mirrors so you're not that guy.

In reply to LanEvo :

Im sorry I mislead you,  Your statement explains where you are at and why you feel the way you do.  The fact that you understand yourself so well shows a great deal of intelligence.  

I’ve never felt more alive than when it’s only my skill and judgement between myself and something seriously bad.  

In fact the reason I took up racing is I  couldn’t afford to buy my own aircraft carrier and plane  

I enjoy that delicate dance needed to control a beast that wants to bite me but will give me its best if I take it.  

That’s not about adrenaline, it’s confidence in my ability.  That probably comes out sounding like bravado or ego it’s not either of those. I just know where the line is and it feels good that I do.  

frenchyd , kind sir, may i get you to expound on the following; trailbraking and trailing throttle. Thanks

In reply to chuckles :

Well said, how easy we forget when we are focused in the fog of the race.  

In reply to LanEvo : Thank you, I’ve  only done  wheel to wheel  with one exception so I have no Idea about any thing else. 

In reply to 759NRNG :

A buddy of mine named Peter Carroll is a successful PCA and BMW CCA club racer. He was C-Mod national champ for I think 2 or 3 seasons (very competitive class). We’ve talked about trailbraking quite a lot.

His perspective, which I share, is that trailbraking is just the natural progression as you smooth out the transition from braking to turn-in. The idea is to focus on coming off the brakes smoothly. This is one of the last “basic skills” that most drivers master. Even if they’re smooth getting onto the brakes, they’re generally abrupt coming back off them.

And, of course, people have a tendency to overbrake as well. The combination of overbraking and coming off the brakes too abruptly artificially lowers your entry speed...and makes significant trailbraking tricky to balance.

As you focus on slowing the car less at corner entry, you naturally learn to brake less and come off the brakes more smoothly. That naturally leads to some degree of trail braking. You just keep moving along, braking deeper and deeper, entering faster and faster, until you get to the point that your transition from brakes to throttle occurs at (or near) the apex. That’s maximal trailbraking.

If you still need to be on the brakes past the apex, then you’ve gone in too hot. If you can pick up the throttle much before the apex, then you could have entered faster: either by braking later, braking less, rotating the car less abruptly, or apexing earlier. 

^^^ This is in contrast to the traditional “slow in, fast out” mantra, which says that you should brake in a straight line, balance the car with a 4-wheel drift from turn-in to the apex, then start unwinding the wheel and adding throttle after the apex.

The best explanation I’ve heard about this apparent conflict between “slow in, fast out” versus smoothly trailbraking to the apex was by Ross Bentley of Speed Secrets. 

Ross says that the old mantra came from a time when race cars could accelerate much better than they could corner. The idea, therefore, was to turn the racetrack into a series of drag strips: brake and rotate the car as quickly as possible, so you can make the straights longer, which lets you get on the throttle earlier and harder.

But modern cars handle just as well as the accelerate (or even better, in the case of the Miatas, E30s, and other cars we love). Since the cars corner so much better, you can spend more time “in the corner” and still be fast.