Track lines on various cars.........

[Mark J. Besso]

Gentlemen - and those of you with less tact and patience in your writing,

I rarely jump into the middle of an argument/discussion like this, but I
feel it's worth adding my .02¢.

I've been an instructor for both Porsche & Audi driver's courses.  I've
instructed for autocross, track, and even ice-racing!  There's quite a few
of you that have competed against me over the years too.  I try to teach my
students a couple of immutable facts about cornering fast and "the line."

1. There is only one proper line through any given corner.
2. None of you will be able to drive that line.

It is true that there's only one proper line through a corner.  It doesn't
matter if that is turn 3 at Lime Rock, or a loose gravel, 90° blind crest on
a rally stage.

It's equally true that each driver is going to find it nearly impossible to
drive that perfect line.  It may be due to the type of vehicle and it's
inability to achieve that line.  It may be their own lack of
ability....which then became my job to help them overcome.

Let's take the rally stage as an example.  For this example I'll try to use
a couple of vehicles that have been mentioned in this thread.

With a Coupé GT, and it's front wheel drive, a simple following of that
'proper' line won't work because the car will plow like a John Deere off the
outside.  Expensive, slow, embarrassing, and generally not a good way to win
a race.  It means you should try to enter the corner fast (obviously), brake
upon turn-in to give those front wheels the most traction and chance for
doing you any good at all and unweight the rear of the car, allowing it to
rotate around in a forced version of oversteer.  It would scrub off speed as
it slid to the apex at which point you could progressively feed in more
throttle to reduce/eliminate the induced oversteer and accelerate out of the
corner.

With an UrQ you've got to drive that corner differently, but the 'proper'
line remains the same.  You better have those differentials locked first of
all.  If not, forget cornering at speed in loose gravel. (See above John
Deere analogy)  With them locked you suddenly have a level of useable
traction that the Coupé GT owner can only envy.  In the same given turn
you'd be able to start a pendulum turn prior to traching the turn. (Without
trying to teach that procedure, it involves swinging the tail of the car
like a pendulum - thus the name)  It would appear as if you were going to
cut the corner extremely short, but you fool everyone by suddenly appearing
to steer to the outside immediately prior to the corner itself.  At the last
moment you turn the front wheels to the apex and from that point on you
steer them toward the direction you're intending to drive out of the corner.
All four wheels may be in a slide at this point, but the car will travel
past the same apex as the Coupé GT and drift at nearly the same arc.  While
the Coupé GT had it's front wheels counter-steering to control the rotating
rear end, the UrQ will still have it's front wheels pointed toward the apex,
and then the exit, in order to maintain the proper drift.  Note also that
the Coupé GT was scrubbing off speed as it moved toward the apex while the
UrQ is still accelerating.

Two radically diverse driving styles are required for the same given turn.
The line that SHOULD be driven through it remains unchaged.

It was great that some of you included links & references.  I always like
reading the opinion of others.  My methods may differ from say Danny
Sullivan, but they may match identically someone like Mario Andretti.  C'est
la Vie!  They both won their share of races.  Neither of them will return my
calls so ovbiously they're still scared to race against me. ;-)

Happy cornering to ALL of you....... even you, Danny Sullivan!

~Mark