Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / When in Doubt, Pit In: We go back to Racing School with EMRA!

Transcript

When in Doubt, Pit In: We go back to Racing School with EMRA! · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

• 0:00
  Grand Touring Motorsports started as a social group of car enthusiasts,
• 0:04
  but we've expanded into all sorts of motorsports disciplines, and we
• 0:08
  want to share our stories with you.
• 0:10
  Years of racing, wrenching, and motorsports experience brings
• 0:13
  together a top notch collection of knowledge and information
• 0:17
  through our podcast, Brake Fix.
• 0:22
  A little over 50 years ago, a few local car clubs joined together
• 0:26
  with the vision of building a better place to race in the Northeast.
• 0:29
  Since then, the Eastern Motorsports Racing Association, better known as EMRA,
• 0:34
  has grown to become one of the premier sanctioning bodies on the East Coast.
• 0:38
  EMRA's wheel to wheel racing series is designed to deliver
• 0:41
  close, competitive racing for all cars of all makes and models.
• 0:45
  And their goal is to provide top competition without
• 0:48
  sacrificing any of the enjoyment.
• 0:51
  EMRA members race hard, And always have fun.
• 0:55
  Good morning everybody, welcome to Pocono.
• 0:57
  I'm the chief instructor here at Emron, my name's Eric.
• 0:59
  I have over 10 years of instruction doing trialers, you
• 1:02
  know, racers, as well as HPDE.
• 1:04
  I was the 2018 ST5 champion here at uh, Emron.
• 1:09
  I founded Grand Touring Motorsports, I run a podcast, a
• 1:11
  bunch of other kind of fun stuff.
• 1:12
  My contact information is there, my card is here, if you want to
• 1:15
  get a hold of me after the fact.
• 1:17
  Go ahead and talk about what our priorities are for today.
• 1:20
  So first and foremost, the difference that you'll get in the classroom
• 1:24
  session here at Amron versus any other club that you go to is that
• 1:27
  we are gearing you up for racing.
• 1:29
  I am not here to coddle you, I'm not here to teach you how to drive, you
• 1:32
  got here safely so we're going to continue with that idea of safety
• 1:35
  is number one priority, but the end goal here is to get you to progress
• 1:39
  through the system and become a time trial, which is very different than a
• 1:42
  club racer or just somebody that does high performance driver's education.
• 1:46
  Thank you.
• 1:46
  Safety is number one, number two, I want you to have fun, and number three,
• 1:50
  you'll learn something as a result of that, and finally, going faster.
• 1:55
  Going faster is always the last thing, and we'll talk about that in the situations of
• 1:58
  where you have an instructor in the car.
• 2:00
  The methodology that we use, going fast, is always the last thing in the
• 2:04
  equation, and it will come naturally.
• 2:06
  You will get progressively faster.
• 2:08
  I have to go back over some of the things that are covered in the safety briefing.
• 2:12
  We're going to talk about your setup, we're going to talk about how
• 2:14
  to beat the clock, and we're also going to talk about So we're going
• 2:17
  to talk about advancement and what advancement is and what it's like.
• 2:20
  Safety first, there are all different kinds of students.
• 2:23
  We all learn in different ways.
• 2:25
  Coaches like myself and like Brad and others that are here, we are trained to
• 2:30
  adapt to who you are and how you learn.
• 2:32
  Some of you guys are auditory, some of you are visual, some of you are
• 2:35
  book people, whatever it might be.
• 2:37
  Let us know.
• 2:38
  You're not absorbing the information as it's being given
• 2:41
  to you from an instructor.
• 2:43
  Safety first.
• 2:43
  We have to adjust to that.
• 2:44
  We're going to learn.
• 2:45
  We're going to ask you questions.
• 2:46
  We want you to talk to us.
• 2:47
  There's going to be debrief sessions.
• 2:48
  We're going to be working with you.
• 2:49
  We're investing in you as a driver.
• 2:51
  So it's important that we understand that.
• 2:53
  We also need to learn your vocabulary.
• 2:55
  Certain words are going to be used and we're going to go over that as well.
• 2:58
  We're going to adapt throughout the day as we work with you.
• 3:01
  My number one rule, this is to shorten the entire safety briefing from this
• 3:05
  morning, is when in doubt, pit in.
• 3:08
  Okay, they talked about the black flag and, you know, losing
• 3:11
  laps and all this kind of thing.
• 3:13
  If you see a black flag, the natural reaction for anybody who's ever
• 3:16
  seen one is, well, was that for me?
• 3:18
  Was that for the guy in front of me?
• 3:19
  And then you're going around another lap going, am I going
• 3:21
  to see another black flag?
• 3:22
  Again, there's that doubt suddenly in your mind, just hit it.
• 3:25
  If something's vibrating on the car, something doesn't feel right, hit in.
• 3:31
  We'll go until it breaks, and then I know it's broken.
• 3:33
  But again, if there's that as a student, as a beginner, if there's doubt, come in.
• 3:38
  It's just easier for everybody, and it keeps the flow of the event moving.
• 3:41
  Number two rule, I guess, is always remember to take a safe approach.
• 3:46
  to learning anything at the track, right?
• 3:48
  Especially if this is your first time doing this.
• 3:50
  When you're driving on the street, I hate to say, anybody can go fast in a straight
• 3:55
  line by pressing down on the skinny pedal.
• 3:57
  It becomes really real at a racetrack when you go into a turn at 90 miles an
• 4:02
  hour and go, how do I get over there?
• 4:05
  It's not the same as when you're on the highway.
• 4:07
  It's just a totally different animal here.
• 4:09
  So safety first.
• 4:10
  Take a safe approach.
• 4:11
  Build up to the speed.
• 4:13
  You guys saw the flag briefing this morning.
• 4:16
  I'd like to cover it again.
• 4:17
  I summarize this.
• 4:18
  Just know your colors.
• 4:19
  The basics are simple.
• 4:20
  Red, stop.
• 4:21
  Green, go.
• 4:22
  Checkered, it's over.
• 4:23
  It's all the nuances of the other flags that are really, really important.
• 4:27
  Different organizations do the flags a little differently.
• 4:30
  Sometimes you'll see variations in the blue flag.
• 4:33
  People go, what does the yellow stripe mean versus the orange?
• 4:36
  I've seen a red.
• 4:37
  They're all the same thing.
• 4:38
  NASCAR uses red, we use orange.
• 4:39
  PCA uses yellow as a stripe on the blue flag.
• 4:42
  But it all means, hey, there's a faster guy behind you.
• 4:45
  You're not paying attention, let him pop.
• 4:47
  All the rest of these, there's really nuances in the yellow
• 4:49
  flags and all that kind of thing.
• 4:51
  We're going to talk that.
• 4:52
  So my friends like to summarize what the flags mean, green is send it,
• 4:56
  you know, somebody else is sending it too hard, you're last chance to
• 4:58
  send it, all these kinds of content.
• 5:00
  But I really want to address some important use cases that they
• 5:03
  don't talk about in the safety briefings with respect to flags.
• 5:06
  This, the idea here, is that it gets you thinking.
• 5:08
  I'm going to ask, and somebody volunteer an answer.
• 5:11
  After a red flag has been shown, which color should be thrown next?
• 5:17
  You guys know the answer to that?
• 5:18
  Black flag.
• 5:19
  Black flag.
• 5:20
  Exactly.
• 5:20
  Why is that?
• 5:21
  Does anybody know?
• 5:24
  The reason is, in a full stop condition, as he said this morning, you stop
• 5:27
  by the closest flagger station.
• 5:30
  So they can see you, they can take accountability of everything
• 5:32
  that's going on on the track.
• 5:34
  The next logical conclusion is that they're going to bring you in.
• 5:36
  They red flagged that session because there was either a wreck or debris or
• 5:40
  something they needed to take care of.
• 5:41
  So that should already be in your mind, a doubt.
• 5:44
  Red flag.
• 5:45
  Oh, I'm not sure what's happening next.
• 5:46
  I'm going to come in.
• 5:47
  When in doubt, pit in.
• 5:49
  When the checkered flag is thrown, you should reduce your
• 5:51
  speed to 55 miles an hour.
• 5:53
  True or false?
• 5:55
  Show of hands for false?
• 5:56
  The answer is false.
• 5:58
  Right?
• 5:58
  You can continue at your pace.
• 6:00
  Obviously you're going to slow down as you pit in and come into pit lane.
• 6:04
  But there are some people that will drop anchor on track when
• 6:07
  they see the checkered flag.
• 6:08
  No.
• 6:09
  There's a lot of folks out there, especially if you're running in
• 6:11
  mixed group or you just got advanced.
• 6:13
  They want to come in, they want to check their tire pressures, they
• 6:15
  want to check their temperatures.
• 6:17
  The car needs to be at a certain temperature to do all that kind of stuff.
• 6:19
  So be respectful of that.
• 6:20
  Just keep the pace.
• 6:21
  You can start to back off, but you don't need to just drop down to 45, you know,
• 6:25
  kind of put your way into the track.
• 6:27
  When you see a standing yellow versus a waving yellow, does anybody know
• 6:31
  the difference between those two?
• 6:33
  It's actually really important.
• 6:35
  Standing yellow, you see a flagger just holding a yellow flag.
• 6:38
  It means that there is a precaution condition still existing in
• 6:42
  that particular apartment.
• 6:43
  It's not active, it's being taken care of.
• 6:45
  So it's a reminder, hey there's a dead groundhog here, there's something going
• 6:48
  on here, there's a car that's off.
• 6:49
  If the flags are waving, it means a currently active caution condition.
• 6:53
  Like somebody just went off, they're trying to get your attention because
• 6:57
  this is new cautionary activity.
• 7:00
  So that's the big difference between standing and waving.
• 7:02
  Double versus single, things like that, that's all based on the flag
• 7:05
  routines and how they like to do things.
• 7:07
  Some will use double yellows instead of waving yellows.
• 7:10
  Those are just nuances, but understand standing versus waving.
• 7:14
  There's an importance factor there, and that translates to black flags as well.
• 7:18
  A pointed or standing black is very different than a waving black flag.
• 7:22
  You guys need to come in, when in doubt, pin it.
• 7:27
  Which flags indicate a caution situation?
• 7:31
  Yellow.
• 7:31
  Do you guys know?
• 7:32
  Yellow's one of them.
• 7:34
  It's the obvious one.
• 7:35
  Black.
• 7:36
  Red.
• 7:36
  Red, no.
• 7:37
  Oh.
• 7:38
  The other one is It starts with a W, the white flag.
• 7:42
  All of those are cautionary flags, right?
• 7:45
  Say you're in an organization doing hot pulls like NASA, you've got emergency
• 7:48
  vehicles out on track, you need to be aware that's a caution situation
• 7:51
  when you see a white flag as well.
• 7:54
  After two laps, the debris flag was shown, the hazard was cleared, true or false?
• 8:00
  False.
• 8:00
  Yes, the answer is exactly false.
• 8:03
  You need to be constantly aware of what's going on on the track.
• 8:07
  You'll hear a lot, especially from instructors, get your eyes up, get
• 8:09
  your eyes up, you should actually be scanning the asphalt and things in
• 8:13
  the distance because that gopher or that puddle of oil, or maybe we use
• 8:18
  some oil dry, which is basically kitty litter on the track, still there.
• 8:21
  The conditions of the track surface have changed.
• 8:24
  In bad weather, it's the same thing, drying versus wet and all
• 8:27
  of those situations in between.
• 8:29
  You have to be constantly.
• 8:30
  Scanning up and down, and then thinking about the conditions of the track surface.
• 8:34
  So just because the debris flag got taken away doesn't mean that
• 8:37
  the asphalt is completely clear.
• 8:39
  You need to gauge that for yourself.
• 8:40
  There's been plenty of people that have been surprised, but I don't know, my
• 8:43
  car stepped out suddenly in that turn.
• 8:45
  Well, there was a debris flag that got taken away a couple laps ago, so maybe
• 8:48
  there's something still there which flags indicate that you should return to the pit
• 8:56
  black flags and B checkers and B blue flag.
• 9:00
  It's an assumed, oh, the red flag, right, because the black flag comes next.
• 9:06
  In the case of an accident, and you don't see a flag at a station, you should
• 9:10
  assume the following color is present.
• 9:14
  Red.
• 9:16
  It's going to be immediately a yellow, followed by a black.
• 9:20
  So if you see a car go off, and an accident happens in front of you, pit in.
• 9:24
  Because the next flag out is going to be a black or a red.
• 9:27
  Caution's going to be thrown, that's obvious.
• 9:29
  But, again, if something happens and the flaggers haven't reported,
• 9:33
  you see it, don't just keep going.
• 9:34
  Just come in.
• 9:35
  Because you know what happens next.
• 9:36
  Again, this is thinking ahead.
• 9:38
  Again, when in doubt, pit in.
• 9:40
  This one doesn't get covered often.
• 9:41
  They talked about putting your fist out the window, and we're going
• 9:43
  to go over this again in a minute.
• 9:45
  The pit in signal.
• 9:47
  True or false, is an implied blue flag, is an implied pass, yes or no?
• 9:51
  True.
• 9:53
  False.
• 9:54
  True.
• 9:54
  The answer is true.
• 9:55
  If somebody gives you a pin in signal, in this case we're gonna be on the left,
• 9:59
  but generally on the right, and they're pulling off, that's your indication,
• 10:02
  that's a passing signal, you can go around them with caution, just be careful,
• 10:05
  make sure they don't do anything weird.
• 10:07
  But you don't have to sit behind them.
• 10:08
  I've seen plenty of people sit behind somebody that's
• 10:10
  saying that they're pitting in.
• 10:11
  You can go right around them.
• 10:12
  That's an implied pass.
• 10:13
  It's very important.
• 10:14
  Especially if you're out there, you're competing, you're in the enduro or
• 10:17
  something, somebody's got to come in.
• 10:18
  Why sacrifice that lap?
• 10:19
  You can go right around them and keep going.
• 10:21
  That is allowed.
• 10:23
  If you see a black flag and you're not sure what it's for, what should you do?
• 10:26
  I want to hear you all say it.
• 10:28
  Hit it in.
• 10:28
  Hit it in.
• 10:28
  There we go.
• 10:30
  I got to cover this too.
• 10:31
  Never get out of your car unless you see fire or heavy smoke, then
• 10:40
  you can bail immediately, right?
• 10:42
  Head to the closest wall to the closest corner station, whatever it is, get away
• 10:47
  from the vehicle as fast as you can.
• 10:49
  There are other organizations that actually do exit drills.
• 10:52
  You have to do within a certain amount of time, get unstrapped,
• 10:54
  all this kind of stuff.
• 10:55
  Don't try to be a firefighter.
• 10:57
  Your car's already on fire and don't forget there are things under
• 11:00
  the hood that act as catalysts.
• 11:02
  Opening the hood is one of the worst things you can do if there is a fire.
• 11:06
  It's just you're adding oxygen to it and you're making it worse.
• 11:09
  There are tracks out there though, personally going through this situation
• 11:12
  myself, where they're like, Here's an extinguisher, you can take care of it.
• 11:16
  And I'm like, I'm not a volunteer firefighter, I'm sorry.
• 11:18
  Remember, at that point, what flag will suddenly become active?
• 11:22
  Especially if there's a fire condition, right?
• 11:24
  Yellow flags, everybody's gonna slow down.
• 11:27
  They're gonna start black flagging, especially if the car's on fire.
• 11:29
  They need to take care of you right away.
