10 Biggest Mistakes On Track

[ninjabones]

Well, my season is over, so I've had nothing to do but work on my car (suspension upgrade in process), read (just finished both Templeman's and Macbeath's data logging manuals), and ponder over some of the many mistakes I've made this season.  I came across this great article on the SCCA website and thought I'd share.  Perhaps this article will provide a springboard for a discussion on some of the mistakes we've made, lessons learned, and pointers for prevention.

The three most common and costly rookie mistakes are the early apex, the missed downshift, and "the lift".  I, for one, have made every mistake on the attached list, including an early apex at Watkins Glen (turn 10) on my 4th DE event, which resulted in a pretty nasty crash. 

Every time I get behind the wheel, I think about that mistake.  I go through a mental checklist, part of which consists of compulsively repeating "don't be early, brake first - then downshift, don't lift... "  Perhaps obsessive compulsive behaviors, but it works for me.  Anyone else with some anecdotes?

 

Top 10 Basic Driving Mistakes :

Mistake #1: Improper Driving Position
The proper driving position is important because it helps you get the optimal feedback from your car's chassis while also keeping you from getting fatigued.
First, your seat should be adjusted so that you are able to depress the clutch completely and perform heel/toe braking without banging your knee on the steering column. You should also be able to use the dead pedal for support through high-g turns. Your shoulder harness should be tight so that you do not need to rely upon the steering wheel for support.
Next, you should have a 90- to 120-degree bend in your elbows with your hands in the proper 3 and 9 o'clock positions on the steering wheel. This will allow you to make a 180-degree turn of the wheel when you need to correct an oversteer slide.
Ideally, your thumbs should be in contact with the 3 and 9 spokes on the steering wheel. This gives you more direct feedback from the front suspension in case of an understeer situation. (Note: Since formula car and sports racer steering wheels are smaller in diameter, your arms should be straighter and have less bend at the elbows).
Finally, your butt should be tucked firmly into the seat back so that you can get feedback from the chassis and up through the seat. This will give you a better feel as to what the rear end of the car is doing. In keeping with the Zen philosophy of racing, you should become one with your car. Get comfortable, go faster.

Mistake #2: Failure to Look Ahead
The most common driving mistake in both autocross and road racing is failure to look far enough ahead.
As street drivers, many of us become lazy and look only between the A pillars (those down posts which border the edges of our windshield). On a race track, because of the planning and high speeds involved, this will not get the job done. You must condition yourself not only to look much farther ahead, but out the left and right side windows as well.
Entering a corner, as you are doing your braking and downshifting, you must be looking ahead to the apex of the corner. Before you reach the apex, you should be looking ahead to your track-out point. In "S" turns, often you have to be looking ahead to the second apex, rather than the corner you are in. In this case, you must trust your peripheral vision to take care of the first apex.
The rule of thumb is, "The faster the car, the farther you must look ahead." The malady of "driving off your hood" is one that relegates many race drivers to slower cars while other competitors make the transition to higher powered cars with ease.
If you are limited in terms of track time, practice looking much farther ahead and out side windows as you negotiate off-ramps and corners on back roads. If looking ahead becomes habitual, you are much more likely to use the technique on the race track. And no, I am not advocating that you adjust your street driving speed upward to match your newfound, long-range vision. That ticket is on you.

Mistake #3: Improper Braking Technique
If you often brake too early for a corner, you may find that looking ahead will cure your problem. When you know where the apex and track-out points are located, it is much easier to know when to ease off the brake pedal and precisely how much to release it. However, you may have other braking problems which do not vanish so easily.
Some drivers brake hard enough in a straight line to slow their car down for the corner, but then they totally release the brake or go to the throttle before they get to the apex of the corner. They transfer the weight off the front tires and onto the rear wheels just when they need their steering the most. This can cause the car to go into an understeer skid. 
In order to keep the weight on the front and the tire contact patches expanded for optimal steering, you should use trail braking. Trail braking is simply continuing to apply a diminishing percentage of braking until you complete your turn into the apex. The transition from trail braking to the apex and the application of throttle to the track-out point should be smooth and seamless so as not to upset the chassis.

