Whenever you’re braking into a corner, you usually need to downshift.
This gave me a lot of trouble when I was starting out.
Because, of all things, there were corners where I had to downshift while trail braking.
Three of them, in fact!
Trail braking means gradually releasing the brake while turning the steering wheel, right?
If those two actions aren’t perfectly coordinated, it’s very easy to exceed the front tires’ available grip.
Now, if you also have to downshift while you’re releasing the brake, you obviously need to perform a heel-and-toe downshift.
Releasing the brake means your whole leg is already moving upward, while blipping the throttle requires twisting your ankle.
The problem is that simply twisting your ankle isn’t enough to push your foot firmly into the throttle pedal while your leg is moving upward.
To do this perfectly, it felt like I had to control every tiny movement of my right foot perfectly.
It probably only took a little over a second to blip the throttle, but at moments like this, it felt like forever.
“Come on! Rev up already!”
At places like Getchan Corner, I was carrying a slight rear slide through the corner back then, so if the rev match wasn’t perfect, the amount of oversteer would change.
I remember thinking,
“I’m not trying to put on a stunt show…”
and struggling with it for a long, long time.
Then one day, I asked my junior, BJ,
“So how do you do it?”
His answer completely caught me off guard.
“I don’t heel-and-toe.”
He simply finished releasing the brake first, then blipped the throttle and downshifted.
BJ later went on to win his class by a huge margin in the Takasu round of the DIREZZA Challenge, one of Japan’s best-known amateur time attack series, driving an S2000.
…This guy.
But there was nothing “ordinary” about that downshift.
The moment you release the brake, you blip the throttle and downshift.
That just happens to be the point where lateral G is at its highest.
Which means that’s exactly when you have to engage the clutch.
Miss the rev match by even a little, and you’ll spin!
Still…
After enough practice, I eventually got the hang of it.
So I shamelessly copied his technique.
In the end, all you have to do is ask yourself,
“Which one is actually harder?”
Then choose the easier solution.
Heel-and-toe while trail braking?
Yeah… that’s just not happening.
Sometimes giving up is the smarter choice.
Oh, so that’s what it was. Idiot!
Lesson Learned
Sometimes giving up is the smarter choice.