Spinning out of turn
5. "Driver's Education" at
Roebling Raceway. Jan07.
After 4 runs over the
weekend, I took a ride with my instructor in his car. And even tho I knew that
I was going to be amazed with how aggressively he could take the corners, yet
stay on the track....I was still, well, amazed at how aggressively he could
take the corners, yet stay on the track.
I figured that I must have a lot of spare tire adhesion that I just
wasn't using. So in my next run I
decided to press the pace just a little harder.
I could hear my tires
squealing in turns 2-4. That was a
little surprising because I didn't feel like I was going faster then
usual. I started worrying that maybe one
of the tires had lost some air. That was
the only thing that made sense to me because, heck, I wasn't going any faster
then usual. At least I didn't think that
I was.
I was heading into
turn 5, the same turn where Dow the neighbor with the Viper that got me into
this, spun out in Nov. Per the guidance
from the instructors, I was going to take it in two parts, turning it into 2
separate turns.
I accelerated out of
turn 4, but not too hard because I didn’t want to end up too fast into the next
tur. The aggressive folks accelerate
flat out and then stand on the brakes before most of the turns. In contrast, me, driving like an old lady, is
generally worrying about having too much speed in whatever the next turn
is. And even on the straight-away I let
up on the gas pretty early. The learning
occurs on the turns. Who cares if I
reach 125 as usual, or attempt to push it to 135mph on the straight-away? And, frankly, although slowing from 125mph in
a great big hurry going into turn 1 creates some anxiety, slowing down from 135
in a great big hurry creates a lot more anxiety. One might be tempted to say that it’s scary
as shit. But one might not want to be
perceived as a girlie-man.
I would come to learn
later that speedometers overstate your speed.
So 125mph was probably 118mph.
Turn 5 is a left-hand
turn that starts gradual but then gets tighter. I didn’t “track out on the exit
of 4 to make it easier to set up well for entering turn 5. I very gently touched the brakes before
"turn-in". This is called “confidence
braking”. It’s guys that come up with
these phrases and “I’m afraid braking”, while more accurate, didn’t get too
many votes.
My turn in point and
the amount of steering input I’d selected worked out ok so I caught the inside
of the turn and then drifted out towards the outside again. Then I managed to unload lateral g’s and
sneak the car straight for just a heartbeat, and I touched the brakes once
again for the tricky part......turning into and then charging thru the second
apex, the second and sharper half of turn 5.
Just as I was coming
off of the brakes I initiated the turn in towards the turn’s apex and
ultimately tracking out of the turn under heavy acceleration. I was trying to keep inputs smooth and the
car balanced. The car was aimed for the apex and my eyes were concentrating on
the the track out area of the turn.
Peripheral vision handled the now, while my focus was a couple hundred
feet out. It seemed like I already had
good speed heading for the apex, so I didn’t push the throttle too hard. Too much speed and I’d just slide off of the
track. Although it sure seemed like when
the instructor had been driving at this exact place 20min ago he'd been flying.
I could feel the car
doing some oversteer, that is to say a little rear end sliding out, but that
happens often and is largely no big deal.
I mean…heck, either the front is starting to slide out or the rear is
starting to slide out. Something is
always starting to slide out. So I
stayed with my moderate throttle and largely ignoring the subtle queues from “now”,
while my brain focused on “will be”. A
little rear end sliding out is no big deal.
Give a Porsche a little gas and the additional weight shift to the rear
will clamp the rear tires down nicely.
And then the damndest
thing happened. The “rear end starting
to slide out” that I’d shrugged off as no big deal, kinda just kept going. The rear
end just kept
coming around. My brain seemed to be working in some slow
motion detached sort of way. I remember
thinking, laconically, “It (the rear end coming around) wasn't supposed to do
that.” I think that it took me about
10min to figure out that I might have a problem. First of all, I didn't detect
the transition from "regular old not-a-problem oversteer", to "Uh oh, we've got a problem
oversteer". The difference between not-a-problem and problem was just so darn subtle.
Your brain has to be
focused on planning every nuance of the next 10 seconds. So your automatic reactions and peripheral
vision have to be up to handling “the now”.
