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11-20-2009, 10:26 AM
Eric,
Glad to hear you intend to take the R10 out….
Not 100 percent sure of your question about ABS.
My statement was that we should be learning to drive our cars without relying on ABS, traction control, stability control and what ever other tools are out there. Are these tools valuable? Yes, most certainly. But we should be learning how to drive the car. And part of driving the car (in my eyes) is to get to the point where we can move (slide) the front, or the rear, of the car by throttle input or brake modulation. In today’s world with ultra capable tires and computer designed suspensions the speed at which we are required to go to get the car to move is way up there. And when a mistake is made it’s often at speeds too great to recover from. This is one of the reasons skid pad is so important.
I’ve heard a number of people say ABS is the greatest…. You just drive up to the 200 ft mark and wail on the brake pedal. That may get you slowed down for the turn, but that’s not learning anything. Not to mention it’s not the best way to do it. I believe you should start into the brakes a little slower at first to get the car to transfer its weight to the front tires and then progressively get harder and harder until just before the ABS is required. Of course you will at times need to get into the ABS to see where that threshold is, but as a rule I don’t like to rely on ABS. In a racing world I don’t think that’s as valid. I can think of a few situations where you would brake very late into a turn and perhaps even to and slightly after the apex when required and you will most certainly get into the ABS once you start to turn the wheel and transfer the weight to the outside of the car. But that’s racing and not car control.
Did I answer your question?
Glad to hear you intend to take the R10 out….
Not 100 percent sure of your question about ABS.
My statement was that we should be learning to drive our cars without relying on ABS, traction control, stability control and what ever other tools are out there. Are these tools valuable? Yes, most certainly. But we should be learning how to drive the car. And part of driving the car (in my eyes) is to get to the point where we can move (slide) the front, or the rear, of the car by throttle input or brake modulation. In today’s world with ultra capable tires and computer designed suspensions the speed at which we are required to go to get the car to move is way up there. And when a mistake is made it’s often at speeds too great to recover from. This is one of the reasons skid pad is so important.
I’ve heard a number of people say ABS is the greatest…. You just drive up to the 200 ft mark and wail on the brake pedal. That may get you slowed down for the turn, but that’s not learning anything. Not to mention it’s not the best way to do it. I believe you should start into the brakes a little slower at first to get the car to transfer its weight to the front tires and then progressively get harder and harder until just before the ABS is required. Of course you will at times need to get into the ABS to see where that threshold is, but as a rule I don’t like to rely on ABS. In a racing world I don’t think that’s as valid. I can think of a few situations where you would brake very late into a turn and perhaps even to and slightly after the apex when required and you will most certainly get into the ABS once you start to turn the wheel and transfer the weight to the outside of the car. But that’s racing and not car control.
Did I answer your question?
Michael Andrews