Mistake #4: Improper Downshift Technique
More correctly, this should be called "Improper Brake and Downshift Technique," since it is difficult to separate the two. I would like to explain the entire sequence of heel-and-toe braking and downshifting; that would be an article in itself, however, so I will not.
Simply put, the theory of the heel-and-toe downshift is this: When braking and downshifting prior to a corner, you must brake in a straight line while simultaneously clutching the car, revving the engine to match the speed of the drive wheels, putting the car into a lower gear and then releasing the clutch without upsetting the tire contact patches and suspension in the process.
For those of you who do not know how to heel-and-toe downshift, you may want to go to Bob Bondurant's or Skip Barber's driving schools. For those of you who know how to heel-and-toe downshift, but are still not doing it as smoothly as you would like (i.e.: you are chirping the tires when you downshift), here are a few tips:
· With your car in neutral and with the engine running, practice putting pressure on the brake pedal with the ball of your foot while swinging your heel and the outside of your foot over onto the gas pedal. Please, do not touch the shift lever!
· Using constant brake pedal pressure, try to rev the engine up to a reasonable rpm and hold it there. Repeat the process, pivoting your foot from left to right until you feel you can do this with consistent repeatability. Your tire chirping problem is probably due to your lack of revving your engine up high enough or blurping the throttle and downshifting too slowly.
· Practice your downshifts at your next autocross event or on an uninhabited back road. Better yet, take a refresher driving school course until you have your heel/toe downshift perfect. Good braking and downshifting is essential if you want to improve your lap times. (Not everyone, however, is impressed with a good heel/toe downshift technique. Mr. Holland, my high school driver education teacher, marked me off for doing it.)

Mistake #5: Apexing Too Early
On most race courses, there are far more late-apex corners than early-apex corners. So, if you want to be successful in autocross or road racing, you had better get used to learning how to drive late-apex corners. At driving schools, where cones mark the turn-in points, apexes and track-out points, you may not have a problem. But what about driving an unfamiliar track? For a better understanding of this problem, please refer to the illustration below.
There is an easy way to determine the location of the apex for a corner. Work backwards from the track-out point, to the apex, then to the turn-in point. Ideally, you want to exit the corner in as straight a line as possible. This will help you maintain momentum and maximize straightaway speed.
When dealing with more than one corner (See illustration below), where the last corner in the series leads onto a long straightaway, you must often sacrifice your entry speed into the first corner to get more exit speed off of the last corner. It is better to "go in slow and come out fast" when exiting onto a straight.
Apexing too early is the number one killer of straightaway momentum. The symptoms of apexing too early are as follows: You turn into the corner where you think the apex should be, but upon exiting the corner, you find that you need excessive steering input just to stay on the track. You have major understeer and you are scuffing off way too much speed at the track-out point as you exit the corner. Go back and study the line of this part of the track again. You may be apexing too early.

Mistake #6: Premature Acceleration
If you are not apexing too early, you may be suffering from premature acceleration. While embarrassing, premature acceleration is not a condition you have to live with forever. However, the cure does require patience and control.
It is not enough to brake and downshift properly and turn into the apex at the right point if you still are going to apply the throttle too early in a corner. Be patient. Trail brake long enough to get the nose of your car pointed at the apex and aligned with your track-out point. Why accelerate before you have the car pointed in the right direction? When you transition to throttle, do so smoothly without upsetting the chassis, but be ready to go to the throttle when you reach your last apex and the car is pointed down the straight.

