Guys,
Duncan (Dynamix) asked if i'd post a few technique related posts here from time to time which I have agreed to. I feel I have to pre-empt them a little and talk about technique related coaching in general.
Firstly there are 1000s of aspects to track/race driver coaching, everything from how you hold the wheel to how to control a 4-wheel drift. I've been "at it" since 1991. Originally trained by Jim Russell as a racing driver I joined their instructor staff in 1991. The first 5 years almost soley training new racing drivers but also a lot of the work was with current drivers looking to improve. I didn't do a huge amount of this in the late 90s as I had another business but I did trael all over the world doing race driver coaching instigated more by word of mouth and referral than any advertising (have never actually advertised). I still work as an instructor and driver coach, much of the instructor work is not really related to training racing drivers, it's more the guy that sits next to you in your Ferrari experience and helps you get the best from it etc. I still race, mostly in endurabce events and saloons although i've done single seater racing and rallying also, rally instruction to.
I'm still learning with MY driving, probably less so now and mostly very minor things that might gain a 10th here or there. I'm also continually learning about the best ways to improve someones track and race driving, maybe I know all the ways, all the techniques etc. but the more people I coach the better I think I become at tailoring a method to suite. Naturally, posting a thread on a forum is just one way and it has positives and negatives but the debate is often very useful if sometimes time-consuming.
A KEY principle to race driver training is that it is a journey, what is generally regarded as wrong when you first start gradually comes to being right later in your learning cycle. Frustrating as hell sometimes as there really is no short cut but sometimes you have to take it anyway.
To give an example, when you first start to drive corners quickly we'll teach you to keep the car balance throught the full cornering phase, you prob all know this, brake in a straight lines, come off the brakes onto a balanced throttle, turn in, at the apex start to unwind as you feed in the power. In other words we are teaching you to go fast whilst keeping the WEIGHT under control (for this purpose we'll consider that it's weight we need to control in order to prevent movement (i.e. understeer/oversteer). Once you can do that then, rather than JUST keep it under control, is it possible we could actually USE the weight to help us go quicker. YES, it is, but if you cant't master keeping it under control in the first place your going to find it really tough to exploit it to your advantage.
All that leads me to saying that not everything that I say is totally true or binding for all time, forever and allways. I might try and explain that it does change later and why but more likely not, as you'd be tempted to do what most people do when faced with any instructional book that says stuff like BASIC, INTERMEDIATE, ADVANCED ... you'll skip pretty quickly through the first 2 sections to read (and attempt) the good stuff.
I think thats enough to lay out the basics as I didn't want someone to post a response that says "you said this but what about doing it this way, or this guy says something else .." ... especially as that other guy might ne me, on a different forum talking about a similar thing at a different level.
OK. I'm off to edit a previous forum post I did and post it here ...
Maxx
Maxx's upcoming Technique Related posts
LOL, Yes, I posted the first one earlier, about trail-braking. It's a bit of a mash-up of a forum post and an email but thats likely to be the same for them all.R32 Nik wrote:Is it ready yet????:D
I am looking forward to these instructional posts.
Also, when I said sporadic I was talking of days rather than hours
Anyway, glad to see such interest.
If you have any SPECIFIC questions then please ask away, probably my most difficult task will be deciding what to post about.
Maxx