{"id":43985,"date":"2023-05-09T07:00:27","date_gmt":"2023-05-09T14:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/?p=43985"},"modified":"2024-03-23T08:20:15","modified_gmt":"2024-03-23T15:20:15","slug":"q-how-can-i-test-for-grip-by-turning-the-steering-more-in-the-middle-of-a-corner-on-a-race-track","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/q-how-can-i-test-for-grip-by-turning-the-steering-more-in-the-middle-of-a-corner-on-a-race-track\/","title":{"rendered":"Q: How can I \u201ctest\u201d for grip by turning the steering more in the middle of a corner on a race track?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Q<\/strong>: \u201cCan you clarify something for me? You wrote in your <\/em>Speed Secrets 365 eBook, \u2018<\/strong>While driving through a corner, turn the steering wheel more. You may need to do this rather quickly. If you slowly turn the wheel, and you\u2019re not quite or just at the limit, the car will respond and tighten up the radius. But if you turn the wheel quickly, you\u2019re likely to induce some amount of understeer, if even just for a moment. And that tells you something. It tells you where the grip level is. Relate the feel back through the steering wheel with the response to the \u201cchange of direction request\u201d you\u2019ve put into the steering.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do I learn, and how, from the quick input understeer?\u00a0I don’t get how that helps me understand how much grip is available.\u00a0I’m guessing that maybe the answer is paying attention to how much understeer a quick input causes?\u00a0Lots of understeer meaning that I was already close to the limit? I’m used to using slower turns of the wheel to see if I have more grip available than I am using.\u00a0If the radius tightens, I was not at the limit.\u00a0Is this not as valid a test as I think?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

A<\/strong>: Yes, if the radius tightens up, you probably are not at the limit. The point of turning the wheel quicker (but not silly quick!) is to actually make the car understeer; then you can use that by maintaining the understeer. If you slowly turn the wheel, and the car tightens the radius, you\u2019re now not going where you want. Of course, if you turn the wheel quickly, and the radius tightens, you\u2019re under the limit and you can carry more speed. The quicker turn also gives you the feedback quicker.<\/p>\n

Of course, \u201cquick\u201d and \u201cslow\u201d are relative terms, so your slow may be my quick, or vice versa! But give it a try with a slightly quicker steering input.<\/p>\n

What I mean is deliberately create understeer, and then manage it, even if that means letting the car continue to understeer. Yes, it\u2019s part of the learning process, and yet there are times when you want the car to understeer a bit, so you may want to maintain the understeer so you know how to do it.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, what you want to do is go into a corner at a speed where you know it\u2019s going to do something \u2013 understeer or oversteer \u2013 because you\u2019ll then be expecting it. If you go into a corner at just under the limit, then you spend much of the rest of the corner wondering when the car is going to go to under- or oversteer \u2013 and sometimes it surprises you. By deliberately making the car understeer, it won\u2019t surprise you \u2013 you know what you\u2019ve got. You can also deliberately make the car oversteer on corner entry, but that\u2019s usually more challenging to control than understeer is.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not a golfer, but years ago, I read a book about learning to improve one\u2019s golf game. In it, the author suggested that if you tend to hook the ball, go to a driving range and deliberately make the ball hook. By doing so, you learn what really causes you to hook the ball, and then you can change. This is different from how many golf pros approach a player who hooks the ball. What they do is have the player change their stance or grip, and even if the player makes improvements, they don\u2019t know why \u2013 and sometimes the hook comes back. The first scenario is the same approach I take with drivers I coach.<\/p>\n

I will admit that this is one of those things that is much easier to communicate in person!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Q: \u201cCan you clarify something for me? What do I learn, and how, from the quick input understeer? I don’t get how that helps me understand how much grip is available. I’m guessing that maybe the answer is paying attention to how much understeer a quick input causes? Lots of understeer meaning that I was already close to the limit? I’m used to using slower turns of the wheel to see if I have more grip available than I am using. If the radius tightens, I was not at the limit. Is this not as valid a test as I think?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43987,"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-43985","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\/43985","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=43985"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43989,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43985\/revisions\/43989"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}