• 11:32
  Again, for any other issues, mechanical, you hit the wall, whatever.
• 11:36
  Stay in your car, keep your helmet on.
• 11:39
  A lot of people immediately take their helmet on.
• 11:41
  The reason we tell you to keep your helmet on is because Say in worst case scenario,
• 11:46
  somebody's following you, you go off and they go off behind you or they suddenly
• 11:50
  target fixate on you and happen to go off.
• 11:52
  Maybe there's oil in that spot and they hit you and they hit you
• 11:56
  and you're in your car without your helmet on, you do the math.
• 11:58
  Stay with all your safety gear and stay in the car.
• 12:01
  You are better protected there.
• 12:03
  Unless there's a fire.
• 12:04
  There's a lot of words that are going to be used if you
• 12:08
  have an instructor in the car.
• 12:09
  I highlighted most of them here and we'll talk about them as we go through.
• 12:12
  A lot of us refer to this as just technical jargon.
• 12:15
  Many of us get overloaded with all these terms.
• 12:18
  But, Break, wait, turn in, turn out, unwind, open the wheel, means to
• 12:24
  open the wheel up, right, go back to straight, go, aim, means to fixate
• 12:29
  on something, and then both feet in, especially if you're in a spin condition.
• 12:32
  The rest of these words are all interchangeable.
• 12:35
  But what I talked about earlier, about being adaptable, especially with a
• 12:38
  coach in the car, is that we're going to learn the words that you use.
• 12:42
  So maybe I'm using aim, and you're like, focus.
• 12:44
  Alright, well I'm going to change to focus, because that resonates with you.
• 12:47
  That's the word you've told me that your brain is processing.
• 12:50
  So we're going to work with you on this.
• 12:51
  But there are these basic, you know, eight or ten terms,
• 12:54
  and you're going to hear that.
• 12:55
  Instructors are super concise, right?
• 12:57
  They're, in the beginning, repetitive on every corner.
• 12:59
  Do this, break here, turn now, gasp.
• 13:03
  If you're having a conversation in the car, you're not learning anything, right?
• 13:06
  It should be very direct, especially in the beginning, as somebody
• 13:09
  who's doing this for the first time, is what you need to do.
• 13:11
  We need to get you acclimated and oriented to the track as quickly as possible.
• 13:15
  So it means that you're going to be in a group of mixed Skill levels.
• 13:18
  You're going to have people that have been in red because the green students
• 13:21
  run with the red at the same time.
• 13:22
  They're out there solo, and they're mixed in.
• 13:25
  So we want the communication that we have, like we do with the track, right?
• 13:29
  Flags are our way of communicating, or the track communicating with us,
• 13:33
  the way we communicate to each other.
• 13:34
  We don't have comms in the car like they do with World Challenge or IMSA.
• 13:38
  You know, we can radio back and forth.
• 13:39
  The only thing we have are hand signals.
• 13:41
  And the hand signals need to be clear, they need to be early,
• 13:44
  and they need to be very direct.
• 13:46
  They cannot be ambiguous in any way.
• 13:48
  So I like to cover what a passing signal looks like.
• 13:51
  When you're passing on the left hand side, you want somebody to go around you on that
• 13:55
  side of the car, the left side of the car.
• 13:56
  It's demonstrative.
• 13:57
  It's big movements.
• 13:59
  1.
• 14:00
  5 per car.
• 14:01
  Go around me.
• 14:03
  If you want somebody to tuck inside of you on the right side
• 14:05
  of the car, up and over the roof.
• 14:07
  Get that arm under.
• 14:08
  None of these, like, T Rex arms.
• 14:10
  You see this all the time with the Miata guys.
• 14:11
  No offense.
• 14:12
  You have the smallest car in the world, and you can't get your arm out the window.
• 14:15
  I don't get it.
• 14:16
  Get them up there.
• 14:17
  Make it known that you want these people to go around you.
• 14:20
  Just be clear and be direct.
• 14:22
  No confusion.
• 14:22
  And it's 1.
• 14:23
  5 per vehicle.
• 14:25
  So if you have two cars behind you, 1.
• 14:27
  5.
• 14:28
  And then the next one.
• 14:29
  Now there's little two fingers, I can't see that.
• 14:32
  The other thing is, we tell people, not only for your own safety to
• 14:34
  wear gloves, get yourself gloves, get high vis colors, right?
• 14:39
  Because if you do this longer term, especially as you move up, a bright
• 14:42
  orange, a bright yellow is a lot easier to see, and I know I'm a hypocrite
• 14:45
  because I wear black all the time, but seeing that orange come up over the
• 14:48
  roof, boom, there's my passing signal.
• 14:52
  You are not allowed to pass until somebody gives you a point by it.
• 14:55
  So what does that mean?
• 14:56
  There's a negotiation there between you and the other car, whether
• 14:59
  you're the chasing car or you're the car that's being pursued.
• 15:03
  Waving in the mirror is what everybody says, but it's nuanced as well.
• 15:08
  If you're chasing somebody, And they say, they tap on the mirror and
• 15:11
  say, Hey, I see you there signaling behind say, yeah, it's over.
• 15:14
  Good.
• 15:15
  I'll give you a point by soon.
• 15:16
  You can't wave in the mirror either.
• 15:19
  You have to wait under it to say, Hey, I got you.
• 15:21
  Because if you have somebody behind you, then they're going,
• 15:23
  Hey, he's going to give me a pass.
• 15:24
  And then it gets all confusing and people, you know, again,
• 15:27
  miscommunication need to minimize that.
• 15:29
  So all you have in the car are your two arms.
• 15:32
  I know it's very busy, especially in a short course like we have today.
• 15:36
  Left arm is always commands.
• 15:38
  Do this.
• 15:39
  Pass me here.
• 15:40
  Pass me there.
• 15:41
  Inside the car is signals back and forth.
• 15:43
  You're communicating with the other car saying, no, I just
• 15:45
  want to follow you right now.
• 15:46
  Or, yeah, I got you.
• 15:47
  I see you're back there.
• 15:48
  I'm going to set this up as soon as I can.
• 15:50
  If you guys come to that agreement, that's what we try to teach you
• 15:53
  this stuff, common language amongst all of you, it becomes very easy.
• 15:56
  Passing is fluid.
• 15:57
  It's early.
• 15:58
  It can be done seamlessly.
• 16:00
  And we'll talk about doing it early and passing strategy and things like that.
• 16:05
  As I said before, pit in, fist out the window, 90 degree elbow.
• 16:09
  I mean, kart racers do this and they don't have windows, right?
• 16:11
  I'm pitting in.
• 16:13
  It's a universal signal for I've got to come in, you know,
• 16:15
  whether you have an issue or not.
• 16:16
  But again, it's an implied pass when that pit signal is out the window.
• 16:20
  Bonus question, which way are we going?
• 16:22
  I can't tell you how many times I've seen this before.
• 16:24
  I guess a helicopter is passing me, right?
• 16:27
  This is not a point by.
• 16:28
  It doesn't mean anything to anybody.
• 16:30
  It's either out or up and over, right?
• 16:33
  You gotta get that arm up and over the roof.
• 16:35
  Alright, still talking about safety and talking about
• 16:37
  driving technique, especially if you're out there by yourself.
• 16:40
  A lot of people talk about the ergonomics of seating position.
• 16:43
  I'm not here to tell you how to put your seat.
• 16:45
  There's got to be X amount of inches from the steering wheel.
• 16:47
  You know, I don't want to see anybody like lean back, but there's three
• 16:51
  different hand positions you can use when you're driving a car out on track,
• 16:54
  especially when you're competing.
• 16:55
  You can go with the classic 10 and 2.
• 16:58
  You can do 9 and 3, and then what we call low grip or cart style, which is 7 and 4.
• 17:01
  A lot of guys are comfortable with that because they don't
• 17:03
  have to put in a lot of movement.
• 17:04
  The idea is that you still have the same range of motion when you're working
• 17:08
  the steering wheel at that point.
• 17:09
  No one handed, no resting on the shifter, none of that kind of stuff.
• 17:13
  Put your hands in position.
• 17:15
  Because remember, this isn't like driving on the street.
• 17:17
  And when you go to a more complicated track, let's say like
• 17:19
  Shenandoah Circuit, right, that Emra goes to, 17 turns in 2 miles.
• 17:24
  You never get a break.
• 17:25
  So you need to know exactly where your hands are because you're shuffling
• 17:28
  all the way through that track.
• 17:30
  Leads us into a segue about fixed steering versus shuffle steering.
• 17:34
  So a lot of guys, when they first get out there, their first time,
• 17:37
  they're anxious, they're nervous.
• 17:38
  I've seen some guys just vein out, they're gripping the steering
• 17:41
  wheel like they're at the gym.
• 17:42
  It's like, chill out, relax, find a comfortable arm position in any
• 17:46
  one of those three positions, and just work with the car, right?
• 17:49
  Don't overstress.
• 17:50
  But, be mindful, every car is different.
• 17:52
  You need to learn what the kind of steering ratio is.
• 17:55
  Don't forget that.
• 17:55
  I hate to say the term, like trucks, and others are like Mini Coopers,
• 17:58
  where they're like go karts, right?
• 17:59
  So you get into this debate, and some people, it's almost a religion, they're
• 18:03
  like, never move your hands from the steering wheel, just pick your position.
• 18:08
  And then when they end up in, I hate to say it, a Code Brown moment,
• 18:11
  they're doing one of these numbers, because their steering ratio is
• 18:14
  so big, they can't turn anymore.
• 18:15
  And they're like, well, the car won't go!
• 18:18
  Well that then gets into a debate about shuffle steering.
• 18:21
  There's the classic shuffle steering, where you're doing all this
• 18:23
  movement, and it's not efficient.
• 18:25
  for driving here on the track, and you see a lot of autocrossers shuffle steer.
• 18:29
  What I try to propose to people is a combination of the two.
• 18:33
  It's a pre placement or pre positioning of your hand, and you bring it to the
• 18:37
  point where you want to execute that turn.
• 18:40
  So your steering wheel may be turned down here, but your hand is
• 18:43
  right where it needs to be at like 10 and 3 and whatever, so you're
• 18:45
  doing like a slight shuffle steer.
• 18:47
  You'll learn all this kind of stuff, and your instructors will
• 18:49
  work with you on like what's the best approach, learning about your
• 18:52
  car, you know, things like that.
• 18:53
  But hand placement and how you use it.
• 18:58
  You're going to realize how short this is and how busy it is at the same time that
• 19:02
  you're going to need to find something that gives you a nice rhythm to work with
• 19:05
  the car through these chicanes as you're, as you're getting through the program.
• 19:09
  And again, everybody's got their style.
• 19:11
  I'm not here to critique, but your instructor is going to work with you on
• 19:14
  what's safe for track use versus driving on the street and all that kind of stuff.
• 19:18
  Other things I want to address with respect to shifting.
• 19:22
  Show of hands who's in a manual transmission car.
• 19:25
  Okay, good amount of you.
• 19:26
  So this is really important for you guys.
• 19:28
  It doesn't really get talked about a lot.
• 19:30
  Because again, the assumption is you know how to drive.
• 19:32
  But there's a lot of mistakes that have been made over the years with respect
• 19:36
  to, You know, you hear a guy, I blew up my transmission, or I money shifted,
• 19:40
  and you know, I flipped the car over.
• 19:41
  You hear all these ridiculous stories, these big fish stories,
• 19:44
  but they're actually true.
• 19:45
  And some of it comes from really, really simple things that we have forgotten from
• 19:50
  driving on the street for so many years.
• 19:52
  We all sort of learn how to overhand shift, right?
• 19:54
  Kind of just meatball the shifter and go through the gears.
• 19:57
  What ends up happening is, this is a physiological thing.
• 20:00
  When we shift that way, the natural tendency for our
• 20:04
  elbow is to come to our hip.
• 20:05
  It's just how our body is designed.
• 20:07
  So you hear the guy say, I'm going to shift it.
• 20:08
  I grab second gear instead of fourth, coming out of fifth
• 20:11
  gear, going into that turn.
• 20:12
  Why?
• 20:13
  Because you grabbed it like this, and pulled it towards yourself, and yanked
• 20:16
  second gear, and that was the end of that.
• 20:18
  So, what we've done is we've come up with a couple alternatives, and you can try
• 20:22
  these, and practice them on the street.
• 20:23
  If you're not comfortable doing it here at the track, you can practice
• 20:26
  in the paddock, whatever have you.
• 20:27
  The overhand shifting method, kind of still continue that, but what we recommend
• 20:32
  is moving to what is called palming.
• 20:34
  So you're kind of slapping 3rd and 4th by using your palm to move the
• 20:39
  gear selector through 3rd, that way.
• 20:41
  So that way you're not grabbing it and pulling it towards yourself.
• 20:45
  There's also the concept of underhand shifting, which is what
• 20:48
  I do, which physically forces the shifter away from my body.
• 20:52
  I'm pushing it away, and I'm pulling it back this way, especially when
• 20:55
  I grab fourth and sixth gears.
• 20:58
  There's no way for me to put it in second gear because I can't physically
• 21:02
  do this without becoming a T Rex.
• 21:03
  So shifters.
• 21:08
  And we'll talk more about feet position as we go through
• 21:11
  advanced driving techniques later.
• 21:12
  Important reminders!
• 21:14
  They probably covered this already.
• 21:16
  If they didn't, I'll remind you again.
• 21:17
  No loose art in the car.
• 21:19
  If you have something in the windshield, like a suction cup
• 21:22
  for a GoPro or whatever, a lot of tracks require you to tether it.
• 21:25
  Tethering is just put a zip tie on it somewhere on a
• 21:28
  bench or something like that.
• 21:28
  Because if that suddenly comes loose with your windows down, it
• 21:32
  flies out the window, is now a projectile, and we got a debris flag.
• 21:36
  And potentially meatball fly if it busts somebody's windshield.
• 21:38
  So anything like that, make sure it's secured in the car.
• 21:42
  And I know the ram mounts are awesome, but they, on a hot day with the
• 21:46
  right angle, they will pop loose too.
• 21:47
  And you see GoPros just flying out the car or bouncing around inside your car.
• 21:51
  You create another hazard at that point.
• 21:53
  Clean and clear windshield.
• 21:55
  Again, your seating position is up to you and your belts.
• 21:57
  Make sure that everything is tight.
• 21:59
  If you have a three point system and not like harnesses, like some of us have,
• 22:03
  consider getting yourself a CG lock.
• 22:05
  Especially if you find yourself kind of loose in the car and
• 22:07
  fighting in the car, CG locks are great to keep the belts tight.
• 22:10
  Sometimes guys have them here where you can buy them from like safety providers
• 22:13
  and there's that very cheap upgrade for the car and for your safety too.
• 22:17
  Something else they didn't talk about and it's not going to exist on this
• 22:20
  track configuration is the blend line.
• 22:23
  Does anybody know what the blend line is?
• 22:25
  You do.
• 22:26
  You got all the answers.
• 22:27
  It's when you're coming out of the pits onto a hot track or even not a hot track
• 22:31
  and you You want to stay in that line, because if you go out, you, if someone's
• 22:36
  coming behind you, they can smack and just cause a collision all around.
• 22:39
  So safety is always the number one priority, right?
• 22:42
  And there are certain tracks that we joke, like Shenandoah Circuit
• 22:45
  and Summit, where's the blend line?
• 22:47
  It's about three feet long, because there is none, right?
• 22:50
  And Pocono North is going to be very similar too.