And it takes them a while before they can really handle that.
What should have
occurred is that I'd a sensed it early, and completely automatically, applied a
little more gas. And maybe turned the
wheel into the slide just a tiny amount. With no conscious thought I'd have
done the right thing and I'd continue on my way flying down the track.
But instead of any
automatic and correct reaction, what really occurred is that I was struck by
this sense of detached wonder. As in
"My…. how strange. That's not supposed to be happening".
What you cannot do,
as your rear end is threatening to come around under light throttle, is lift
the throttle. This unweights the rear. Of course too much throttle can spin you
around too, so you just have to develop constant awareness as to throttle
position, the weight balance on each tire due to lateral g’s and
braking/accelerating, and just how much you are asking from each tire for
traction, moment to moment. Depending on
the variables, one minute to the next, the right answer could be more gas or
less gas.
I knew better then to
casually lift the throttle, which would unweight the rear and therefore
reducing their grip…exactly the wrong thing to do when the rear is sliding. But
after reliving my first spin countless times, I really can’t say with certainty
that I stayed on the gas. There’s an “oh
shit” automatic reaction that pulls your foot off of the gas and it takes a
long time to defeat that reaction.
When it was clear
that I wasn’t going to catch the situation, I thought to myself
"Well........Shit. Then, remembering
Dow's instructor's words to him when he spun out in the exact same place <imagine
an old guy with an utterly bored voice>...."You're not going to make
it. Just put both feet on the floor".
And I hit the brakes and clutch as I did a leisurely 180.
There was no one near
us so there was no problematic traffic.
The spin was entirely on the asphalt, but my momentum rolled me
backwards on to the outfield. With my
eyes as wide as saucers, we sat there a couple of seconds. Then my instructor said "ok, lets get back
on the track."
I was so flustered
that I couldn't find First. I hit
Reverse. Twice.
The fallout from this
was a little sad. My instructor was
going to allow me to not just graduate out of Novices, but to skip over the
next group up, and go right to the "Solo Group". But my lousy response to excessive oversteer
indicated to him that maybe he'd been optimistic. So I get out of the Novices, but there'll be
no skipping up to Solo. Dern.
Somehow I've
neglected to tell Sarah about the spin.
It must have slipped my mind.
Should you be tempted to repeat this story to any member of the female
gender, make it slip your mind too. I
don't need to remind you that all women on the planet are telepathically
connected.
That's the only real
story of the weekend. Car insurance
covered the guy that rolled his Boxter in Nov. so he was there with a different
car. There was a fair amount of spins
over the weekend, so I had company. A
guy with a Mini Cooper S decided to get track tires, so he bought an extra set
of wheels. Turns out that the extra set
of wheels had more lug nut "stand-off". Therefore his stock lug nuts, although
properly tightened, only had 3 or 4 threads taking the strain. So he lost a wheel. That didn't do his brake rotor,
undercarriage, nor sheetmetal any good.
Most of the 914's, and 924/944's had mechanicals and had to be towed off
of the track. Which is God's way of saying that Porsche motors are supposed to
be in the rear.
The new '99 911 is
far more powerful then my '91 was, and it's suspension is clearly better
too. Turns that were scaring the crap
out of me last Nov were not that stressful this time. Of course I didn't spin in Nov. but even this
spin wasn't frightening really. My
reaction was more of "Now that's very strange. Dang, I'm facing the wrong way" vs.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The '99 911 really
has more power then I can use. Given
half a chance it will fly into a corner a hell of a lot faster then I have any
hope of making it around. I usually
don’t even bother to floor it on the straight-away.
I knew better then to
try any "heel-and-toeing".
Going 130mph and downshifting, popping the gas to match the RPMs at ~5k
while simultaneously standing the car on it's nose with heavy braking is pretty
damn hard. I can do it when I have all
the time in the world, but I can't do it in the 1 millisecond that is available
just prior to entering turn 1 at an extremely unforgiving speed.
I also learned that
the Corvette is a hell of a sports car, especially the Z06 model. I've never been much of a 'Vette type, but
man, those Z06’s have no weakness. They
weigh only slightly more and have half again my hp. But of course, I suck.