{"id":45792,"date":"2024-01-02T03:45:15","date_gmt":"2024-01-02T11:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/?p=45792"},"modified":"2024-12-05T14:54:25","modified_gmt":"2024-12-05T22:54:25","slug":"q-tell-me-what-i-should-do-if-my-car-loses-its-brakes-completely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/q-tell-me-what-i-should-do-if-my-car-loses-its-brakes-completely\/","title":{"rendered":"Q: Tell me what I should do if my car loses its brakes completely."},"content":{"rendered":"

Q<\/strong>: \u201cOne of the things that worries me the most when driving on track is losing my brakes, so I\u2019d like to think ahead and be better prepared for that happening. What should I do if my car loses its brake completely? Should I try downshifting to slow my car? Should I aim at a tire wall? Should I try to spin my car?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"A<\/strong>: Nine times out of ten (at least), I\u2019d pump the brakes, no matter what kind of failure I was faced with. It might not work, but it will help more often than it won\u2019t help. If it\u2019s a blown brake line, it might pump up enough pressure in the other brakes to slow the car a bit.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think downshifting should be a priority. It\u2019s rare that you\u2019d have the time to actually do this beyond what you\u2019re were already planning to do, so thinking about adding a downshift to everything else you\u2019re doing in the panic is just going to make things worse. Okay, if you could do it without distracting yourself from other stuff, it could help. But I\u2019d focus on what I suggest next\u2026.<\/p>\n

Look where you want to go, no matter what. It\u2019s human instinct to look at where you think you\u2019re going to crash, but if you practice looking where you want to go all the time, you\u2019re more likely to go in that direction in the fractions of a second before a crash. If you keep looking where you want to go \u2013 likely along the track, or at least away from any walls \u2013 you\u2019re more likely to get there. If you look where you want to go, you\u2019re going to minimize the negative effects of the loss of brakes. It is the number one thing to do.<\/p>\n

Whether you try throwing the car sideways, hit another car, try to scrape it down a wall on the side, drive it straight off, or whatever\u2026 there is no way to recommend a one-size-fits-all option. I\u2019m sorry to say this, but \u201cit depends.\u201d You might think that throwing the car sideways to scrub off speed might be a good solution, but it depends on what you\u2019d be sliding on. If you watched what happened to Simon Pagenaud when he lost brakes at the end of the back straight in the Indy car weekend at Mid-Ohio in 2023, he went into the gravel sideways, and rolled so many times that he has a bad concussion. If there had been a large piece of paved area, that might have worked. Same for choosing to run into something (car, wall, etc.) \u2013 it depends. I believe that most drivers\u2019 instincts are to not run into another car, and that\u2019s probably a good thing because it\u2019s probably not good to take someone else with you \u2013 someone who is just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I\u2019d rather crash by myself than take someone with me.<\/p>\n

If I had to give a driver a simple to remember \u201cplan\u201d that they could visualize to prepare, it would be \u201cLook where you want to go, no matter what, and pump the brakes.\u201d That\u2019s not the right plan for every situation, but it will work more often than it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

I touched on this topic in another Q&A here: https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/q-if-im-about-to-crash-into-a-wall-am-i-better-to-hit-it-head-on-or-sideways\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/u>Also, I wrote a piece about brake fade on my Substack, and you can read it here: How to Manage Brake Fade<\/a>. As I say in that article, rarely do brakes work perfectly at 100% and then suddenly go into catastrophic failure. A driver should be sensitive to what the brakes are feeling like, and read when they begin to fade.<\/p>\n

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Q: \u201cOne of the things that worries me the most when driving on track is losing my brakes, so I\u2019d like to think ahead and be better prepared for that happening. What should I do if my car loses its brake completely? Should I try downshifting to slow my car? Should I aim at a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"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":[57,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ask-ross","category-driving-tips"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45792","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=45792"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107866,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45792\/revisions\/107866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}