• 22:52
  They're going to lead you out onto that bowl as you come around.
• 22:55
  But the blend line is really, really important.
• 22:57
  As you come to more EMRA events, as you go to other places and you experience
• 23:01
  more tracks, The idea is that if there is a condition at a track where there is
• 23:05
  a blend line, the direction is to take that line, to stay to the right, all
• 23:09
  the way to the apex of the first corner.
• 23:11
  And there's some tracks, like Summit Point Main, where it's like
• 23:14
  a half a mile away, and people are like, oh, I can just cut over.
• 23:17
  No, you can't.
• 23:18
  There's something known as track etiquette, and the etiquette
• 23:21
  everywhere you go in every club is taught the same way.
• 23:23
  Maintain that blend line.
• 23:24
  The idea is, at some point, the straightaway's downhill, it's
• 23:28
  blind, you got somebody coming out of turn 10, rocketing on you at
• 23:32
  140 miles an hour, and you just decide to cut over and start finish.
• 23:35
  That doesn't work.
• 23:36
  That's a recipe for a wreck.
• 23:38
  So the blend line's really important.
• 23:39
  Here, again, you're going to be pushing out into the bowl and coming down.
• 23:43
  You know, one car at a time, they're going to let you guys out,
• 23:45
  but the blend line is important.
• 23:46
  All right, so quick do's and don'ts.
• 23:48
  I won't go over all these.
• 23:50
  Make sure when you're out there, check your flag stations, keep your eyes up.
• 23:54
  Smooth inputs, right?
• 23:56
  We'll talk more about what smooth means.
• 23:58
  Be very direct with the car when you're on track.
• 24:00
  This isn't a lazy river, you're not on the street, turn in, turn, right?
• 24:04
  Commit that car.
• 24:05
  When you're braking, commit, be confident.
• 24:07
  No double breaking.
• 24:08
  You're like, break once, you realize, well, I slowed down too much.
• 24:11
  Well, then break later, right?
• 24:12
  It needs to be very consistent, very direct inputs to the car.
• 24:15
  When we talk about advanced driving, some of these things go from don'ts to
• 24:19
  dos, like bumper hanging, showing that you want to pass, things like that.
• 24:22
  Don't force it.
• 24:24
  If the car tells you a lot when you're out on track, if it doesn't
• 24:27
  feel right, it's not right.
• 24:28
  It's like dancing.
• 24:28
  It's like a foreign language.
• 24:30
  If it doesn't sound right, if it doesn't feel right, it's not right.
• 24:32
  Your first session's on track.
• 24:33
  There's four steps to mastering any track.
• 24:36
  This first session you go out is orientation.
• 24:39
  You should not be going out there trying to put your best lap.
• 24:42
  It's cold.
• 24:43
  The sun is now up, the asphalt hasn't heated up, your tires aren't hot,
• 24:46
  your brain's not hot, the car's not hot, nothing's up to temperature.
• 24:49
  Use this opportunity to just learn where the track goes.
• 24:53
  How many right turns are on Pocono North?
• 24:55
  How many of this, you know, what kind of speed is out there?
• 24:57
  You know, how big is this corner?
• 24:59
  Things like that.
• 24:59
  Just get used to the track.
• 25:00
  Where are the flag stations?
• 25:01
  Where are the apex cones if they exist?
• 25:04
  Make mental notes of everything that's going on.
• 25:06
  Your second session should be all about memorization.
• 25:09
  Do it this way, do it that way, especially if you have an instructor in the car.
• 25:12
  He's going to tell you certain things, you want to do it that way, right?
• 25:14
  He's giving you the foundational building blocks to become a better driver.
• 25:17
  So, memorization.
• 25:18
  Just try to do it over and over again.
• 25:20
  Memorization brings consistency.
• 25:22
  And then from consistency, if you can master that, I'm not saying you
• 25:25
  have to do every turn perfectly, it's sort of like a busted clock, right?
• 25:29
  It's right there twice a day.
• 25:30
  Well, the same thing is true.
• 25:31
  As long as you're messing up the same way, in the same turn, and not
• 25:35
  doing the same turn a hundred ways, then we can work with that, right?
• 25:38
  Especially instructors, they can dial you in, we can work specifically on a
• 25:41
  corner, and if you're doing it wrong the same way, it actually makes it easier.
• 25:44
  So be consistent.
• 25:46
  And then after that, speed.
• 25:48
  By the end of the day, you'll realize how much faster you are, right?
• 25:51
  Then you were at the beginning if you follow these steps if you try
• 25:53
  to go out there now and just send it You're gonna have a miserable
• 25:56
  day Remember that Brad's here.
• 25:59
  I'm here.
• 25:59
  There's a couple other folks you can talk to you and you're not alone Don't
• 26:02
  feel like you're out there just sort of figuring out if we can put somebody in
• 26:05
  the right seat with you That's great.
• 26:07
  If you have a little bit more experience put you out there solo
• 26:10
  Work with each other as well.
• 26:11
  Buddy up with somebody.
• 26:12
  Hey, let's do some lead follow.
• 26:14
  You've done a bunch of track days.
• 26:15
  This guy in the cannon here, he might be like, Hey, I'll take two of you behind me.
• 26:18
  Just follow me around.
• 26:20
  And then you can break up.
• 26:20
  For those of you that do have a little bit more experience, and
• 26:22
  Red especially, try to help me out.
• 26:24
  Try to help Brad out in that respect too, as if we can do that.
• 26:27
  Then, you guys are working together.
• 26:29
  Again, you're not alone.
• 26:30
  This sport is not a sport of just solo people.
• 26:33
  It's not a team sport like football or soccer, but we do work together.
• 26:37
  Next session we're going to talk about vehicle dynamics and all sorts of other
• 26:40
  fun stuff and advanced driving techniques.
• 26:42
  Everybody come back here, we're going to do a download, talk about what the first
• 26:45
  session was like, and we'll go from there.
• 26:48
  Thank you.
• 26:56
  Well, most of you guys are back, so how was that first session?
• 26:59
  Pretty good.
• 27:00
  Yeah?
• 27:00
  No issues?
• 27:01
  Do you have thumbs down?
• 27:02
  Why?
• 27:03
  Um, my VTEC's so long, I don't know how to get into it.
• 27:06
  So, I gotta use a little bit.
• 27:08
  That's a racer right there.
• 27:10
  Do you guys know why?
• 27:11
  First thing you learn is excuses.
• 27:15
  Alright, so any other critiques, questions about the first session?
• 27:17
  Go ahead.
• 27:18
  There's that 86 NASCAR style car.
• 27:20
  Uh huh.
• 27:21
  No passes.
• 27:22
  The late model?
• 27:23
  Oh, yeah.
• 27:24
  Does he have a window net in?
• 27:25
  I didn't check.
• 27:26
  I couldn't see.
• 27:27
  I'll ask Brad to check.
• 27:28
  Do you know if he has a window net?
• 27:29
  I think he does.
• 27:30
  Yeah, so he's not going to give 5s.
• 27:32
  That's fair suggestion.
• 27:32
  And if you're catching a late model, we'll get that taken care of because
• 27:36
  he can pull down the window net.
• 27:37
  He doesn't need it.
• 27:38
  Yeah, that's true.
• 27:39
  Yeah.
• 27:39
  Alright, session two, we're going to talk a little bit more about dynamics,
• 27:42
  setup, modding, things like that.
• 27:44
  Because as you're here, as racers, everybody gets hooked right away.
• 27:47
  We want to go faster, and they think the answer is, let's bolt on more stuff.
• 27:50
  So we'll get to that as we go along.
• 27:52
  So we're going to talk about mods, we're going to talk about bananas, we're going
• 27:54
  to talk about upkeep, which is really, really important to your track weekend
• 27:57
  and the success of your track weekend.
• 27:58
  And then we're going to talk about driving by feel.
• 28:01
  And that'll lead us into advanced driving topics.
• 28:03
  I didn't talk about this in the safety briefing, but dehydration is bad.
• 28:07
  Captain Obvious to the rescue here, but it's important for both
• 28:11
  you to stay hydrated, but your car to stay hydrated as well.
• 28:15
  A lot of people come in and they hear, I gotta check my tires.
• 28:18
  First thing I gotta do, I gotta check my tires.
• 28:20
  After you're done with that, lift the hood.
• 28:22
  Start making sure that there aren't any leaks.
• 28:24
  Making sure that your antifreeze isn't the color of iced tea.
• 28:28
  A lot of people forget about that stuff.
• 28:30
  Engine maintenance is as important as physical maintenance as well.
• 28:33
  You got it.
• 28:33
  Are you low on coolant?
• 28:35
  Especially in the summer time when you're running these vents.
• 28:37
  Today it's supposed to get up to about 80 degrees.
• 28:39
  The internal temperature of your car is going to be about 140 when
• 28:41
  the sun is beating down on you.
• 28:43
  The engine temperature, yeah the gauge says 190.
• 28:46
  Exhaust temperatures are 1300 degrees.
• 28:48
  That engine compartment gets hot.
• 28:50
  So you need to check on things, make sure things aren't breaking down.
• 28:52
  You need to constantly be following up with your car throughout the day.
• 28:56
  Everybody talks about mods.
• 28:57
  We're talking about progression.
• 28:58
  How do I progress?
• 28:58
  How do I progress?
• 28:59
  You know, all these kinds of things.
• 29:00
  It's the first three mods you should ever consider when you're driving.
• 29:03
  When you're doing any of these events, whether it's DTE, Time Trials,
• 29:06
  Club Racing, or otherwise is tires.
• 29:10
  You know, if you're out there on all seasons, you might
• 29:12
  want to reconsider that.
• 29:13
  Granted, if you're running your street car, I get it, not everybody
• 29:16
  wants to haul around multiple sets of wheels, things like that.
• 29:19
  The next one is always a big brake kit.
• 29:21
  I gotta have bigger brakes.
• 29:22
  I got news for you guys.
• 29:23
  Anybody here run a Miata?
• 29:25
  Except for Mark.
• 29:26
  You know the solution to big brakes, right?
• 29:28
  Is to remove weight, right?
• 29:31
  So if you're building your car, you don't necessarily So, um, I'm going
• 29:36
  to go through a couple of things.
• 29:41
  I'm going to go through a couple of things.
• 29:47
  I'm going to go through a couple of things.
• 29:54
  Don't mess with the car.
• 29:55
  The more you mess with the car, you're raising the bar to a point you can't
• 30:00
  exceed the capabilities of that vehicle.
• 30:01
  So that's the only thing you have to remember.
• 30:03
  I want to go faster.
• 30:04
  Great, we want to go faster.
• 30:05
  How many track days do you have?
• 30:06
  We're only doing one track event.
• 30:08
  You need more seat time.
• 30:09
  Don't worry about the tires.
• 30:10
  Don't worry about the brakes.
• 30:10
  Don't worry about removing the passenger seat.
• 30:12
  All the fun cultural things and time trials we've grown accustomed to.
• 30:16
  So seat time is really important.
• 30:17
  Again, that's why you're sitting in this classroom.
• 30:19
  Things you can do for yourself today, say you are running all season tires, borrow
• 30:24
  a little trick from the autocrossers.
• 30:25
  Dial in the air pressure, right?
• 30:27
  Oh, the car doesn't want to turn in.
• 30:29
  Well, do you have the right air pressure, right?
• 30:30
  Is it driving off the nose, you know?
• 30:32
  Maybe your car's set up a little loose, it likes to drive off the rear end.
• 30:35
  If you chop the tires, shoe polish or grease pen or paint pen or whatever,
• 30:39
  as you go out there, it's going to rub that off of the sidewall.
• 30:43
  You're going to go up over the edge, come down all the way to the You can even mark
• 30:47
  the wheel if you want to see how much rotation You can see how good the seal
• 30:50
  is on the tire to the wheel, the bead.
• 30:52
  And you can see all that just by marking the tire.
• 30:54
  Motocrossers still do this to this day to figure out where's the optimal
• 30:58
  tire pressure for the vehicle.
• 31:00
  Street tires need more air because their sidewalls are not reinforced.
• 31:04
  Race tires generally have some sort of extra material
• 31:06
  in there to keep them stiff.
• 31:08
  And there's positives and negatives to both of that.
• 31:10
  The reason I bring it up is a street tire needs to be overinflated and you have
• 31:14
  to manage it this way to figure out do I need to bleed air, do I need to do this.
• 31:17
  A race tire because it's so stiff.
• 31:21
  You don't sometimes remember, or you're so busy in the morning, you
• 31:24
  haven't got all that coffee in.
• 31:25
  I have 15 pounds of air.
• 31:26
  I know guys that have done this, they go out on Hoosiers, and they're like, I spun,
• 31:29
  I don't know what, the car didn't grip.
• 31:31
  And he checks his air pressure, he goes, it's basically flat.
• 31:34
  But when he was sitting in the paddock, it looked completely, you know, full of air.
• 31:38
  So you've got to monitor those tires.
• 31:40
  Also remember that a properly inflated tire on track is 100
• 31:45
  percent opposite of the street.
• 31:47
  When you set your pressures at home, you're doing what the car is doing.
• 31:51
  35 pounds, blah, blah, blah.
• 31:52
  At the track, it's always hot.
• 31:55
  Always set your pressures after you come off track.
• 31:58
  It takes two sessions to properly dial in a tire, okay?
• 32:03
  So they have to come to temperature and you bleed them down.
• 32:05
  They'll come to temperature again, you bleed them down.
• 32:07
  By your third session, they will be rock solid when they cool off.
• 32:10
  By the way, hot tip.
• 32:12
  When they do cool off, which takes about an hour and a half or so,
• 32:15
  which is great to do at the lunch break because it's long, okay?
• 32:18
  Check that pressure.
• 32:20
  That's generally your cold starting pressure.
• 32:22
  Now you can adjust for really, really cold days and wet days, but that's going
• 32:26
  to be your starting baseline number.
• 32:28
  So maybe that's 28.
• 32:29
  That's where you should be starting because you know that that tire
• 32:32
  is going to grab six or eight pounds as it heats up on track.
• 32:35
  But again, you're working with a hot pressure.
• 32:38
  Go research the tires you bought.
• 32:40
  Everybody goes, yeah, what are you running?
• 32:41
  Oh, I got Falcon 660s.
• 32:43
  Oh, I got Hoosier R7s.
• 32:44
  I got this.
• 32:45
  I got Toyos.
• 32:46
  Great.
• 32:47
  Do you know anything about that tire?
• 32:48
  No.
• 32:49
  You know what your buddy knows, and we're all kind of guessing, but if you go to
• 32:52
  Hoosier's website, or Toyo's website, there's information about the tire.
• 32:56
  There's actually maximum recommended hot pressures.
• 32:59
  A Hoosier is generally 36 pounds, by the way, on a car
• 33:02
  that weighs about 3, 000 pounds.
• 33:04
  So, you know, kind of do the mental math there, or the mental gymnastics there.
• 33:07
  Look that stuff up.
• 33:09
  It's all available online.
• 33:10
  That's the first thing you should be dialing in when you're setting up the car.
• 33:15
  Brakes.
• 33:15
  Ha ha.
• 33:16
  All they do is just slow you down, you don't need brakes, right?
• 33:19
  Just chuck the car in the corner.
• 33:21
  Honestly, one of the things you can do for yourself, especially if you're
• 33:24
  coming here with a street car, and if you have the wherewithal to change pads
• 33:28
  yourself, have multiple sets of pads.
