{"id":31187,"date":"2020-05-25T03:00:23","date_gmt":"2020-05-25T10:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/?p=31187"},"modified":"2020-05-26T08:31:04","modified_gmt":"2020-05-26T15:31:04","slug":"q-what-is-maintenance-throttle-when-should-i-use-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/q-what-is-maintenance-throttle-when-should-i-use-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Q: What is maintenance throttle & when should I use it?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Q<\/strong>: \u201cI hear the term \u2018maintenance throttle\u2019 used, but I don\u2019t really know what it is. And how and when I should use it. Can you explain?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

A<\/strong>: Maintenance throttle is the amount of throttle application you need to keep your car maintaining its speed. If you\u2019re on a level surface and driving in a straight line, it\u2019s not much throttle application at all. This is what you\u2019re doing when driving along a freeway at a constant speed. If you\u2019re driving up a hill, mind you, you\u2019re going to need to apply more throttle to maintain speed. And the same is true if you\u2019re going around a corner. See, as you corner, your tires are scrubbing some amount of speed, so you need some throttle to keep your car\u2019s speed constant \u2013 to maintain that speed.<\/p>\n

Beyond maintaining speed, there\u2019s something else that maintenance throttle does, and that\u2019s balancing the car. As you know, if you brake, or even lift off the gas pedal, your car \u201cnose dives\u201d somewhat. That\u2019s because weight has transferred forward. Alternatively, as you accelerate, weight transfers to the rear. Maintenance throttle balances the car, so its weight is evenly distributed front to rear.<\/p>\n

There are times, like in the middle of a corner, where having the car balanced will help it generate more cornering grip. Without going into great detail here, just know that a car that is perfectly balanced – with no weight transfer front-to-rear, rear-to-front, or side-to-side \u2013 has more overall grip or traction than one that is unbalanced. Watch this video (Why Smooth is Fast<\/em><\/strong><\/a>) I created about driving smoothly to learn more about why this is the case.<\/p>\n

And this is why it\u2019s important to use maintenance throttle sometimes \u2013 to balance the car, and keep its speed up. But also understand that sometimes using maintenance throttle is not<\/strong> the best thing, and in fact, hesitating before getting on the throttle will allow the car to finish turning a little more \u2013 and that will mean that when you begin to accelerate, you\u2019ll be able to get to full throttle sooner. Check out some of the other videos on my YouTube channel, as well as other Q&As here on this page for more details about when to hesitate before applying the throttle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Q: \u201cI hear the term \u2018maintenance throttle\u2019 used, but I don\u2019t really know what it is. And how and when I should use it. Can you explain?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ask-ross"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31187"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31539,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31187\/revisions\/31539"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}