Originally Posted by siegelracing

I'm an engineer. Georgia Tech, the MIT (or Harvard) of the South. Acutally I believe Georgia Tech's mechanical engineering program always outranks Harvard's. Maybe not always Stanford or Cornell, but always Harvard. I don't have near the resume that Chrono does, but I own, and have read and re-read almost every driving book ever written. I quite literally have an entire bookcase of nothing but driving and vehicle dynamics books.

Not that I have lived in the written word, I also was a factory driver for a shifter kart team. Granted you don't have the shock set-up, but we traveled the country running in some of the most competitive events ever run in North America. Competitive as defined by 45 competitors covered by maybe 1.5 seconds in qualifying. Yes that means if you are 1.5 second off the leader's pace, you start (if you make the main) in 45th. My best run ever was after a "qualifying position based on when you registered" run from 69th to 7th in 11 laps. If the chain hadn't broken I would have caught at least 4th, but 62 passes in 11 laps was a blast and a half.

Anyway, I have been setting up, racing, driving, and instructing in cars for a while now, and I am looking at possibly 3 teams to work with as race engineer. It seems like Robi has done quite a bit of track work. But I, like Chrono have yet to see even an attempt at an explanation of how it would not be faster to utilitze trail braking.

I don't think that the point of Max front grip can be made too much. Almost every production based race car will do everything they can to get max fron grip, and then balance the rear to match. Robi, your question about the outside front is certainly valid. The VAST majority of students that I have are happy to try and drive "through" a push problem. They will let that outside front just cook. Like Chrono said, trail-braking adds download to that outer front, thereby increasing its grip CAPACITY, which at a given load means you are working the tires less.

The corner entry over-steer is blast of a way to drive. It's is undoubtably more fun than running a more "stuck" line, but it's not faster. I have driven plenty of vehicle that had corner entry oversteer. It's a blast, turn-in, flat the gas and counter-steer through the corner. Some were pretty fast, in fact I won a number of races with them, and they would sometimes show pretty even tire temps, but having the rear over the slip angle of peak grip CANNOT be the fastest way round.

I guess that's another point to make. A pnuematic tire has an interesting plot of slip angle versus grip. Grip increases with slip angle quite linearly to about 6 degrees (different for different tires). Then it starts to round off, then there is little hump from say 6.6 to 6.8, then it rolls into a quick drop. This is one of the things that seperates Michael Shumacher from the rest of the world. The best of the best operate entirely on that little hump. Plenty of people can play from 5.8 to 7.2, no problem, never too out of shape... BUT playing over the drop-off means 2 things; 1, you do not have as much grip as one the peak, therefore you CANNOT (physics here guys) be going as fast, 2, you are cooking your tires faster than the guy who is at the same grip level over on the lower side of slip angle.

Taken to extremes, the pitch it in, tail-out driving style is basically rallying. While again, probably the most fun you can have, and crazy quick on loose surfaces in a relatively unkown corner, it's just not faster on pavement. Even the rally guys will tell you, the more unsure of the corner they are they farther they pitch it, the better they know the corner, the less they have to kick the tail. This argument doesn't play directly to the trail-braking argument, but it's late here, and I'm tired

Originally Posted by robi

I just went over the datalogs @ streets of willow the TIGHTEST track we run and I drop below 60 mph 3 times for a total of 4.958 seconds on a 1:12 second lap..so all this "time I've been wasting".... ie not trail braking when entering slower corners, is contained with in 6% total lap time and in reality 1% total lap time (time I was under braking for these second gear "slow" corners) so I can get a 50% improvement (I'm good ;-) No? so that's 0.1 second... .)

Originally Posted by robi

(like Tarzan in the 460 hp XS engineering EVO at the Time attack what a beginner! me in my stock turbo Stage IV). Oh in the skyline Tarzan Kicked all us US guys collective BUTTs so I think he was without doubt the best driver there in a car he knows but the USDM EVOs are different from the JDM EVO's he drives over there.)

Originally Posted by siegelracing

Sammuel is the MAN. I had the pleaseure to watch him decimate the competition at Drift Atlanta. I thought he was doing mostly the Ride and Drive things with Mercedes, what's he do with you?

Originally Posted by chronohunter

Does you car understeer on entry and mid-corner in those slow corners?

No slighty loose on entry perfectly neutral as the throttle picks up





How about Sammuel? He was there and beat Tarzan out for the Mopar drift seat (and has since one the championship ), he also was many seconds faster than you in cars he has never driven on a track he had never been on. He is one of my instructors and does trail brake.

Originally Posted by shiv@vishnu

Yes, but it would be funny to watch

Originally Posted by ricardon

Yeah it would be hilarious...your'e exactly right Shiv!!! And you know something, I really don't think you actually realize how funny it would be!

Originally Posted by lambtron@vishnu

About as funny as watching Robi drive at OTC Never seen anyone forget their turn in point at Turn 1 of LV and drive straight off into the dirt. I have it on video and it is classic. I also have pics of his car missing his front bumper from his off track excusion at T-hill. And those are the only two times I actually watched him drive. Maybe that is what he meant about dirt track racing I know I'm missing out on a lot more and I can't wait until December!

-tron

Originally Posted by hagakure

Shiv makes a good point here. Would antone here argue with Karl Malone or John Stockton about the most effective way to set screens or play proper defense? There is certainly a time to consider the source of any type of knowledge or mastery. This is one of them, in my opinion.

Percy

Originally Posted by hagakure

Posts like this are rediculous and inflamatory, and help cement the assumptions that many people associated witht he Vishnu camp are just, well, dicks.

Percy

Originally Posted by hagakure

Posts like this are rediculous and inflamatory, and help cement the assumptions that many people associated witht he Vishnu camp are just, well, dicks.

Percy