• 33:30
  But if you can't do that, try to find yourself a pad that is not a
• 33:35
  race pad, but isn't a Duralast pad over the counter from Advanced Auto.
• 33:39
  You need something sort of in the middle, like an autocross pad, that will hold
• 33:42
  up to the stress, that to the stress.
• 33:44
  and the heat of braking on track.
• 33:46
  Braking on track is not like braking on the street.
• 33:49
  Your pads do not get an opportunity to cool down.
• 33:53
  That what you have to look into, and we actually did a podcast episode about
• 33:57
  this with Porterfield, brake pads have an operating temperature that they run in,
• 34:02
  optimal operating temperature they run in.
• 34:04
  They don't like to be above it, they don't like to be below it.
• 34:06
  So, Some pads are more aggressive than others, track pads don't like to be
• 34:09
  cold, they have to get heat in them.
• 34:11
  Street pads don't like to be super heated because then they don't stop and you get
• 34:15
  brake fade and all these kinds of things.
• 34:17
  So researching your equipment is really important, keeping an eye on that stuff.
• 34:21
  More importantly is keeping an eye on pads throughout the day.
• 34:25
  I can't tell you how many people have come into the pit running on
• 34:29
  their car, they're like, oh the car doesn't stop, and they come in and
• 34:32
  they're like on the backing plates.
• 34:33
  It's a miracle that they're still out on track and haven't had an
• 34:37
  accident or hit somebody else.
• 34:38
  Because how is this car stopping?
• 34:39
  Corvettes.
• 34:40
  Anybody got a Corvette in here?
• 34:41
  A big, heavy American car?
• 34:43
  They are notorious for eating brake pads, like two sessions and they're done, if
• 34:48
  you're running the stock GM OEM patents.
• 34:51
  So what have you got on your car?
• 34:52
  Think about that.
• 34:53
  You drove here, or maybe you trailered here.
• 34:55
  If you're trailing here, maybe you're a little bit more advanced,
• 34:57
  but again, look into your equipment.
• 34:59
  Not just take the recommendation of your friend that says, well, I run Hawk 60s.
• 35:03
  Great.
• 35:03
  Why?
• 35:03
  Those pads might not actually be getting hot enough for your Miata to be affected.
• 35:08
  Maybe you need a CarboTac or a Hawk Blue, something lower on the
• 35:10
  scale that heats up more quickly.
• 35:12
  Again, do the research.
• 35:13
  Talk to veteran racers as well and get an idea of why they chose the
• 35:17
  equipment they have and see what works.
• 35:19
  And obviously, talk to other people with cars like your car.
• 35:22
  Have If you're the only one in the parking lot with, uh, you know, I hate to
• 35:25
  say it, the Kia Stinger that's outside, you're the only one in the parking lot.
• 35:28
  If you look around, it's Miatas and M3s, and there's a certain formula
• 35:32
  that works for those cars that's been researched year after year.
• 35:35
  The other thing I'd like to point out is rotors.
• 35:37
  They are telltale of what's going on about key transfer, pad transfer, how
• 35:42
  the pad's wearing down, even if you can't physically see if the pad is cracked.
• 35:45
  Look at the rotor.
• 35:46
  The other thing people love to do is you get online, you get on the forums,
• 35:51
  and you see these cool, like, cross drilled rotors, and slotted rotors,
• 35:54
  and all this kind of fun stuff.
• 35:56
  Let me give you a tip from racers.
• 35:57
  If you look at our cars, it's the cheapest, flattest, largest
• 36:02
  surface area rotor you can get.
• 36:04
  Why?
• 36:04
  It's a consumable.
• 36:06
  Buying a fancy rotor does nothing but waste money when you're on track.
• 36:09
  They look great on the street or at the cars and coffee, but what you're
• 36:12
  introducing is possibility for failure.
• 36:14
  All those cross drills is an opportunity to crack the rotor
• 36:18
  and for it to break prematurely.
• 36:20
  Yes, solid rotors will crack after an entire season of abuse.
• 36:24
  There is more times than not that slotted and cross drill rotors
• 36:28
  will fail on a track weekend.
• 36:29
  So if you came here with those, keep an eye on them while you're
• 36:32
  here and look for cracking.
• 36:34
  Micro fissures are okay, but as those start to increase, suddenly the rotor
• 36:39
  will snap and it'll generally happen on your own track and you're like, oh, I
• 36:42
  got no brakes and it's not a great day.
• 36:45
  So keep an eye on your equipment before and after you go out.
• 36:48
  How many of you have cars, let's say, newer than 2012 that show hands?
• 36:57
  So, not too many nannies in the room.
• 37:00
  But, if you're driving a car like the Cayman that has PSM and all these
• 37:04
  alphabet soup of acronyms that exist, what I recommend to first time drivers
• 37:08
  on track is leave all that stuff on.
• 37:12
  Because turning a nanny off is equivalent to adding a mod.
• 37:15
  Taking away weight or doing something else.
• 37:16
  You don't know the characteristics of your car yet.
• 37:19
  Learn how to drive it the way Porsche suppli it, and then when you realize
• 37:22
  that the nanny is interfering, you're overdr it or whatever have you, you're
• 37:26
  working with an instructor and like, yeah, I mean we need to turn that off.
• 37:29
  Or there's different levels, like the Corvettes have like six different levels
• 37:32
  of traction control and all this stuff.
• 37:34
  You gotta learn what each of those do.
• 37:35
  You can't just go from street to track.
• 37:37
  And you go, oh yeah, the car's amazing.
• 37:39
  Is it really?
• 37:39
  Because you've got, then again, moved the bar way out here, and when the
• 37:43
  car breaks loose on you, you don't really know how to react to it.
• 37:46
  So it's a gradual approach to learning the dynamics of the vehicle, and
• 37:51
  increasing your ability as a driver.
• 37:53
  And I know, everybody's comfortable with their car every day.
• 37:55
  I'm driving on the street.
• 37:56
  What the hell are you talking about?
• 37:57
  It's different here.
• 37:59
  The conditions are extreme versus when you're on the road.
• 38:02
  All those nannies, you don't even feel them when you're driving on the street.
• 38:05
  Here, they will show themselves and they will generally show
• 38:08
  themselves in a very apparent way.
• 38:10
  You're like, what is that?
• 38:10
  What's it doing?
• 38:12
  There's some sort of nanny getting in the way.
• 38:13
  We're checking tires, we're checking pressures, we're looking at brakes,
• 38:16
  doing all this kind of stuff under the hood, making sure the car is
• 38:18
  healthy, again, more hydrated as well.
• 38:21
  Never, ever, ever, I see this all the time, tighten your lugs, your
• 38:25
  studs after you come off the track.
• 38:28
  You will snap a lug in a stud and then that's your bad news at that point.
• 38:33
  But, also remember to respect the pattern, right?
• 38:36
  Let the car cool down, all that other kind of stuff.
• 38:38
  Respect the bolt patterns, learn it, memorize it, do all that kind of stuff.
• 38:42
  Also, when you're here at the track, especially if you've done
• 38:45
  stud conversions, a lot of BMW guys do, Audi guys, or Audi VW guys do,
• 38:49
  check the recommended torque specs.
• 38:52
  A lot of guys love to go click, click, and they're, yeah, 100 pounds.
• 38:56
  Now you're at 110, right?
• 38:57
  You've overstressed that lug, you've overstressed that stud, especially when
• 39:01
  they're hot, that's when they break.
• 39:02
  So, So, what I recommend people is if you like to do the click click type of deal
• 39:06
  when you're torquing, come off five pounds on that torque wrench because then you'll
• 39:10
  be right at the number you want to be at.
• 39:12
  If you're using a gun, make sure you check it because not every gun is graded equal.
• 39:16
  A lot of them will torque to about 90 pounds and some of them you're like,
• 39:19
  man, I ran it in and it went click, click, click, and it's on there at 35.
• 39:22
  Don't ask me why they do that, but you always have to double check,
• 39:25
  you know, it's all trust but verify.
• 39:27
  Let's talk a little bit more about modding.
• 39:28
  Again, we're talking about racing here.
• 39:30
  This is not a DE organization.
• 39:32
  This is a racing organization.
• 39:33
  It's all about time trials and gearing you up to become a full time trialer.
• 39:37
  Every time you change your car, you change classes within the points allocations.
• 39:43
  There's a whole episode we did with Cory and John about this, and about
• 39:46
  how it works and the sliding scale and how you can allocate points.
• 39:49
  It gets very convoluted and complicated quickly.
• 39:52
  So you think you're doing something awesome, but these 315 tires on my
• 39:55
  Miata and it's You know, like a roller skate or a wing or whatever, it's
• 39:59
  going to move you around and suddenly you find yourself uncompetitive
• 40:03
  in the class that you got put in.
• 40:04
  Especially if you're racing for points, you really need to look at
• 40:07
  the rule book, see what it says, what you are and are not allowed to do.
• 40:11
  This also translates to other organizations like SCCA, NASA, et
• 40:14
  cetera, where cars are built to spec.
• 40:17
  They are built to class.
• 40:18
  So just bolting on whatever you can find because the Mustang Forum or the Miata
• 40:22
  Forum said that's what you got to do.
• 40:25
  Great.
• 40:26
  Cross match that too, because, like I said, never mod past your abilities.
• 40:31
  Learn how to out drive your equipment before you mod.
• 40:34
  Do mods incrementally.
• 40:36
  Because what I like to tell people is, you know, every mod, every
• 40:40
  change results in leveling up.
• 40:42
  But do you have a wind tunnel at yours?
• 40:44
  I see this constantly, right?
• 40:48
  Oh, I put canards on, I put an air dam on, I put a spoiler on.
• 40:51
  If you don't have the physical ability to test those mods, they don't work.
• 40:55
  I'm going to tell you that flat now.
• 40:56
  It's just eye candy.
• 40:58
  You're better off investing in different types of coilovers, different types of
• 41:01
  brake pads, maybe upgrades on brakes, things like that, removing weight
• 41:05
  from the car, talking to people that are developing the car that you have.
• 41:09
  When you look around and you say, Okay, well the M3s all run this same wing.
• 41:15
  Maybe that's part of spec for NASA, part of spec 3, because it probably is.
• 41:18
  That's the wing you buy, because that's what's in the rule book.
• 41:22
  But this sort of stuff, yeah, it doesn't actually work.
• 41:24
  It looks cool, but it doesn't work.
• 41:27
  That brings us into driving by feel.
• 41:30
  This is what you should be learning to do right now.
• 41:32
  If you have a timer in your car, especially as a student, you have
• 41:35
  telemetry, you have a Garmin or anything like that, you're maybe trying to do
• 41:39
  some self study, okay, that's cool.
• 41:42
  We'll talk more about that later.
• 41:43
  But right now.
• 41:44
  All that stuff is a distraction, because what you end up doing is
• 41:47
  focusing on the fact that it went red, or it went green, or your lap
• 41:50
  time wasn't the same as the lap time.
• 41:52
  You're distracting yourself.
• 41:53
  You're not learning how to drive the car.
• 41:55
  And because you're distracting yourself, you're not paying
• 41:56
  attention to what the car is saying.
• 41:58
  So you need to learn to drive by feel.
• 42:00
  Driving by feel, if you can master it, is also important if any of you have
• 42:04
  ambitions on ever becoming a coach.
• 42:07
  And I bring that up now, a little bit prematurely, because all I have
• 42:11
  is a coach in the car with you.
• 42:13
  This is my two buttcheeks, right?
• 42:15
  This is my, my ass dyno.
• 42:16
  Tells me exactly what's going on, right?
• 42:18
  I can feel how the car is shifting around, how it's moving.
• 42:21
  I'm the G meter in the car, right?
• 42:23
  So if you can master that as well, then you know, man, this doesn't
• 42:26
  feel right going into the corner.
• 42:27
  Maybe that tire's getting a little hot.
• 42:28
  Something's a little off.
• 42:29
  It's all these little nuances about the car that it's going to
• 42:32
  feed back to you through the seat.
• 42:35
  And if you don't believe me, go look up, uh, Hans Stuck,
• 42:38
  you guys should know the name.
• 42:39
  He always said the best tool he ever had in the car was his ass.
• 42:42
  Right?
• 42:42
  It wasn't his hands, it wasn't his eyes.
• 42:44
  It was his two ass cheeks that he was sitting on.
• 42:46
  Driving by feel is super important, right?
• 42:48
  You gotta boil it down to the basics, because we're just
• 42:50
  learning how to drive by feel.
• 42:52
  So, weight transfer under acceleration and under braking, right?
• 42:55
  You can feel the car very easily do that.
• 42:58
  It's when you start putting transfer into turn, how far can I go?
• 43:03
  When you don't know how far you can go.
• 43:04
  You can feel it, the tires might scream at you, but maybe you bought autocross
• 43:07
  tires, like a 200 treadmill tire.
• 43:09
  You might want to run with the guys here at Emron.
• 43:11
  Those tires talk to you less and less.
• 43:13
  The better tire you get, the less communicated they are audibly.
• 43:17
  So now you need to start looking at chalking those tires, you look
• 43:20
  at air pressures, and you need to start getting parameters and
• 43:22
  stuff, figuring out how am I using that, you know, is my camber wrong?
• 43:26
  Right?
• 43:26
  And again, I say to people, if you came here with eight degrees,
• 43:30
  you're going to learn really fast that it's going to be more like
• 43:32
  two degrees after a while, right?
• 43:33
  More stance is bad at the track, right?
• 43:35
  It's great for shows, not good for the track.
• 43:38
  So again, learn how to drive the car the way it was intended to be driven.
• 43:41
  How to beat the clock, right?
• 43:43
  That's what we're here to do.
• 43:45
  As trialers, I relate this 100 percent to qualifying.
• 43:49
  Time trials is qualifying.
• 43:51
  That's what you're doing, okay?
• 43:53
  Enduros and club racing is a whole different animal because it's not about
• 43:56
  putting down your fastest lap time.
• 43:58
  It's about being consistent, being defensive, and that.
• 44:01
  Time trials, there's a whole other methodology and it relates
• 44:04
  100 percent to qualifying.
• 44:07
  Does anybody not know the difference between understeer and oversteer?
• 44:11
  Alright, I'll leave it there.
• 44:13
  A lot of other organizations, and Brad can attest to this as well, there's this
• 44:16
  whole concept of smooth, smooth, you hear the word and it's like, it might
• 44:19
  as well be a drinking game, we all get plastered in the amount of times you
• 44:22
  hear the word smooth throughout the day.
• 44:24
  There is a common misconception on the way smooth is being related
• 44:29
  and communicated to you guys.
• 44:30
  This chart is a little bit odd.
• 44:32
  It makes sense to me and I'll try to explain it.
• 44:34
  It's just, the idea is this.
• 44:35
  When you're learning now, you want the car to be smooth.
• 44:40
  You want the car to be predictable.
• 44:41
  You're gonna be nervous.
• 44:43
  You're gonna be like, all over the map, thinking about a million things.
• 44:46
  Basically drinking from the fire hose.
• 44:48
  Where's the corner station?
• 44:49
  What's that guy doing?
• 44:49
  Why did he take the turn like that?
• 44:51
  Should I be taking the turn like that?
• 44:52
  What's my instructor telling me in the car?
• 44:54
  What the heck is, what's that buzzing sound?
• 44:55
  You're all over the place.
• 44:56
  Mentally you're just, Completely frenetic, right?
• 44:59
  So the car needs to be smooth.
• 45:01
  Like I said when you guys went out first, deliberate braking.
