Re: [racing] "handling feel"

["I.Mannix" <mannix@privatei.com>]

At 09:11 PM 11/20/98 -0700, Benton Yoshida wrote:
>Hey all:
>
>	I have trouble communicating with my car. 

>	I'm always amazed when folks write that they took a teaspoon of
>windshield washer fluid out of the reservoir and transformed the car's
>handling from diabolic to heavenly.

The more time you spend in your car, the smaller noticable differences
become.  My parents have lived in the same house for 37 years or so.  I
borrowed a book once while visiting, took it off a shelf in the study.
Damned thing had been there since she painted the bookshelves when I was a
teenager.  When I got home from the airport(back to Colorado), there was a
message on my machine asking where the book was.  Small book, no one reads
it, but when she got home that afternoon, she knew something was missing.
Huh.  Similar type thing, the more you drive a car, the better you know it.
 You probably drive your car a lot; you'd probably hear a wheelbearing
start to fail long before it was readily apparent that it was failing,
right?  Your passengers would say "what noise?"  You can hear it, though,
it is your car.  You know the sounds, the rattles, everything.

You know the sounds and rattles because you're spending most of the time
simply propelling yourself from Point A to Point B, right?  

Handling nuances don't really come into play on the street, IMHO, most of
the time.  They should'nt, either:).  

I _rarely_ drive at levels which impart load on the tires/suspension on the
street, particularly in the Rabbit.  In my Audi, well, it is hard not to -
175/65 tires on a 2800 pound car, well, geez, the thing almost slides down
my driveway.  Anyhow.

I'd virtually guarantee that you'd feel a great deal of feedback from the
car if you were to go out and drive it fast - not just straight
line-brake-turn-acclerate fast, but actually starting to go fast, combining
all things into one.   I'd bet you already know the car well, but if you
drive it on the street in a consistent manner, handling characteristics are
not likely to change.

 Besides the sound of
>tires squealing and body roll, the only input that I think I have is coming
>from the steering wheel.

Hands are very sensitive, as are feet.  Posteriors are not terribly
sensitive.  You'll feel a LOT through your hands, a good bit through your
feet.  The real trick is feeling what the car is _going_ to do, not what it
is doing.  _That's_ the tough one.  Ever watch incar camera stuff, the
driver is making a long, right turn & quickly enters a slight left input?
Hmm?  The driver knew what was coming, and corrected for it before it
happened(as the anticipative correction is much smaller than correcting for
a situation - sorta like preventative maintenance, changing the oil is
cheaper than putting a new engine in).  There is a higher level of driving,
knowing what the car is going to do BEFORE it does it - I've had little
flashes of it here and there while autocrossing, and it is exhilirating.  

IMHO, the first thing that needs to happen in learning to talk to your car
is becoming comfortable in it, comfortable while driving fast.  That takes
a while, really.  I noticed something yesterday - I was riding with a
friend, he was driving sorta fast, I was tired.  Yawn.  I realized we were
going faster than most would probably feel comfortable doing, but I was
comfortable(beyond banging my head on the roof over each bump).  I've
finally trained my left leg to brace me into the seat without thinking
about it - no idea when I learned how to do this instinctively, but I
realized that my foot was planted on the floor, rest of the body was
relaxed.  Neat!  Anyhow.  A guy on Team.Net recently asked about harnesses,
saying that he flopped around like a flounder(ook, I added the fishy part),
he needed to stay attached to the car.  He also noted that other people had
driven the car, and _they'd_ not had a problem staying planted, so hmmm,
what's that mean?  Probably means that the people who drove it are used to
what a car does, and have learned to brace with the left leg,
steer/shift/brake with the others(when not LFBing).  Sorta like knowing not
to squeeze the juicebox when putting the straw in - first couple of juice
geysers, you get soaked(and stained), but after a while, you learn not to
squeeze.  So I am told, I gave up on those diabolical beverages long ago.  

