The Winner

The Winner, originally uploaded by Brandon Sutler.

Look at him work that car!

Every driver has a different way of driving their car and this holds true even on ovals where I’ve commonly heard uneducated fans ask how driving in circles is challenging. Most likely they’ve never tried driving a car at the limit where car placement, weight transfer, steering lock, brake pressure all affect the final result. It ain’t just about steering lock.

Formula 1 writers are probably the most detailed when it comes to explaining how two drivers differs. Like Lewis Hamilton and his double world champion teammate, Fernando Alonso. Alonso has his violent turn-in which somehow doesn’t melt into understeer while Hamilton trades off some rear grip so that his car turns quicker than Alonso’s.

That said, even on the ovals, the drivers are distinct. Just last week Jeff Gordon’s Chevy was running out of brakes and you could hear him on the radio say that it meant he couldn’t turn the car with his brakes the way he wanted. Jeff compensated though and managed to win the race.

Me? I followed a fairly well driven VW Jetta TDI the other day from highway 99 and Steveston highway. On the exit from Knight to Marine she entered the corner less than flat and then hit the two bumps just before and after the apex. As a result her car pitched out wider than she expected and she had to get off the gas; nonetheless she was a pretty snazzy driver.

I knew about the bumps on entry so I stayed out wide and then pitched the car into very tight and let the bumps throw the car out wider for me. I had a little less speed on entry than I liked as she was ahead of me so I applied a bit too much steering lock for the situation but it was still one of my better executions at a turn that I increasingly enjoy going through. I figure I could really carry a lot of speed through there if there wasn’t so much dirt at my turn in point.

Drunk Driver Looking Out

Drunk Driver Looking Out, originally uploaded by Goodnight Sweet October.

Out late Saturday night I was driving home from downtown when a pickup truck pulled up behind me, he made a left turn behind me and ran a red light while he was doing it. I realized after a block or so that the driver was clearly drunk, he was swerving into the parked car lane and was barely missing parked cars.

I ended up dialing 911 to report him and they got my info down pretty quickly. They did ask for my address which I was surprised by, I figured they just need my name and number and we’d be good to go. Perhaps they’d follow up in case they found out it was a crank call or something.

Figuring that he was drunk I actually paced him for several blocks while I called him in. I drove slow enough to make progress for him slow until he turned off onto another street. He reappeared a block later in a separate lane and then sped off a lot faster.

Toyo Proxes 4

Toyo Proxes 4, originally uploaded by silancetire.

I spent a couple hours today tinkering with my tire pressures as I try to adjust the car’s handling to suit my driving style (I like a slightly pointy car). My new Toyo Proxes 4s are quite different in how they behave compared to my OEM Dunlops and I haven’t put enough clicks on them to scrub them in till this weekend.

I typically ran my front Dunlops a couple pounds higher than the recommended pressure of 32psi so I could get crisper turn-in, along with the square shouldered design of the tire this meant I was able to dial out some of the inherent understeer of the car.

The round shouldered Toyos have higher limits but they have softer sidewalls and intially I ran them at 35psi and today I bumped it up to 40psi before taking it out around UBC. Turn-in was better but the ride got way stiffer, I could feel the texture of the road much more than I wanted to for day to day driving and the car was just a touch too twitchy for my likes.

Eventually I settled on a shade over 37psi which was a nice compromise. I still need to figure out how to get the front end to turn in better though, if I turn in like I did with my Dunlops I find I have trouble making it to the apex properly but if I turn in a touch earlier I find that I’m giving up too much exit speed.

I’m going to see if I can adjust my braking pressure and put more load on the front tires to see if that stiffens up the sidewalls enough to get the car to turn like I want it to.