Mistake #7: Not Using the Entire Track
If you watch professional F1 drivers, you will notice that they use every last inch of the race track, including the flat curbs. All too often I follow students who have great technique but who do not use the entire race track. This hurts their lap times tremendously. When asked, "Why aren't you using the whole track?" they usually respond with surprise, "I thought I was."
At some time during practice, you should touch the curbs slightly so that you know you are using the entire track. Next, you should find out which of the flat curbs will help or hurt your lap times. Racing is a game of inches. Inches become tenths of a second. A tenth of a second on each corner can turn into a full second per lap.

Mistake #8: Failure to Compensate for Slip Angles
Everyone knows that race cars slide or drift through corners, but not all race drivers completely understand the effects of slip angles or the direction of drift.
If you are braking, downshifting and turning into a corner correctly, but are still not near the apex, you may not be compensating for the slip angle of your car. Perhaps you are aiming for the apex cone, but you just cannot seem to hit it correctly.
The fix may be relatively easy. Aim behind the apex cone, imagining a "false" or "phantom" apex cone is there. By compensating for your car's slip angle, you will probably hit the apex precisely. This may take some experimentation as you may compensate too much or too little for the slip angle while finding your phantom apex.

Mistake #9: Killing your Momentum in Traffic
While this driving mistake does not apply to autocross racing, it is most definitely one of the most common and frustrating problems for inexperienced race drivers. Getting boxed in. Losing your momentum. Getting stuck behind a slower car. Being unable to pass for a lap or two. Does this sound familiar?
The best solution to this problem is early recognition of the slower driver. Notice where he is on the track now and where he most likely will be when you want to pass him. Depending on your race pace, you may either need to speed up or slow down to pass him at the point where your momentum will not be diminished dramatically.
You may have to hustle and out-brake the lapper before the next series of slow "S" turns, or you may have to lay back a little and build momentum off a turn to pass him on the next straightaway. This is perfecting the art of looking ahead to the max.
If you get extremely proficient at this technique, you can use it to strategically sandwich a car that you are passing between you and a car that is in hot pursuit of you. Not only can looking ahead be used to maintain your own momentum, but it can be used to kill someone else's momentum. When it works, it is truly a thing of beauty.

Mistake #10: Poor Weight Management
Small tire contact patches are all that keep you from leaving the track. The faster you go, the more critical your contact patches become. Fast race drivers are masters of weight management. They shift weight smoothly and seamlessly from front to rear, from side to side in an effort to maximize traction and maintain speed around the track.
Great weight management requires an empathetic connection to a car's suspension and those tiny little tire contact patches. Smooth braking. Smooth throttle. Smooth weight transition while at speed. Balance. Touch. Feel. This is what separates the great drivers from the near-greats.
Once you have read all of the books on race driving and after you have learned all of the proper driving techniques, racing ultimately comes down to a couple of factors: How well you are communicating with your race car and how much in synch you are with the race track. Hopefully, at some point in time you will be able to concentrate less on the minute details of driving and start feeling like an artist who grows more confident with every bold brush stroke he puts down on canvas.

[bobt993]

One subject they are not covering is lifting "rolling" slow speed corners.  Between heavy trail braking and learning to lift in a turn to maximize corner speed, you start defending better with little or no sacrifice of lap times.   If your able to increase throttle during the mid-corner without driving off the track then you are entering way too slow.   It is difficult to teach and easy to get wrong, thus being slower than the traditional get on the throttle at the apex.  That method is a big portion of what separates pro drivers from weekend amateurs.  

The best lesson this year for me is change one thing at a time and organize your plan of how to test/analyze results.   Data is critical as long as you be very detailed on the results. 

[betegh9]

Good point Bob!
With rear engined cars, as ours, we learn to accelerate into the corner to keep the rear of the car planted, but I found that it is faster to either just maintain neutral (constant speed into the apex) from the turning point to the apex, or part throttle (slight acceleration) into the apex. Basically, I see-saw or titte totter between oversteer and understeer till the apex. Once I am at the apex, and I know that i can make the track out point, then I squeeze the throttle.

