[TrackClub]

Originally Posted by Tachitup

The new car is awesome, not that my ZL1 wasn't a great car. On the track the ZLE is just that much more a track car. Without writing a huge endorsement, I'll just use the words of a late friend, "those that understand, they'll get it".

I did an evening at TMP then 7 hours over two days at Calabogie on my first set of 3R's. That's a total of just under 425 kms of track time. Not only is Calabogie the hardest track on tires in these parts, I drove the crap out of the car.

I then did two days of Mont Tremblant and I'd say my second set of 3R's are half to 60% worn.

The other 10 track days I ran I did with my other car.

I love the ZLE ... both on the track and on the road. Those that find it too harsh on the road perhaps bought the wrong car. Even my wife thinks the ride and handling on the road is perfect. The ZLE is the real deal, not a 'looks like a track car'.

Looking forward to seeing you when this ugly pandemic thing is over.

Did you get a chance to run Area 27 this year?

Great to hear you're loving the ZLE! Not surprised

My season was almost a write off, but at least have managed to improve my PBs at TMP and SMP. That was pretty much it this year.

Nope, havent ventured to Area 27 yet, but excited about a new planned venue near Barrie!!!

Hope to hook up next year!

[Pcormier66]

Originally Posted by Tachitup

The new car is awesome, not that my ZL1 wasn't a great car. On the track the ZLE is just that much more a track car. Without writing a huge endorsement, I'll just use the words of a late friend, "those that understand, they'll get it".

I did an evening at TMP then 7 hours over two days at Calabogie on my first set of 3R's. That's a total of just under 425 kms of track time. Not only is Calabogie the hardest track on tires in these parts, I drove the crap out of the car.

I then did two days of Mont Tremblant and I'd say my second set of 3R's are half to 60% worn.

The other 10 track days I ran I did with my other car.

I love the ZLE ... both on the track and on the road. Those that find it too harsh on the road perhaps bought the wrong car. Even my wife thinks the ride and handling on the road is perfect. The ZLE is the real deal, not a 'looks like a track car'.

Looking forward to seeing you when this ugly pandemic thing is over.

Did you get a chance to run Area 27 this year?

My wife would disagree on the ride quality. She thinks my ZLE rides like a covered wagon. What does she know. Every time I drive my car the taut suspension reminds me this is a race car and I grin.

[TrackClub]

More on the same subject (specifically corner entry) from Ross per his recent Speed Secrets Weekly email.
Great explanation, that points to an ability to FEEL what the car balance is doing as a prerequisite to fast laps.
Once again, if you are not subscribed to these nuggets of wisdom, i highly recommend them!

Manage corner entry understeer with more or less trail braking.
We all know that more load on the front tires results in them having more traction. We also know that the front tires can only do so much, and too much load will overload them (leading to them sliding too much).

So, picture this: You’re approaching your favorite near-180-degree, 2nd-gear corner. You’re in top gear as you get to the brake zone, and you know that getting a good exit out of it onto the next straightaway is critical. Given that, you have two separate goals in mind:
Getting the car rotated so you can get back to full throttle early.
Carrying speed through the corner so you begin accelerating from as high a speed as possible.
In other words, you want it all. Welcome to the greedy world of performance driving!

As you turn into the corner, the front end starts to push. Understeer. The front tires are just not gripping the way you want, to be able to carry entry speed and get the car’s direction changed enough so you can accelerate early out of the corner. What do you do?

You have two options:
Trail brake more to keep load on the front tires.
Trail brake less to give the front tires the ability to generate cornering grip.
So, the solution to understeer is to either trail brake more or less. How do you know which to do?

Let’s zoom in on what you do from the turn-in point to the apex.

You begin to release the brakes as you turn in. You’re fine-tuning your corner entry speed, while managing the load on the front tires. As you ease off the brakes, one of two things happen:
You notice the front of the car feeling more responsive, turning more.
You notice the front of the car feeling less responsive, turning less.
If, as you begin to release pressure off the brake pedal, you feel the front of the car gripping more, then continue to ease off. But if you feel the understeer getting worse as you ease off the brakes, just stop releasing them for a brief moment – hold the pressure there, and then slowly continue to release them. Doing this, you’re managing the amount of load on the front tires, controlling the amount of grip the front tires have for changing the direction of the car. Of course, you’re also controlling your corner entry speed. Therefore, if you feel you’re over-slowing, ease up a little more off the brakes; if you’re carrying too much entry speed, hold that pressure for a moment.

You only have two options to focus on: releasing the brake pressure slower, or releasing them more quickly. By doing so you’re managing the load on the front tires, as well as your corner entry speed.

That’s a lot to sense and process in the fractions of a second you have entering a corner, isn’t it? I’m sure you can imagine Lewis Hamilton, Colin Braun, or Scott Dixon being able to do this, but you’re wondering whether you can. Or maybe you’re convinced you can’t do that. I disagree.

You can. But it takes practice, deliberate practice.