• 45:03
  Deliberate turning.
• 45:04
  Very predictable, you know, not sawing at the wheel.
• 45:07
  Not double braking.
• 45:09
  Things like that.
• 45:10
  As you get faster, as you get more comfortable.
• 45:12
  As you progress.
• 45:14
  The smoothness changes from the vehicle to you.
• 45:18
  You become confident, you become calm, you're ready for any situation.
• 45:22
  You want to chuck that car in that corner and slide it?
• 45:24
  Fine.
• 45:24
  You want to attack that curbing?
• 45:26
  It pops up on two wheels, you better be ready for it.
• 45:28
  These are the things you learn over time.
• 45:30
  If you want to get more aggressive, you You have to become smoother.
• 45:33
  The car gets more erratic.
• 45:35
  So there's this really prominent change in your driving ability,
• 45:39
  but it comes with time.
• 45:40
  You can't just go there right away and say, I'm going to attack that
• 45:43
  curbing coming out of turn four.
• 45:44
  Why?
• 45:45
  Oh, the guy in front of me did it.
• 45:46
  Well, should he be doing it?
• 45:47
  Is that the right way to do it?
• 45:48
  There's a lot more experimentation.
• 45:50
  And the reason I say there's more experimentation is you'll hear this
• 45:53
  concept of, The line will keep you smooth.
• 45:56
  Like you're in yoga or something, right?
• 45:58
  Like, just keep saying, Oh, yes, the line, the line, the line.
• 46:01
  It's the second drinking game of, you know, DE organizations.
• 46:04
  There is no line.
• 46:06
  To borrow a little bit from The Matrix, right?
• 46:08
  There is no spoon.
• 46:09
  There is no line.
• 46:11
  The line is something we're teaching you so that you can
• 46:14
  get around the track safely.
• 46:16
  And you have an idea of how the track should be driven at a fundamental level.
• 46:20
  The idea there is that if you run New Jersey or you run Pocono or Summit Point
• 46:25
  with us, and then you go to SCCA and you go to HOD or whoever, then you have
• 46:30
  an idea of how it should be driven.
• 46:32
  When it comes down to the gaining time is where you have to get creative.
• 46:36
  And we're going to talk about that more as we go along.
• 46:39
  Driving conditions change throughout the day.
• 46:41
  The track was cold this morning, it's going to continue to heat up, and by this
• 46:44
  afternoon, if you're here for the enduro, the track's going to get cold again.
• 46:47
  It's going to change.
• 46:48
  If we got rain, if we got fog, if we got, who knows, right?
• 46:53
  The track conditions are constantly changing.
• 46:54
  That dead deer they took out, right?
• 46:56
  The blood was there, now it's not, all those kinds of things.
• 46:58
  So you have to be constantly adjusting to the track.
• 47:01
  I want you guys to get creative, but getting creative is not gross.
• 47:05
  changes in your turn ins and things like that, it's minute changes.
• 47:09
  And if you're in a condition where you see the apex cone, well this time
• 47:13
  I was two feet away from it and last time I was four feet away from it,
• 47:16
  obviously you want to get closer to those apex cones, not further away.
• 47:20
  Try a different entry angle, try a different entry speed,
• 47:24
  slow down a little bit more.
• 47:25
  Look at your exit speed.
• 47:26
  Exit speed is more important than entry speed.
• 47:28
  Everybody thinks I need to go in deep, I need to go in hard into that corner.
• 47:32
  No.
• 47:33
  You need to exit that corner as quickly as possible, which means carrying as
• 47:36
  much speed as you can through the corner.
• 47:39
  How you decide to do that going in is up to you.
• 47:42
  So exit speed is always more important than entry speed.
• 47:45
  Like I said this morning, buddying up with our friend here in the Cayman
• 47:48
  who's got a bunch of track experience.
• 47:50
  Do some lead follow with somebody else that has more experience.
• 47:53
  Follow other people.
• 47:54
  I always remind folks, if you're in a Miata, And you come up on a
• 47:57
  Corvette and you get that constant about, He didn't want to let me
• 47:59
  by, he didn't want to let me by.
• 48:00
  Okay Corvette guy, let's take a chill pill for a second.
• 48:03
  Let the Miata by, because he was not teleported there.
• 48:07
  That guy's carrying a ton of speed.
• 48:09
  He's carrying more speed than you.
• 48:11
  Get behind him, follow that person, see what they're doing different than you.
• 48:15
  You're going to pick something up.
• 48:17
  You are also a culmination of all the people you run with,
• 48:20
  and all the instructors you've ever had in the right seat.
• 48:22
  You are now developing your driving style.
• 48:24
  Again, what you brought here from the street does not translate to the track.
• 48:29
  You are re learning how to drive and it'll actually work in your
• 48:33
  benefit as you go back to the street.
• 48:35
  The other thing I always tell people, because we're focused on
• 48:37
  racing, we're focused on qualifying and time trials, never make the
• 48:41
  track longer than it needs to be.
• 48:43
  The whole point of time trials, just like autocross, is to find
• 48:46
  the shortest way through the track.
• 48:48
  to reduce your lap times so you can get back to a lap.
• 48:51
  So that means none of these lazy river, late apex, you know
• 48:55
  they always tell you in other organizations, early apex is the enemy.
• 48:58
  That's not true.
• 48:59
  It's what works for the car and the proof is in the lap times.
• 49:02
  But what you need to learn are the basics, the fundamentals of the way to get around
• 49:07
  the track and then you adjust for your car, for your driving style and the
• 49:11
  times will show and reflect accordingly.
• 49:14
  Couple of gotchas.
• 49:15
  Even though there are apex cones out there, there are plenty of
• 49:18
  people that fixate on those, and they drive cone to cone to cone.
• 49:21
  That's the equivalent of driving gate to gate in a r cross.
• 49:24
  That is not the fastest way around the course.
• 49:26
  You need to be looking through complex combinations on the track, especially
• 49:30
  if you can see through multiple turns.
• 49:33
  Ask yourself, can I make that a straightaway?
• 49:35
  Can I connect those dots?
• 49:36
  Can I use a little bit of curving to open this up?
• 49:39
  If I do take this a little bit later, how does it change my exit?
• 49:41
  How does it open up the track?
• 49:43
  If you're in a corner and the car's bound up, it's again, cars communicating back
• 49:47
  to you, adjust, change your entry angle.
• 49:49
  So you open the track up, you open the wheel sooner.
• 49:52
  If you're under steering, I tell people all the time, the enemy of
• 49:55
  understeer is opening the wheel, right?
• 49:57
  It's continue to add more input.
• 49:59
  No wrong.
• 50:00
  Go the other way.
• 50:01
  Lift off the throttle.
• 50:03
  Spend some time on a skid pad.
• 50:04
  This is what they always, you know, other groups do skid pad exercises.
• 50:07
  It's what the skid pad actually teaches you.
• 50:09
  It's not for you to get out there and hoon around and drift on a wet skid pad.
• 50:12
  The idea is to learn how to increase and decrease the radius by driving with
• 50:17
  your foot and maintaining a constant steering angle because the car will want
• 50:21
  to come to the center of the circle, and if you add more gas then it goes out.
• 50:25
  The principle is the centrifugal force, right?
• 50:27
  So again, don't drive by cones and also remember that the cones
• 50:31
  that are there were not perfect.
• 50:32
  So I'm going to show you how to do that, and I'm going to show
• 50:42
  you how to do it in a minute.
• 50:47
  So, I'm going to show you how to do it in a minute, and I'm
• 50:57
  going to show you how to is.
• 51:02
  Benefit to you is to walk the course.
• 51:05
  If you're given the opportunity, the day before, the morning of, or whatever
• 51:08
  is to get out there and see what the track looks like, how big certain
• 51:11
  corners are, if there are professional markings, and sometimes I'll get
• 51:15
  out there and I'll move the cone.
• 51:16
  They put it in the wrong spot.
• 51:18
  It belongs here, right?
• 51:19
  To try to help you guys out as well.
• 51:20
  So walking the track, just like walking the course in autocross is a huge plus.
• 51:24
  If you can do it, if you paid for it, use all of it.
• 51:29
  That's the blanket statement here.
• 51:30
  There are plenty of people that are.
• 51:32
  So, if you're afraid to, like, let the car just track out, or go here, go
• 51:36
  there, they're really tight in certain corners, you have a lot of asphalt.
• 51:39
  Look at the runoff.
• 51:40
  Your first session should have been orientation.
• 51:42
  How much room do I have?
• 51:43
  Is there room on the other side of the curbing if I screw up
• 51:46
  and I'm carrying too much speed?
• 51:48
  These are all really important factors.
• 51:51
  Also take a look at the curbing.
• 51:53
  You can see curbing up close when you walk the track.
• 51:55
  Oh man, uh, New Jersey Lightning, there's a lot of them, they're flat.
• 51:58
  You can drive right over top of them and it's okay.
• 52:01
  It's when you get up, it washes out.
• 52:02
  in Rockins Glen and there's like a set of stairs and the car is jumping up and down,
• 52:05
  you don't want to run on those curbs.
• 52:07
  But if you can use it, and it helps you on your exit speed, carry
• 52:11
  more into the next straightaway or the next section, by all means.
• 52:14
  Use every square foot of track that you can.
• 52:17
  Again, you paid for it.
• 52:18
  Alright, turning has four simple rules.
• 52:21
  Always brake, and if you're in a manual like most of you guys are, downshifting
• 52:26
  in a straight line before the turn in.
• 52:29
  It's judging the braking zone that's complicated.
• 52:32
  There's breaking markers starting sometimes at 600 yards or 600 feet
• 52:36
  or whatever it is, depending on where we are, you know, all the way down.
• 52:39
  So if you're like, man, I break at the 250, I'm like, okay, and I follow you
• 52:43
  and the break lights are on at the 450.
• 52:45
  I'm like, okay, in your mind, you're at 250 because you're looking at it.
• 52:48
  That's not where you started stopping.
• 52:49
  But some people also get ambitious and they hear that, oh, he broke at
• 52:52
  the 250 and they get in there and the next thing you know, they're
• 52:54
  locking them up and they're smoking them all the way down to the apex.
• 52:57
  You have to, again, build up to braking gradually.
• 53:00
  Braking is one of the hardest things that you're going to do on track.
• 53:04
  It's not turning, it's not accelerating by any stretch, it's braking.
• 53:07
  Mastering braking is what makes you faster, okay?
• 53:11
  And there's different techniques to braking.
• 53:13
  Obviously equipment is part of that, but when we start talking about trail braking,
• 53:17
  thresholding, and all this other kind of stuff, now you're not just pumping
• 53:20
  the brakes to stop at a traffic light.
• 53:22
  That's not what we're doing here.
• 53:23
  We're reducing speed to a window that we need to be in so we
• 53:27
  can carry speed to a corner.
• 53:28
  We're not coming to a complete stop.
• 53:30
  A lot of people also do that.
• 53:31
  They brake too much.
• 53:33
  Or they end up breaking twice, because they're not sure where that window is.
• 53:37
  And that's what the breaking zone is all about, is determining what that window is.
• 53:40
  Can I go a little deeper?
• 53:42
  Can I go a little faster?
• 53:43
  Can I break a little later?
• 53:44
  Do I need to break sooner?
• 53:45
  And the pedal's gonna tell you a lot too.
• 53:47
  If the pedal's getting mushy or going to the floor, you need to back off.
• 53:50
  You need to breathe off.
• 53:51
  You're going in too late.
• 53:52
  You're going in too deep.
• 53:53
  When you guys get back, we're gonna talk all about turning.
• 53:56
  I'm gonna try to wrap this thing up.
• 54:00
  Yeah.
• 54:06
  Alright, let's get back into this.
• 54:08
  So, comments, critiques, alibis, feedback on the last session.
• 54:12
  How was it?
• 54:12
  Different than the first one?
• 54:14
  Tracks a little warmer?
• 54:15
  It was fast.
• 54:17
  Any issues out there?
• 54:18
  Too much traffic?
• 54:20
  Yeah, well, it wasn't bad.
• 54:21
  Everyone was pointing bison.
• 54:23
  Yeah?
• 54:23
  Okay.
• 54:24
  Point bison are clear.
• 54:25
  Anybody doing T Rex arms?
• 54:26
  I know you were, I mean, she had a window net up at one point, right?
• 54:28
  I didn't.
• 54:29
  Oh, okay.
• 54:31
  But everybody's getting their arms out.
• 54:32
  It's clear at least.
• 54:33
  Okay.
• 54:33
  So we're going to get back into talking about terming.
• 54:36
  I told you guys earlier, breaking is the most important thing you have to learn.
• 54:40
  The next most important thing is term.
• 54:41
  And like we said earlier, in the second segment, there's no such thing as a line.
• 54:45
  But there is a textbook way to take a term.
• 54:48
  You read all the speed secrets, and there's an A to B to C way to take a term.
• 54:53
  You know, come into the breaking zone, hit the apex, track out.
• 54:56
  One, two, three, connect the dots.
• 54:58
  Those are the terms that your instructor, if you have an
• 55:01
  instructor in the car, you will use.
• 55:03
  Like we said earlier, There's that whole laundry list of terms.
• 55:05
  Bring his own turn in the apex and track out.
• 55:09
  Track out is always the most questionable of those four terms.
• 55:13
  Because what does that exactly mean?
• 55:15
  Tracking out.
• 55:16
  What you're letting the car do is drift to a point where it's
• 55:18
  coming straight on its own, right?
• 55:21
  Some cars, especially high horsepower rear wheel drive cars, need more
• 55:24
  track out space than, say, a low horsepower Honda or Miata.
• 55:28
  Track out is variable.
• 55:29
  What we often tell people is, especially if your car is equipped with a limited
• 55:33
  space, Slip more importantly, on a front wheel drive, if it doesn't want
• 55:37
  to go there, don't drive it there.
• 55:39
  It goes back to the principle of don't make the tracker longer, and you have
• 55:42
  to, but you also have to take into consideration, was my entry angle correct?
• 55:47
  If I'm not getting adequate track out right, and how deep is my track out?
• 55:51
  That's the other thing to consider.
• 55:52
  Not how far out, but how far down is my track out as well.
• 55:56
  Right?
• 55:56
  Because exit speed is more important than entry speed.
• 55:59
  So if your track out is further down, you're carrying more speed, right?
• 56:04
  So, we're going to talk more about that and how to play within a
• 56:07
  boundary that works for you guys to determine what is early, what is late.
• 56:11
  You hear those terms all the time.
• 56:12
  So, early apexing is lengthening the braking zone.
• 56:16
  You're braking earlier, you're also turning in earlier,
• 56:19
  what you're tracking earlier.
• 56:21
  However, In a front wheel drive, this is where the asterisk comes into play,
• 56:27
  they always say early apex is your enemy because 80 percent of the cars that
• 56:31
  come to the track are rear wheel drive.
• 56:32
  So early apex is bad.
• 56:34
  It's tight.
• 56:34
  It gets the car off balance.
• 56:36
  It wants to let that, you know, the rear end hang out, but in a front
• 56:39
  wheel drive that pivots off the front wheels, you leverage the lift
• 56:42
  throttle oversteer to your advantage.
• 56:44
  Sometimes using an early apex is good because as you lift, the car
• 56:48
  pivots and then begins to push.
• 56:50
  So what we use is what I like to call I'm going to show you how to use the
• 56:54
  anticipated understeer to develop trackout for front wheel drive.
• 56:57
  So show of hands, anybody's run a front wheel drive?