[AMoore]

I'm no expert but I usually finish my braking before turn in, and then feather the throttle while aiming toward the apex and hard throttle after the apex. This, of course, helps me keep the rear end planted.  If I am a little early to the apex, I can usually correct it with a bit of well timed throttle lift. 

[bobt993]

Aaron, 

What you are describing is correct driving by the driver's ed handbook.  If you start racing and need to pick up the pace, then you will need to re-learn corner entry.  It is a very difficult subject to explain and requires a  high level of confidence in driver skill.   A pro driver uses a very different entry and corner exit strategy, but I do not suggest attempting it without an advanced coach instructing you. 

[steveh]

This is my first season of racing, and getting "boxed in" by slower cars has been a real frustration. 

I race low-HP, high handling cars (Spec Miata and Spec Racer Renault), so momentum is that much more important.  Often, a "slower" car will be faster (or, at least as fast) on the straights, but slower in the twisties.  The challenge is to get past him when I have the handling advantage, and get far enough ahead that he can't re-pass when he has the HP advantage.

Finding and planning a place to pass can be tough, because it requires knowing just how much risk to take to make the pass pay off (I've had to use the curbing and even the grass a couple of times when the overtaken car did not give enough "racing room") and not end up in a bad place.  I understand that setting up a pass on a competitive car is "racecraft" and comes from experience.  Does anyone have any tips or techniques that have worked for you?

[bobt993]

Steve, 

One of the biggest mistakes is fighting with the wrong car in the wrong place.  Know your competition and where they are strong and weak on the track.  I spoke with another guy who started racing this year and he was having a battle with a car out of his class.  They were both close on lap times, but the combination was causing both of them to drop a second or two a lap.  I told him if he gets tangled up that more cars in his class are going to come up on him possibly losing positions. 

 I would suggest finding out what pace your competition is running especially the front running three.  Use practice to throw down a solid lap as a comparison and spend the rest of the time following your closest competition around.   My last race at Tbolt, I had at least 8 M3's in my class and some very fast drivers.  I followed a couple of the guys I knew would be tough through the final four turns of a complete lap (prior to checker) looking for a  difference in racing lines M3 vs 911.  One such turn gave me full confidence I could take an early apex and actually race under for the pass while blocking the exit to the next turn in point.  I practiced this on two M3's up a class successfully to use it when I needed a late race pass. 

Traffic is an art.  Look as far down track as you can, especially if your the faster class on the track.  Clusters on the straight usually mean the same in corners.   Eg: Summit Point I snatched 1st from 3rd in the last 4 turns of a hard fought race by letting P1-P2 battle for position and when they lost interest in me, I made my move with only 4 turns to the checker.  That one was close .2sec to 2nd, .8sec to 3rd.    Traffic was a huge factor as their battle was focused on each other and not the bottleneck in front of them. 

[steveh]

Solid advice.  Thanks.

In the EMRA Enduro at Summit this past weekend I got stuck behind a whole line of cars trying to pass an RX-7 (I passed him early, but he and the other cars caught me on the front straight).  Since we weren't "classed" in the Enduro, I was racing everybody, and found I had to climb back up this pack to get back to the RX-7, who really did not want to let anybody by (as close to blocking as I've seen -- he would not give anybody any room, even where they clearly had a right to it).

You're absolutely right about losing time, because the other spec racer, with whom my times were more or less comparable at the start, and who was able to stay in front of this group, managed to lap us about 1:20.xx into the race.  

[JoeP]

You guys need paintball guns out there.  The car with the most paint gets disqualified for being a Dick.

[bobt993]

Steve,  I thought Pinattas are a contact sport.  Why not punt him?  Hard to pass someone when your trying to get back on the track or stuck in the kittly litter in T1.   Ask Darren for some track video of his agression at SP chasing Todd Reid.  He would give  a slower car one  chance to move then simply rotated enough to get a good second ahead.