Driving

The Psychological Trap of Entering a Corner Too Fast When I watch YouTube videos where professional drivers explain circuit driving, I often hear comments along the lines of, “Amateurs and beginners tend to lose a lot of time simply by entering corners too fast.” I thought, “Surely I must have made this mistake too,” and … Read more

This is the final entry in the series! When I first started driving on track, my car was completely stock, with the stock tires and stock suspension. But the stock suspension was difficult to drive, so I switched to coilovers. At the time, I thought, “I don’t want to ruin the ride quality, and I’m … Read more

By this point, I’d gotten pretty comfortable with driving on track, and I’d started getting a little full of myself. “Hey, maybe I’m actually getting pretty good at this.” Then one day, I got the chance to have BJ drive my Roadster, which gave me a chance to see just how much of a difference … Read more

I kept practicing so I could put in consistent lap times. Eventually, I noticed something. More and more often, my fastest lap of the day came on my final attack lap. I’d spend the day pushing a little too hard, then being a little too cautious, gradually dialing things in. Then on the final lap, … Read more

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, … Read more

After making mistake after mistake, I had finally reached the point where I could put in reasonably consistent lap times. My lap times were usually within about ±0.2 seconds of what I expected. But every now and then, I’d end up more than 0.5 seconds off my predicted time. I’d think, “What? I didn’t even … Read more

This isn’t exactly an aside, but I wanted to add something about the line in Part 10: “kept practicing until I finally figured it out.” I’ve actually had experienced drivers ask me from time to time, “How did you learn to do that?” So I thought I’d explain it here. Anyone who actually drives on … Read more

After learning that, in a rear-wheel-drive car, the timing of a downshift can sometimes affect your stopping distance, I made a point of practicing my shifts so I could do them as quickly as possible. From then on, I thought my corner entry speeds were always perfectly consistent. I was sure I was hitting every … Read more

After making mistake after mistake, I was slowly getting faster. “Now it’s time to start fine-tuning the little things!” I thought, full of enthusiasm. My braking and cornering had both become more consistent, and I was working hard to find even more time. But once again, I started noticing that my corner entry speeds weren’t … Read more

After learning how important trail braking is, I started using it everywhere. The extra heat meant I had to do more cool-down laps, otherwise my tires and brakes wouldn’t hold up. But there wasn’t much I could do about that, so I just made sure to cool everything down properly and kept driving. But there … Read more