• 57:00
  Okay, so I'm only speaking to a couple of you guys.
• 57:02
  It's a totally different driving technique than any other car that you'll be in.
• 57:07
  All wheel drives are close, they tend to be neutral, they tend, some tend to push
• 57:11
  more like a front wheel to front wheel bias, some all wheel drive to a rear wheel
• 57:14
  bias, so they're a little harder to gauge.
• 57:16
  For rear wheel drive cars, you want to talk about late apexing.
• 57:21
  There's late and then there's really late.
• 57:24
  I'm turning in early.
• 57:25
  I'm bringing the apex closer to me, but I have to brake earlier, but
• 57:28
  I'm also shortening the exit, which means I'm reducing my exit speed.
• 57:32
  So we need to change this.
• 57:33
  We need to lengthen the braking zone, and we need to change this vector, change this
• 57:37
  angle, so we change the, By going a little further, when we talk about those braking
• 57:43
  markers earlier, how important braking is, it's not about braking at the two.
• 57:48
  It's about understanding if your car can brake within 200 yards or 200 feet,
• 57:53
  depending on how the markers are designed.
• 57:55
  That's what you need to know.
• 57:56
  That's why those, that first session is important.
• 57:59
  What is my braking distance look like today?
• 58:02
  Right?
• 58:02
  Brake pads are also affected by the temperature outside.
• 58:05
  Is it raining all this kind of stuff that we talked about early on?
• 58:08
  So, when you figure that out.
• 58:09
  We go, I can consistently brake within 250 feet, but that 250 feet could
• 58:15
  be back here or it could be up here.
• 58:18
  So the brake markers become irrelevant once you understand how your car stops.
• 58:24
  And that's why I say braking is the most important thing.
• 58:27
  In order to change the difference between early and late braking, getting rid of
• 58:30
  double braking, which a lot of novices tend to do, is understanding that your
• 58:33
  car can stop from 100 miles an hour to 80, if that's the desired speed, in 250 feet.
• 58:40
  Now let's move those 200 feet around.
• 58:42
  That said, late apex means you're drawing in, you're extending
• 58:46
  the braking zone, right?
• 58:47
  But it doesn't mean you're going in deeper, you're braking, you're braking
• 58:51
  later, but you're still within the boundaries of, let's say, that 200 feet
• 58:55
  that we're using for this equation, right?
• 58:57
  It's always the 200 feet, that's where your car is capable of braking in.
• 59:00
  So we move that down, which means that we change the vector, and we
• 59:04
  move the apex out, which means we move the track out point out, but
• 59:08
  it also means I can get on the line.
• 59:09
  I'm on the throttle earlier because my whole trajectory out of that is flat.
• 59:15
  The car is settled, I've squatted it down, and now I'm powering out.
• 59:19
  I'm on the throttle earlier because I shifted everything down.
• 59:23
  There are some groups that there's even later, and it's like these lazy river
• 59:27
  types of lines, the track, and you have to find a balance that works for you.
• 59:30
  Sometimes you'll see it, and you'll be like, man, that guy went
• 59:32
  to this school, and you're just like, what, what is that line?
• 59:35
  But you need to learn, again, from the other cars that are out there.
• 59:38
  That's also important when we start talking about passing strategy.
• 59:42
  As you move up at MRON, you get more competitive, you need to capitalize
• 59:46
  on those differences in lines to say, that's my opportunity to pass.
• 59:49
  He always takes turn 5 like that, means I can dive inside of him, I can put
• 59:53
  myself there, I can make myself known.
• 59:55
  He's going to be outside anyway, and this is an opportunity for me to get around.
• 59:59
  This is looking at the strengths and weaknesses of the drivers around you.
• 1:00:02
  So understanding how to take the turns and It's not just getting around the track
• 1:00:07
  and being fast, but it's also the strategy of the game that we're playing here.
• 1:00:10
  How do I tell the difference between late and early?
• 1:00:12
  So the breaking zone still has to be taken into account.
• 1:00:14
  What's the maximum I can do?
• 1:00:16
  The difference between early textbook and late is literally
• 1:00:20
  the length of your course.
• 1:00:22
  Textbook turn in is always That entry cone, and my body, and I turn.
• 1:00:27
  You will do that A to B to C through that corner.
• 1:00:31
  If you go to the back wheel of the car, you've added that additional
• 1:00:35
  6 feet, let's call it, or less.
• 1:00:37
  That makes all the difference in the world.
• 1:00:39
  Try that.
• 1:00:39
  Wait until the cone gets to the back wheel, and turn in.
• 1:00:43
  You can extend the braking zone that extra distance.
• 1:00:45
  That'll create a late apex.
• 1:00:47
  Try early.
• 1:00:48
  When the front wheels get there, turn in.
• 1:00:49
  Suddenly you'll be like, oh man, I'm already at the curb, what's going on?
• 1:00:52
  It's all, you know, whatever works for your car.
• 1:00:54
  Again, for a front wheel drive, there's an advantage to doing that,
• 1:00:56
  because you can pivot through the corner and get through quicker.
• 1:00:59
  But really, when you're gauging, people tell you, take it early, or you
• 1:01:02
  took it late, or do this, and you're like, I don't know what that means.
• 1:01:05
  I'm just hearing words.
• 1:01:06
  It's literally measurements on the car, and these are the three
• 1:01:09
  measurements I'm giving you.
• 1:01:10
  The front bumper, where you sit.
• 1:01:13
  and the rear tire.
• 1:01:14
  That will give you early textbook and late, so try that
• 1:01:18
  next time you're out there.
• 1:01:19
  Try just making those subtle adjustments like we talked about in the second
• 1:01:22
  segment to adjust your turning.
• 1:01:25
  And you'll notice the exit speed and how you track out of the corner will be
• 1:01:28
  very different with all three of these.
• 1:01:30
  So we talked about late braking.
• 1:01:32
  Again, first you need to understand how to brake.
• 1:01:36
  How much you can break, what your car's capable of, and then
• 1:01:38
  staying within what works, right?
• 1:01:41
  You were talking about getting brake fade and other things like that in your car.
• 1:01:44
  So if you're at that point, you've gone too far.
• 1:01:46
  You need to back off.
• 1:01:47
  You can't be braking at 175.
• 1:01:49
  Let's go to 225, because I can consistently do 225.
• 1:01:53
  I can only do 175 feet once.
• 1:01:55
  How does that lap turn out for you?
• 1:01:57
  Let's think about it.
• 1:01:58
  Changing that breaking zone, understanding how much give you have in there, and
• 1:02:03
  being assistive, using your own visual references, not necessarily those
• 1:02:07
  of the tracking, and making those computations in your head, changes the
• 1:02:11
  difference in the exit speed at the apex.
• 1:02:14
  Exit speed is judged here, as you pull out.
• 1:02:17
  So a three mile an hour difference at the apex, maybe with adjustments
• 1:02:21
  or late braking or trail braking in some instances, that adds a couple
• 1:02:25
  mile an hour at the end of the straightaway into the next turn.
• 1:02:27
  And so every time you add a couple mile an hour, you're shaving
• 1:02:30
  a couple tenths of a second.
• 1:02:31
  Your lap time's getting quicker.
• 1:02:33
  And then it compiles on itself.
• 1:02:35
  Because remember, when you're out there, you're not driving this
• 1:02:38
  turn when you're in that turn.
• 1:02:39
  You're driving two turns away.
• 1:02:41
  You should be thinking two to three turns out.
• 1:02:44
  You should be looking way out ahead of you of what's going on.
• 1:02:46
  Again, going back to those cautionary tales of the first
• 1:02:49
  segment, we're talking about flags.
• 1:02:50
  You should be looking way out ahead of you.
• 1:02:52
  But if you're thinking about the turn you're in, it's already too late.
• 1:02:56
  Right?
• 1:02:56
  You need to be thinking about the two turns that are coming up.
• 1:02:58
  Because, when we talk about complex combinations, it's all about setting.
• 1:03:03
  This up for what's out here, not about driving one, two, three,
• 1:03:08
  a couple of different key terms in advanced breaking, right?
• 1:03:11
  There's learning how to break, which is not like breaking on the street, and
• 1:03:14
  then we get into threshold breaking.
• 1:03:16
  Anybody here not have APS other than you?
• 1:03:18
  Alright, I might be breaking, actually.
• 1:03:21
  Yeah.
• 1:03:21
  At 94 years.
• 1:03:22
  Yeah.
• 1:03:22
  So, with the old Miata's, things like that, or non ABS car,
• 1:03:25
  threshold breaking, you are the ABS.
• 1:03:27
  It's all about learning the point at which, right before they lock up.
• 1:03:32
  And that's a foot feel, that's a finesse thing.
• 1:03:34
  You have to work on that.
• 1:03:35
  You actually literally need, To go out and brake in an extreme
• 1:03:38
  way to figure out where it is and start working back from that.
• 1:03:41
  Because that's going to be your maximum braking potential, and
• 1:03:44
  then you can modulate from there.
• 1:03:45
  It's understanding what that threshold is before you basically
• 1:03:48
  cook them and lock them up.
• 1:03:50
  Okay?
• 1:03:50
  So, on an ABS car, ABS cars do this for you.
• 1:03:54
  So you get the pulsating and all this other kind of, they're threshold braking.
• 1:03:56
  They're coming on and off the brakes quickly to try to make sure that
• 1:03:59
  you're not locking up the front wheels.
• 1:04:00
  That's the computer, the nanny, like I talked about earlier, getting in your way.
• 1:04:03
  Okay?
• 1:04:04
  Trail braking is this very, very dark art to driving fast.
• 1:04:09
  A lot of people say they trail brake.
• 1:04:11
  And I get in the car with them and I'm like, show me how you trail brake.
• 1:04:15
  And they brake straight and then they turn in.
• 1:04:16
  And I'm like, that's not trail braking.
• 1:04:18
  Trail braking is for those of us, unfortunately, disadvantaged with front
• 1:04:21
  wheel drive cars, if you don't know how to trail brake, you'll never get fast.
• 1:04:26
  Because what we have to do is carry maximum speed, as much as we possibly
• 1:04:31
  can, brake as late as we can, and use the brakes to rotate the car.
• 1:04:36
  Trail braking means you're really extending the braking zone,
• 1:04:39
  you're braking hard, but you're carrying the brakes to the apex and
• 1:04:41
  immediately back on the throttle.
• 1:04:43
  It's challenging to do in a rear wheel drive car, it's not that it can't be
• 1:04:48
  done, but we have to do it all the time with front wheel drive, because it's
• 1:04:51
  the only way to get the car to come around on us the way we need it to.
• 1:04:54
  So trail braking is all about really extending that braking zone, but
• 1:04:58
  you're riding the brake to the apex, immediately getting back on the gas.
• 1:05:01
  So if you're still braking in a straight line and say, oh, I broke as I started
• 1:05:05
  to turn, that's not trail braking.
• 1:05:06
  When you're really trail braking, you're riding it in
• 1:05:09
  as you're heading to the apex.
• 1:05:11
  You're slowing the car down.
• 1:05:12
  Basically, at an angle, going into that turn, that is your braking zone.
• 1:05:15
  The first part of the turn in is the braking zone.
• 1:05:17
  That's really what trail braking is all about.
• 1:05:20
  We covered late braking, we talked about braking zones, braking markers,
• 1:05:23
  exit speed, corner speed, right?
• 1:05:24
  Just keep all these things in mind.
• 1:05:26
  Braking is the key.
• 1:05:27
  I can't say this enough.
• 1:05:28
  Alright, I did talk about trail braking.
• 1:05:30
  Like I said, you're still gonna send it, you're in the braking zone, you're
• 1:05:34
  gonna lift, and you're gonna brake really late all the way to that apex to come
• 1:05:37
  get back on the throttle as quickly as possible and carry a ton of speed.
• 1:05:41
  Try it, but do it at a low speed.
• 1:05:43
  Whenever you try something, like I said before, build up to it and
• 1:05:46
  really learn how to trail brake.
• 1:05:48
  You gotta get creative.
• 1:05:49
  I've said this before.
• 1:05:51
  Anybody here been to V.
• 1:05:51
  I.
• 1:05:51
  R.?
• 1:05:52
  You know what I'm talking about.
• 1:05:54
  Oaktree, the shoot at Summit Point, Watkins Glen, and Boone, things like that.
• 1:05:58
  We could argue till the cows come home about how to take certain turns.
• 1:06:02
  That's why there is no line.
• 1:06:03
  There is no right answer.
• 1:06:04
  What you need to learn is, by driving by feel, what is your car telling you?
• 1:06:08
  What are those tires telling you?
• 1:06:10
  What is it communicating back?
• 1:06:11
  What do the exit speeds look like?
• 1:06:12
  All the stuff that's going on tells you what the line is in that turn.
• 1:06:17
  Oaktree, if you watch any of the videos, go look at VIR,
• 1:06:20
  Virginia International Raceway.
• 1:06:21
  It's an ideal turn to understand why you've got to get creative,
• 1:06:25
  because it's basically a square.
• 1:06:27
  It's a horseshoe, and you could go through it a million different ways, and there's
• 1:06:30
  a million different ways that it's taught.
• 1:06:32
  There are certain things that work for Corvettes, that don't work for
• 1:06:34
  BMWs, and definitely not for Miatas.
• 1:06:36
  So everybody's got a different way of going through there, and it's
• 1:06:39
  comical to see it when they're all out on a track together.
• 1:06:41
  But it's just the way we play the game.
• 1:06:43
  Like I said before, complex combinations.
• 1:06:46
  Think about the track in segments.
• 1:06:48
  If you've watched professional racing, well in segment
• 1:06:51
  one you lost half a second.
• 1:06:52
  Well what is segment one?
• 1:06:53
  Segment one is these four turns.
• 1:06:55
  Everything is in segments because it's how you're supposed to learn the tracks too.
• 1:06:59
  There's certain tracks, I'll give you an example.
• 1:07:01
  National Corvette Museum.
• 1:07:02
  You cannot master that track if you don't break it into three large segments.
• 1:07:06
  Because it's a test track and not a race track.
• 1:07:09
  you The modeling, the segments, are designed to be part of Le Mans, a
• 1:07:13
  part of Laguna Seca, So you have to approach them independently.
• 1:07:17
  There's a lot of other tracks that are like that too.
• 1:07:20
  The Walkin Sun, if you go there with them or another group, you have
• 1:07:23
  to approach the boot a certain way versus the other parts of the track.
• 1:07:26
  So you learn it in segments.
• 1:07:28
  But then you need to stitch the segments together, and you need
• 1:07:30
  to look at the combos, and the complex combinations that are there.
• 1:07:33
  So, changing the angle here drastically changes the second
• 1:07:38
  turn and the third turn.
• 1:07:39
  So when you're doing this, you have to think about the
• 1:07:42
  entire stream of the segment.
• 1:07:44
  So that's where it's important.
• 1:07:45
  If I'm a little later here, a little earlier there, or if I'm late two places,
• 1:07:49
  how does it mess up the third turn?
• 1:07:50
  Again, this is why you need to be thinking two to three turns ahead
• 1:07:53
  when you're trying to bring your speed up and bring your times down.
• 1:07:57
  So don't think about the track as turn one and turn two and turn three.
• 1:08:01
  Think about this as segment one and segment two and segment three.
• 1:08:06
  Pogono North is really, really short, so for me it's only really two
• 1:08:09
  segments, the Chicane and Nascar Turn 3.
• 1:08:11
  Not a whole lot there, but when you start running bigger tracks, it's
• 1:08:15
  really important to break things down.