First, go back to imagining Hamilton, Braun or Dixon doing that. Go ahead, close your eyes and imagine them doing it, again and again. Now, substitute yourself for them. Imagine yourself approaching and entering that favorite 2nd-gear corner, managing the brake release to nail the perfect corner entry speed, while getting your car to rotate – controlling any amount of understeer there is – so you can fully commit back to full throttle early in the corner.

Next, spend a few days at the track solely focused on noticing how your car responds from turn-in to apex. Play with the timing and rate of release of the brakes, and you will improve your ability to know whether to release the brakes more, or continue to trail brake more.

[Norm Peterson]

You have two options:
Trail brake more to keep load on the front tires.
Trail brake less to give the front tires the ability to generate cornering grip.
So, the solution to understeer is to either trail brake more or less.

This has to be the first time I've seen both sides of the coin mentioned by somebody with instructor credentials. Normally, it seems all you get is the first, the part about keeping the front tires loaded, with no mention that demand for that grip is being split between the lateral and the longitudinal.

It can be quite the eye-opener when you get it right for your own car and it actually wants to find apexes.


Norm

[TrackClub]

Originally Posted by Norm Peterson

This has to be the first time I've seen both sides of the coin mentioned by somebody with instructor credentials. Normally, it seems all you get is the first, the part about keeping the front tires loaded, with no mention that demand for that grip is being split between the lateral and the longitudinal.

It can be quite the eye-opener when you get it right for your own car and it actually wants to find apexes.


Norm

Very well said, Norm, and exactly my thoughts, too. The only other instance of this being mentioned (that i recall), was a comment by my extraordinary friend (now deceased, unfortunately) Sir Derek Hanson (Chief Instructor for BMW and Ferrari clubs in Canada). He once noted, that if one trail braked and got understeer, if the trial braking continued, or worse, increased in brake pressure: the understeer would only worsen, as the tires were already overloaded and unable to neither brake, not turn effectively.

Of course, the reverse still very much applies, as in: insufficient weight on front tires to maintain turn in grip.

Both instances - are more often than not - driver induced.
Or, at the very least: can be driver induced, regardless of how well a car is balanced handling wise. But, both can also be solved by a driver!

That's why, i continue to advocate, that a driver's ability to FEEL/SENSE the F and R grip is paramount to fast laps.
So is an ability to MODULATE brakes all the way from initial application, to mid corner (based on the above) to effectively maintain highest grip possible all the way to apex. NB And to this end, lower vs higher torque pads are a more effective tool for majority of us amateurs (but not only, as many pros also prefer them for this very reason).

Cheers!

[Tachitup]

Hey Bill,

I thought of you on Sunday afternoon when we were lapping at TMP. It was 8 or 9 degrees C, with a cool breeze. But somehow there seemed to be lots of traction. Was running my '67 and playing with the guys in their BMW's that don't like to drive with helmets.

Hope to see you next year buddy.

[TrackClub]

Originally Posted by Tachitup

Hey Bill,

I thought of you on Sunday afternoon when we were lapping at TMP. It was 8 or 9 degrees C, with a cool breeze. But somehow there seemed to be lots of traction. Was running my '67 and playing with the guys in their BMW's that don't like to drive with helmets.

Hope to see you next year buddy.

Ditto here Jud! Planning on arriving much earlier next year and making up for too short a season this year.
Looking forward to checking out your beast in action!
Stay well and safe. Cheers!

[shogun37]

google 'traction pie'

almost all my track time is on 2 wheels so I do very little trail-braking and if I do it's on the rear wheel. Unfortunately can't do that in a car nor have the precision that hand control offers over the incredibly blunt instrument that is a leg.

It will be interesting to learn.

[Norm Peterson]

Originally Posted by shogun37

google 'traction pie'

I did, and it's a good thing I read through the msgroup's 'dumbness personified' article. MSF is at best only presenting a snapshot of what's happening at some specific instant.

It's good to see that msgroup corrects this to friction circle thinking, and better still to see this refined to elliptical ("oblong") terms. Too bad they didn't take it just a little further and mention where, if you had the necessary g-g datalogging, you could plot what amounts to the complete video of tire traction demands up to, through, and out of a corner, all in one plot.

almost all my track time is on 2 wheels so I do very little trail-braking and if I do it's on the rear wheel. Unfortunately can't do that in a car nor have the precision that hand control offers over the incredibly blunt instrument that is a leg.

What you said there leads me to think that motorcycle riding might actually get in the way of some of us learning heel-toe in a car. On a bike, your foot is solidly indexed on the peg and you're only using your ankle, which is not quite as imprecise of an instrument as an entire leg. I know I index my heel on the floor in a car, which seems to work very well for pedal modulation at the expense of making H-T difficult and very much unnatural-feeling. I used to do a little street riding, but that was decades ago.

Way off-topic, I suspect the number '32' has some meaning, right?


Norm

[shogun37]

The MSF version of the doc wouldn't have been my first choice of a source, rather Reg Pridmore and Keith Code talk about it too. But anyway the principle holds.

'32' is just a random number I tack on. Now I should have chosen 73 because it's the perfect number - 73 is the 21st prime number. Its mirror, 37, is the 12th and its mirror, 21, is the product of multiplying 7 and 3.