• 1:08:16
  And it's also easier to relate to your coach and say, Hey,
• 1:08:19
  let's work on segment one.
• 1:08:20
  I want to perfect this combination of turns.
• 1:08:23
  And then you move on to the next piece, where you can chunk it.
• 1:08:25
  Straightaways, just because you hit the straight, doesn't
• 1:08:29
  mean there's nothing to do.
• 1:08:31
  This is your opportunity to breathe, check coolant, look at the flag
• 1:08:35
  stations, look ahead, who's behind you.
• 1:08:38
  If your head's not on a swivel, you're not paying attention.
• 1:08:40
  You're not situationally aware, is what we call it.
• 1:08:43
  Straightaway is a great opportunity to do that.
• 1:08:45
  But straightaways are also an opportunity to let other people
• 1:08:48
  go by, make sure you have gas.
• 1:08:50
  Don't ask me how many people I know that run out of gas.
• 1:08:53
  But one thing that's important about a straightaway is the turn leading
• 1:08:56
  on to a straightaway is always the fastest turn on the track.
• 1:08:59
  Flat out.
• 1:08:59
  If anybody ever quizzes you on that, the fastest turn on the track is
• 1:09:02
  the one leading on the straightaway.
• 1:09:04
  But it's one of the most important turns too when you're in traffic.
• 1:09:07
  Because that gives you an opportunity, as you're going
• 1:09:09
  in, you know how to set it up.
• 1:09:11
  Quick point by, as you're entering that turn, not exiting the turn, because what
• 1:09:16
  we don't want to do is break momentum.
• 1:09:17
  Straightaways are an opportunity to break up traffic.
• 1:09:20
  So, give that point by early, let them go by, stay in the throttle, and go.
• 1:09:24
  And we'll talk a little bit more about passing this side.
• 1:09:27
  Brake less, steer less.
• 1:09:28
  Drive with your feet.
• 1:09:29
  A lot of driving of vehicles isn't about steering input and all these
• 1:09:33
  other things that we talked about.
• 1:09:34
  Some of it has to do with what trail braking can give you, how it
• 1:09:37
  rotates the car, using that weight transfer to unsettle it, you know,
• 1:09:41
  driving off the nose versus driving a little looser, driving off the
• 1:09:44
  rear wheels, using your feet.
• 1:09:46
  And then again, like I mentioned earlier about skid pads, learning how
• 1:09:49
  the centrifugal forces work in the car, the physics of the car laterally,
• 1:09:52
  you can then learn if I lift just a little bit of throttle, it noses in.
• 1:09:56
  I don't have to add more input.
• 1:09:57
  Or if I give it a little gas, it's going to push out.
• 1:10:00
  All these subtle nuances, and a lift.
• 1:10:02
  You know, if I hear an instructor go, just lift.
• 1:10:03
  It's a quick lift.
• 1:10:04
  Because all we're trying to do is get the car to correct.
• 1:10:06
  And Watkins Glen in Turn 7 is famous for this.
• 1:10:10
  It's completely off camber, up 600 horsepower hill.
• 1:10:13
  People are like, I can never meet the apex.
• 1:10:15
  And they're standing on the throttle.
• 1:10:16
  And it's like, no, because it's throwing you that way.
• 1:10:18
  And I just say, lift.
• 1:10:19
  And the car moves two feet.
• 1:10:21
  Like, wow.
• 1:10:22
  That's all you gotta do, man.
• 1:10:23
  Just lift your foot.
• 1:10:24
  You didn't even have to change your steering angle, and the car came right in.
• 1:10:27
  So play with that when you're out there.
• 1:10:29
  And like I said earlier this morning, if you're getting further away from
• 1:10:32
  that apex cone, even though that's not gospel, just lift a little bit.
• 1:10:36
  You should be getting closer to it, not further away from it.
• 1:10:39
  You're missing your mark the further you get away from the apex.
• 1:10:44
  Nobody in here is running a Porsche except for you, right?
• 1:10:47
  No?
• 1:10:48
  Okay.
• 1:10:48
  I don't got that one.
• 1:10:49
  Nah.
• 1:10:50
  So you have to worry about trailing throttle oversteer.
• 1:10:52
  That's a whole nother, we can talk about that on Offline.
• 1:10:54
  That's why I always put it at the bottom.
• 1:10:56
  This is a very Porsche thing.
• 1:10:57
  Since there are front wheel drives going backwards.
• 1:10:59
  But, uh, you know, it's all good.
• 1:11:01
  Most cars nowadays have a propensity to understeer.
• 1:11:05
  They're dialed in that way from the factory.
• 1:11:07
  Even pro racers talk about now how they're driving all the
• 1:11:10
  race cars off to front end.
• 1:11:12
  Because they use that understeer.
• 1:11:13
  So, it's Quote unquote safer, it's easier to anticipate, and suddenly the car steps
• 1:11:18
  and snaps and they gotta correct it.
• 1:11:20
  You're losing time if you're drifting, by the way.
• 1:11:22
  It looks cool, but it's not fast.
• 1:11:24
  Like I said before, the enemy of understeer is opening the wheel,
• 1:11:28
  but it's also lifting the throttle.
• 1:11:30
  Right?
• 1:11:30
  So it's a little bit of both.
• 1:11:31
  You have to decide which works.
• 1:11:33
  In some cases, depending on the complex corner that you're working
• 1:11:36
  on, quickly snapping the wheel open, getting the car straight, means you
• 1:11:40
  can get back on the power sooner.
• 1:11:41
  We talked about this in New Jersey.
• 1:11:42
  There's a bunch of that stuff going on there.
• 1:11:44
  So you have to find it's a delicate balance between Riding your foot and
• 1:11:47
  just quickly opening the wheel to get those wheels straight as possible.
• 1:11:50
  Super important for front wheel drives.
• 1:11:52
  The faster we can get our wheels straight, the more quickly we
• 1:11:56
  can put the power to the ground.
• 1:11:57
  And I tell you what, if you've never raced a front wheel drive
• 1:12:00
  on track, I highly recommend it because it makes you a better driver.
• 1:12:03
  And the guys that run overseas, touring car and all that kind of
• 1:12:06
  stuff, they're all front wheel drives and they're maniacs.
• 1:12:09
  But you put them in something else, and they can do all sorts of
• 1:12:11
  really neat stuff with other cars.
• 1:12:13
  So it's an art form, and you guys will get there.
• 1:12:15
  More throttle and more steering is never the answer, right?
• 1:12:18
  So remind yourself of that.
• 1:12:19
  If you're walking away from the apex, don't add more gas.
• 1:12:23
  Don't add more steering.
• 1:12:24
  Lift.
• 1:12:24
  Left foot braking.
• 1:12:25
  You hear people say, Oh yeah, left foot braking, I keep the turbo spooled up.
• 1:12:28
  Especially if you've got an older car.
• 1:12:29
  I laugh, and it's true, and I do it.
• 1:12:31
  But this is not the place to learn how to left foot brake.
• 1:12:36
  A manual transmission car is not the car to learn left foot braking on either.
• 1:12:41
  So if your daily driver is an automatic, go left foot brake with that.
• 1:12:44
  Go learn how to rudder.
• 1:12:45
  Because you don't have the finesse in your clutch leg that you do in a manual.
• 1:12:51
  So you need to learn that.
• 1:12:52
  Jokingly, I mean, it's, it's true.
• 1:12:54
  I've taken my jeep and my previous tow rigs on track before, and
• 1:12:57
  I'll go out there and I'll left foot them, get them to rotate.
• 1:12:59
  It's all sorts of fun, but you gotta have that finesse in your leg.
• 1:13:02
  Learn it on the street, do it at low speed.
• 1:13:04
  Do it on a road that you know, because the first time you do left
• 1:13:07
  foot braking, you're gonna put yourself through the windshield.
• 1:13:10
  It's gonna be like, whoa, whoa, wait, what?
• 1:13:11
  So, just learn how to do that.
• 1:13:13
  Outside of the track, and when you master it, then you need to
• 1:13:16
  decide, when can I left foot brake?
• 1:13:17
  When am I not shifting?
• 1:13:18
  It's all about when you're not shifting, especially with a manual transmission car.
• 1:13:22
  If you're an automatic guy with a modern car, and you can
• 1:13:24
  rudder, you're gonna be fast.
• 1:13:26
  Because now, you never have to come off the throttle, so there's not that
• 1:13:29
  delay between the brake and the gas when you need to execute at apex.
• 1:13:33
  So there is an advantage.
• 1:13:34
  That's why all the race cars now flappy power gear boxes and two pedals, because
• 1:13:38
  there's time lost in shifting gears.
• 1:13:40
  Now it's a lot more fun, whatever.
• 1:13:43
  Heel, toe is really, really important.
• 1:13:48
  But a lot of new cars, Hondas, Cortes, et cetera, they're doing
• 1:13:51
  automatic lifting for you to do the rev matching and whatnot.
• 1:13:55
  And this is another difficult thing to learn.
• 1:13:58
  And I say the track is the wrong place to learn a lot.
• 1:14:01
  A lot of instructors I've met in the past.
• 1:14:02
  You need to work on your heel toe today.
• 1:14:04
  I'm like, nah, the track is not the place to do that.
• 1:14:06
  Let's just focus on getting around here, doing what needs to be done.
• 1:14:10
  There's other ways to shift where if you're not comfortable heel
• 1:14:13
  toeing, you don't have to do it.
• 1:14:14
  Don't feel that you have to force yourself.
• 1:14:16
  But you do have to practice.
• 1:14:17
  There's a video on my YouTube channel all about doing rev matching both up and
• 1:14:22
  down shifting because it works both ways.
• 1:14:24
  A lot of people forget that.
• 1:14:25
  I can share that link if you guys are interested.
• 1:14:28
  But I want to remind you that there are two ways to do this.
• 1:14:31
  The original heel toe was designed for BMWs and Porsches where the
• 1:14:35
  pedal comes up from the floor.
• 1:14:37
  And it's a specific foot position to be able to do that and be able to
• 1:14:41
  operate both pedals at the same time.
• 1:14:43
  It is not the same foot position.
• 1:14:46
  For a car with hanging pedals.
• 1:14:47
  So it's sort of like snowboarding, right?
• 1:14:48
  There's the normal way and then there's goofy.
• 1:14:50
  It's the same thing with heel toe.
• 1:14:52
  You have to master both, especially if you switch cars, you go from a Porsche
• 1:14:56
  to a Mustang pedals, drop pedals, raise, and it's not the same foot position.
• 1:15:01
  It's a different technique in your ankle to make heel toe work.
• 1:15:04
  So again, the video that I put out kind of covers all that kind of stuff.
• 1:15:08
  If you want to see it in more detail, I won't belabor the point
• 1:15:10
  here, but more importantly, if you have an issue and you go off.
• 1:15:15
  A, be mindful of the runoff that you have available, and remember that
• 1:15:19
  your hands go where your eyes go.
• 1:15:21
  So if you're looking at the guardrail, that's where you're going to go.
• 1:15:24
  So you always should be diverting your eyes to the exit, right?
• 1:15:27
  Where do I want to take the car?
• 1:15:29
  Your hands will go there and the rest becomes natural, becomes intuitive,
• 1:15:32
  because everything sort of slows down during a spin or a slide or whatever.
• 1:15:36
  But if you go off and you feel the car is going to completely come
• 1:15:39
  around 360 or more, especially if you have a transmission
• 1:15:42
  car, both feet in immediately.
• 1:15:44
  And the reason both feet go in, to disengage the drivetrain,
• 1:15:47
  but to not stall the motor.
• 1:15:49
  Because if you need to recover, you can pop the clutch and keep going.
• 1:15:52
  If you're sitting there stalled, you're dead in the water.
• 1:15:55
  So when you spin, both feet in.
• 1:15:57
  Talking about going faster.
• 1:15:59
  There is a rule that I have lived by in my many years of time trialing.
• 1:16:03
  Especially as you guys move up.
• 1:16:05
  It's a nine lap strategy.
• 1:16:06
  Because you have to maintain your consumables.
• 1:16:09
  Racing is expensive.
• 1:16:11
  If anybody tells you otherwise, they're lying to you.
• 1:16:13
  Right?
• 1:16:13
  Tires, fuel, everything right now, because of inflation, is pretty high.
• 1:16:17
  So I abide by a nine lap strategy.
• 1:16:19
  Spend the first three laps, It's warming everything up.
• 1:16:22
  You don't have to go out full bore.
• 1:16:24
  Your tires are cold.
• 1:16:25
  Your air pressures aren't right.
• 1:16:26
  If you've got TPMS, use it.
• 1:16:28
  You know, let everything come up.
• 1:16:29
  Warm up your car before you go out.
• 1:16:30
  Make sure the engine's operating.
• 1:16:31
  Temperature and all that kind of stuff.
• 1:16:33
  Once traffic is cleared, remember the first three laps, everybody's
• 1:16:36
  trying to find their pace.
• 1:16:37
  You just got let out altogether.
• 1:16:39
  This isn't a rally stage where we set you out 20 seconds apart.
• 1:16:42
  You're all bunched up and you're like, Oh, I was in a dream for the whole session.
• 1:16:46
  Chill out.
• 1:16:47
  These are the first three laps, let traffic dissipate, orient yourself
• 1:16:50
  to the track, figure out what the flaggers are, figure out what the
• 1:16:52
  asphalt looks like, all that stuff.
• 1:16:53
  Spend those three laps just getting warmed up, you know, like you're on a cyclotron,
• 1:16:57
  it's like, we're gonna build up speed.
• 1:16:59
  Three laps, hot, push as fast as you can go, do what you need to do.
• 1:17:03
  Three laps.
• 1:17:04
  Cool down and relax.
• 1:17:05
  Alright?
• 1:17:05
  Your adrenaline is going to spike.
• 1:17:07
  Once you're going for time, you're going to be like, ahhh,
• 1:17:09
  like the Incredible Hulk.
• 1:17:10
  Three laps.
• 1:17:11
  Cool down.
• 1:17:11
  Come in.
• 1:17:12
  If you can't get your fastest lap time in this nine lap
• 1:17:15
  structure, you're wasting time.
• 1:17:17
  You're wasting consumables.
• 1:17:18
  You're just out doing three laps.
• 1:17:20
  So this is, when you're competing, and you're out here for trophies
• 1:17:23
  and points in white group and blue group, follow a nine lap strategy.
• 1:17:26
  It saves tires over the day.
• 1:17:28
  It saves consumables.
• 1:17:29
  It saves your brain.
• 1:17:30
  You're not wearing yourself out.
• 1:17:32
  And you'll go out the next session.
• 1:17:33
  And I'm like, I got to fix this, I got to do this, I have time to look at my
• 1:17:36
  data, I have time to review the video, whatever you're doing at that level.
• 1:17:40
  But by doing this, you're saving yourself and you're saving the car.
• 1:17:43
  Remember, you've got four or five sessions in a day to get the work done.
• 1:17:47
  And your best lap time of the day is what counts for the trophies at the end.
• 1:17:51
  Right?
• 1:17:51
  So it doesn't need to be completed the first session out.
• 1:17:54
  Alright, the next most important part of any of this, whether you're
• 1:17:57
  in the student group or you're on track, is traffic management.
• 1:18:02
  There's always one of you, right?
• 1:18:05
  Don't be this guy.
• 1:18:06
  So I tell people all the time, there is no line, but don't drive someone else's line.
• 1:18:13
  If you're following the taillights of the car in front of you, if he or
• 1:18:16
  she makes a mistake, you will too.
• 1:18:18
  It's just our natural habit as humans.
• 1:18:21
  It's a very hard thing to do, is you're looking through the cars ahead of you.
• 1:18:25
  When I'm out on track, it's like a cartoon.
• 1:18:26
  Everything becomes a cone.
• 1:18:28
  They're just objects on track.
• 1:18:29
  I don't know that it's a Honda or a Corvette.
• 1:18:31
  It's an object that's in my way, and I'm just looking through it.
• 1:18:34
  I need to maintain my line, because what's most important for
• 1:18:37
  me is maintaining my momentum.
• 1:18:39
  Especially in a low horsepower car, we're at a severe disadvantage.
• 1:18:42
  I need to make sure that I can capitalize on your mistakes.
• 1:18:45
  Or where you're not fast, but I can find a way through there to keep my
• 1:18:49
  lap as consistent, as fast as possible.
• 1:18:52
  And when you start building up your skills, your laps should be
• 1:18:54
  within tenths of a second of each other, regardless of traffic.
• 1:18:57
  Because again, you're thinking ahead, you're looking ahead, you're
• 1:19:00
  looking through cars, you're planning your attack route through traffic.
• 1:19:04
  If you want to practice what they call racecraft, which is exactly what
• 1:19:07
  I explained, go do some go karting.
• 1:19:10
  And go do go karting with other people that race.
• 1:19:13
  Because it all becomes very real at that point.
• 1:19:15
  You see it all, because now you've leveled the playing field.
• 1:19:18
  You see the lines and how everybody's manipulating each other in traffic.
• 1:19:21
  You will go race craft through go karting.
• 1:19:23
  So, it's more than just having beers and going having fun.
• 1:19:26
  There's something from every discipline that you can bring to the table,
• 1:19:29
  especially here at Tucked Trials.
• 1:19:30
  Where to pass.
• 1:19:32
  You know, they talked about passing zones this morning for you guys.
• 1:19:34
  Oh, we're gonna go to the back straight.
• 1:19:35
  Generally the rule is, at most tracks you go to, um, the answer is where to pass.
• 1:19:40
  Passes where the wheels are perceived to be straight.
• 1:19:43
  The exit of a turn is okay, we're going to straight, it's perceived straight.
• 1:19:48
  So again, if you set up passing early, you've got that Miata, Corvette's
• 1:19:52
  coming up on it, you give it early.
• 1:19:53
  As you guys are exiting the corner, you can do a nice over under, and the
• 1:19:57
  Corvette goes by you and away you go.
• 1:19:59
  The other thing about passing is, if you're ducking in in front of somebody
• 1:20:03
  to go into a braking zone, make sure you can see their headlights in your
• 1:20:07
  rearview mirror, because that means there's enough berth between you and them.
• 1:20:10
  them that you're not going to plow into each other going into the braking zone.
• 1:20:13
  This is a good rule for any time you pass.
• 1:20:15
  Don't get back on driver's line until you can clearly see
• 1:20:19
  them in your rear view mirror.
• 1:20:21
  When to pass is a strategy, right?
• 1:20:23
  It's part of this game.
• 1:20:24
  You have to learn where to sacrifice a corner to take a position because you
• 1:20:30
  have a slower car in front of you that you've been trying to get around in
• 1:20:32
  your battle or whatever as you move up.
• 1:20:34
  The same is true in your guy's run group.
• 1:20:37
  It's about making yourself known, making your intentions known.
• 1:20:41
  I hear it all the time, that guy didn't let me pass.
• 1:20:43
  Well how far were you from him?
• 1:20:45
  Well I was like five car lots back.
• 1:20:46
  Well you're not, you're not ready to pass.
• 1:20:48
  What do you mean?
• 1:20:49
  You have to make your intentions known.
• 1:20:50
  Get up on that guy.
• 1:20:51
  I'm not telling you to tailgate them, but get up on them and sit
• 1:20:54
  outside of their mirror a little bit, in their quarter panel.
• 1:20:57
  Be like, hey I'm here.
• 1:20:58
  I'm here.
• 1:20:58
  If you need to talk back underneath them because you're going to a
• 1:21:00
  breaking zone, all you got to do is barely move the steering wheel
• 1:21:02
  and you're back in line again.
• 1:21:03
  So you're making yourself known like, Hey, I'm here.
• 1:21:05
  He gives you the wave.
• 1:21:07
  Alright, you get me at the next turn and we'll go do about our business.
• 1:21:10
  You guys are still communicating with each other, but when you move into
• 1:21:13
  open passing and like blue group, now there's no more communicating.
• 1:21:17
  Guys still are courteous and will flag each other and sometimes point by,
• 1:21:21
  but then you have to think about when.
• 1:21:23
  When can I take advantage of what's coming up?
• 1:21:26
  I'm faster in segment one.
• 1:21:27
  Remember we're talking about segments.
• 1:21:29
  I'm quicker than this guy in this segment of the track.
• 1:21:32
  If I can get around him, that gives me my advantage for the rest of the lap.
• 1:21:35
  He starts building that gap between me and the other guy.
• 1:21:38
  I talked earlier about feel.
• 1:21:40
  It's really, really important, but FEEL can only take you so far.
• 1:21:43
  Driving by FEEL is going to be a life skill for you when you're driving on
• 1:21:47
  the road, in bad weather conditions, you know, whatever's going on.
• 1:21:51
  But also if you have ambitions on becoming a coach for a while, right?
• 1:21:54
  Like I said, being able to drive by FEEL is important
• 1:21:56
  because you don't have anything.
• 1:21:58
  You're alone for the ride, you don't have any data.
• 1:22:00
  As you move up, as you progress, and why I don't like to have the
• 1:22:03
  student groups be timed, is that you get too fixated on the stuff.
• 1:22:07
  There's some really neat tools out there, you know, the Ames, the Garmins, the
• 1:22:11
  Apex Pros, Harry's Laptime, or whatever.
• 1:22:13
  All of us are, you know, we want to run it, we want to do it.
• 1:22:15
  Put that stuff away for right now, because if you don't have somebody
• 1:22:18
  helping you understand the data and analyze the data with you, and there's
• 1:22:22
  folks like ourselves that can sit down with you and say, Let's look at your lap.
• 1:22:25
  Let's look at your braking zones, all this kind of stuff.
• 1:22:27
  It's just a bunch of numbers.
• 1:22:28
  It becomes as crazy as Excel sheets that don't mean anything to you.
• 1:22:32
  So don't get fixated on the data just yet.
• 1:22:34
  Once you've gotten to the point that you have enough days and tracks under
• 1:22:38
  your belt, you're turning consistent lap times, you're being recorded
• 1:22:42
  by the tower and things like that, then you go, let me start looking at
• 1:22:45
  my data to see how I can go faster.
• 1:22:47
  But then you're still going to need a mentor.
• 1:22:48
  You need a different kind of coach at that point to step in with you
• 1:22:52
  and sit down, look at your video.
• 1:22:54
  Drive with you, look at the data sets, and really work on honing your skills.
• 1:22:57
  And if you're going the direction you're going, it's 100 percent what you gotta do.
• 1:23:01
  So that being said, so we talked about data a little bit.
• 1:23:03
  You know, the big question about today has been progression,
• 1:23:05
  progression, progression, progression.
• 1:23:07
  Many folks want to get rid of their instructors if they have
• 1:23:10
  them as quickly as possible.
• 1:23:11
  I don't need that extra 200 pounds of ballast in my right seat.
• 1:23:14
  That's the wrong answer.
• 1:23:17
  It's sort of like when you first started to learn AppDrive.
• 1:23:20
  You want somebody with you for as long as you possibly can.
• 1:23:22
  There's so many different scenarios.
• 1:23:24
  There's so many different tracks.
• 1:23:25
  So many different situations.
• 1:23:26
  So many opportunities to learn.
• 1:23:28
  When you're out there by yourself, or you're not working with
• 1:23:31
  fellow folks in your run group, you're not actually learning.
• 1:23:34
  You're just driving.
• 1:23:35
  You're just doing whatever comes natural to you at that point.
• 1:23:37
  So you're not growing.
• 1:23:38
  So what I like to tell people is, you know, never stop learning.
• 1:23:41
  Ask any coach, even a coach you've had before.
• 1:23:43
  Hey, can you ride with me?
• 1:23:44
  Blah, blah.
• 1:23:44
  Can you come see what I'm doing?
• 1:23:45
  Let's talk.
• 1:23:46
  You know, let's go over all these things.
• 1:23:48
  But if you wanted to go So, let's say moving from red to white
• 1:23:52
  group here with this organization.
• 1:23:55
  My personal rule of thumb is that to be a more well rounded driver, it's not
• 1:24:00
  numbers of days that somebody posted on their rules, you can have 27 days and
• 1:24:04
  you can move to this group, that group.
• 1:24:06
  It really has to do with the diversity of the tracks in your portfolio.
• 1:24:10
  So to even begin considering moving someone up, my personal rule, and this
• 1:24:14
  comes from me coming up through the system, is you gotta have somewhere
• 1:24:17
  between six to eight different tracks.
• 1:24:19
  And different tracks isn't, well I did Pocono South and I did Pocono
• 1:24:23
  North, you're still at Pocono.
• 1:24:24
  You need to go to different venues.
• 1:24:26
  I went to VIR, I went to the Glen, I went to Summit Point, I went to New Jersey.
• 1:24:29
  Because they're so drastically different, you're going to pull something away
• 1:24:32
  from each of those experiences and being able to, you know you're there.
• 1:24:37
  When you look at a turn and you go to a new track, the pit race,
• 1:24:40
  and you go, Man, turn one is just like this turn in the blend.
• 1:24:44
  And now you know exactly what you need to do, how you're going to put
• 1:24:47
  the car in there, where you're going to brake, all this kind of stuff.
• 1:24:49
  When you're teaching yourself and relating it back to your previous experience,
• 1:24:53
  that's when you know you're ready to move up into the more advanced groups.
• 1:24:56
  Because you can stitch it all together.
• 1:24:58
  Now, what you're looking for at that point is, I need the tricks of the guys that run
• 1:25:02
  here all the time to really make me fast.
• 1:25:05
  And those are things that are easy to learn and easy to pick up.
• 1:25:07
  So, progression, you shouldn't be in a hurry to get to advanced.
• 1:25:11
  And let me tell you something, when you do go for a checkout run, most organizations
• 1:25:16
  that you play with out here, you are being checked out in the next run group up.
• 1:25:21
  And the qualifications that they're looking for are very different
• 1:25:24
  than what you're accustomed to.
• 1:25:25
  So, for instance, here, you go from red to white.
• 1:25:29
  What they're looking for in white is speed.
• 1:25:31
  They're looking for etiquette.
• 1:25:32
  They're looking for situational awareness.
• 1:25:35
  Maybe you were the fastest guy in red group, so you're not used to
• 1:25:38
  giving point buys, but you just went from one rung to the other
• 1:25:41
  where the speeds are much faster.
• 1:25:42
  If you look at the lap times, in your lap time, you're at
• 1:25:46
  the bottom of the next group.
• 1:25:47
  Think to yourself, where am I going to sit when I'm out there?
• 1:25:51
  I'm going to be a back marker.
• 1:25:52
  And I don't mean that as a derogatory term, but you've got to be realistic
• 1:25:55
  with yourself and say, I'm going to have guys all over me, and I'm
• 1:25:58
  not used to giving point buys.
• 1:25:59
  So now, my whole awareness changes, right?
• 1:26:02
  I'm no longer just kind of focused on what's in front of me.
• 1:26:04
  So, that's what they're going to be testing you for, and every
• 1:26:07
  time you move up a rung, it becomes more and more difficult.
• 1:26:09
  So say you go from white to blue group, they want to see how you deal with open
• 1:26:13
  passing, three abreast, all sorts of weird situations that you're going to be put
• 1:26:16
  in because it's more like club racing, it's more like door to door racing.
• 1:26:20
  So you have to think about that.
• 1:26:22
  So don't be in a hurry to rush and move up.
• 1:26:24
  Enjoy the experience.
• 1:26:25
  Enjoy this hobby.
• 1:26:27
  Right?
• 1:26:27
  And do get competitive.
• 1:26:28
  You know, go into the timed part because parts of red group are timed here, right?
• 1:26:32
  So you can do that without having to move yourself.
• 1:26:35
  into a class where then you're uncompetitive.
• 1:26:37
  So again, like we talked about, it all comes full circle.
• 1:26:39
  The learning how to drive, reading the rulebook, stitching all this stuff
• 1:26:42
  together, getting creative and whatnot.
• 1:26:45
  It just brings us back to, be safe, have fun, the learning
• 1:26:50
  will come, and the speed is last.
• 1:26:52
  That's pretty much my spiel.
• 1:26:53
  Any other questions, anything you guys want to discuss?
• 1:26:56
  Otherwise, I won't keep you here, it's lunchtime.
• 1:26:58
  I mean, that's it for classroom.
• 1:26:59
  We don't get together again after that.
• 1:27:01
  You know, see some of the group leaders if you have a problem.
• 1:27:03
  Talk to John Katz, talk to Corey, Brad, anybody from the staff.
• 1:27:07
  You're YouTube?
• 1:27:08
  YouTube.
• 1:27:09
  com forward slash Grantory Motorsports.
• 1:27:11
  Grantory Motorsports.
• 1:27:12
  G R A N.
• 1:27:14
  Yeah.
• 1:27:16
  Alright guys, if there's no further questions, normally we would dissect
• 1:27:19
  the track if it was bigger, but it's not that complicated today, so.
• 1:27:23
  But if you've got any questions, come see me, and you know, like I said, just
• 1:27:25
  be safe out there, and stay hydrated.
• 1:27:31
  This episode has been sponsored in part by the Eastern Motorsport Racing
• 1:27:34
  Association, the leader in timed events and grassroots racing since 1969.
• 1:27:40
  For more details on Emra and their racing programs, visit www.emramraracing.org.
• 1:27:48
  Follow them on Facebook and Instagram at Emra Racing, or use the online
• 1:27:53
  contact us form on their website to reach out to John and Corey directly.
• 1:28:02
  If you like what you've heard and want to learn more about GTM,
• 1:28:04
  be sure to check us out on www.
• 1:28:08
  gtmotorsports.
• 1:28:08
  org.
• 1:28:09
  You can also find us on Motorsports.
• 1:28:12
  Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, You
• 1:28:16
  can call or text us at 202 630 1770, or send us an email gtmotorsports.
• 1:28:24
  org.
• 1:28:24
  We'd love to hear from you.
• 1:28:26
  Hey everybody, Crew Chief Eric here.
• 1:28:29
  We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix, and we wanted
• 1:28:32
  to remind you that GTM remains a no annual fees organization.
• 1:28:37
  And our goal is to continue to bring you quality episodes
• 1:28:40
  like this one at no charge.
• 1:28:42
  As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon for
• 1:28:46
  bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies, and GTM swag.
• 1:28:51
  For as little as 2.
• 1:28:52
  50 a month, you can keep our developers, writers, editors, casters, and other
• 1:28:57
  volunteers fed on their strict diet of fig newtons, gummy bears, and monster.
• 1:29:02
  Consider signing up for Patreon today at www.
• 1:29:05
  patreon.
• 1:29:06
  com forward slash GT Motorsports.
• 1:29:10
  And remember, without fans, supporters, and members like you,
• 1:29:14
  none of this would be possible.