Being comfortable in the car is important.  I've ridden with a lot of
newish autocrossers.  Most are tense and just spaz when the green goes.
Dude!  Calm down!  Driving on the street is inherently more stressful than
the autocross course, once you get over the idea that spinning is ok,
driving fast is fine, no moron is going to pull out in front of you for no
reason whatsoever, etc.  Sounds obvious, but I know *I* felt like I was
doing something wrong the first time I did it, and lots of people have
since said similar things.  Once you get used to the speed(while speeds are
low, what you're trying to do at 50mph makes it "fast."), you can relax and
just drive the car - when you're not thinking about hanging on, whether
you're going to die or not, etc - you can slow down and listen to things.
Sorta like bartender hearing - ever notice how bartenders get so accustomed
to the normal noise of a bar on Friday night that they can hear A) their
name or B) a fight _instantly_?  Similar thing - get used to the
surroundings(a car going faster than was intended), and all of a sudden,
you free up a bunch of "processor space" to concentrate on what the car is
doing.  

>Perhaps
>turn in (my understanding: the immediacy between movement of the steering
>wheel and the change in direction of the car) was slightly improved but
>maybe I hallucinated

Feeling things - initially, you need time to feel stuff.  Some of the terms
associated with motorsport contradict, others imply things that are really
not related.  "Turn in early" and "late apex" are two of my favorites.
"Get late on that corner, after the slalom, but don't forget to turn in
early."  Which is it?  It is a valid statement - in order to stay late on a
given corner, it might be necessary to turn in early.  Depends.  

Anyhow, your use of the word "immediacy" leads me to believe that you're
jerking the steering wheel.  You are correct in your comprehension of "turn
in," although it can happen over a long period of time(relatively).   A car
which does not turn in well does not respond quickly to an input, whether
it be a gentle input or an abrupt one.  Most would call a car like this
"vague."  Something like that.  Turn in does improve with stressbars, IMHO,
particularly the lower bar.  Try this - go to an empty parkinglot, a big
one, get going 45 or so and begin to make an arc.  Start with your hands at
9 & 3 on the wheel, make a left arc.  Count to three while moving your
hands - constant throttle, turn the wheel 90 degrees.  Pretty slow input,
eh?  One Mississippi, two.....until your hands are "at" 6&12, although you
have not moved them on the wheel.  It might take a few tries to do this at
a constant speed without running into anything - I'd use whatever gear gave
you 4000rpm - 2 or 3rd, and feel what is happening.  The car might start to
push, but if not, hold the arc, tighten it some more, lift, add gas,
whatever works.  Or, make a circle around two lightposts/paint
stripes/whatever - go faster and faster(building slowly) until the car
loses grip.  It will lose grip at the front first, then rear.  If you
simply jerk the wheel over, or move it 90d in one quick movement, you won't
really be able to feel anything - spread the time out a bit, give yourself
time to feel what the car is doing.  

Try to isolate certain things at first.  What happens when you get near the
limit?  Make big arcs to spend as much time as possible with the car
loaded.  Experiment.  Lift, brake, ebrake, add gas, add turn - try stuff.
Things will start happening.  Get used to one set of rules, then break the
"rules," see what that gets you.  

>I honestly don't know if I've felt
>understeer in my car under normal conditions.  

To feel understeer - again, go to a parkinglot.  Desolate, preferably.
Make a circle - not full lock, but not huge, either.  Maybe 90-120d of
steering wheel rotation.  Hold the wheel, don't move it one millimeter.
Keep accelerating - accelerate slowly, don't floor it - until the circle
begins to get larger.  At that point, the car is understeering.  You'll be
able to find a speed where the car does not understeer - constant throttle,
the car will follow the same path every time.  Any more gas than that, the
circle will get bigger.  

There are two "kinds" of understeer - one, the mechanical kind which the
above "exercise" will demonstrate.  The other is driver induced.  ANY car
WILL understeer if you turn the wheel fast enough and brake a bit, or turn
the wheel and floor it(depends on the car).  Any car CAN understeer.  


> What cues are you guys/gals tuning into to determine whether the
>car is under/oversteering and when to apply correction?

Slip angles, basically.  They're the "real" answer to that question.  Many
would just say "the back starts to come out" or "the front end is pushing."
 A slip angle is the difference between the tire's direction of travel and
where it is pointed.  Ever lock the front wheels up, turn the steering
wheel & continue straight ahead?  That's a big slip angle:).  When a tire
is turning the car, however, there are always some slip angles present - if
the wheel is turned to the right, the car is probably not going *exactly*
where the tire is pointed - slip angles get larger as the tire begins to
slide, basically.  Think of this - wet concrete.  Put your car onto wet
concrete, and it sinks 1/2".  Concrete dries.  Your car now has the
concrete "gripping" the tires, as there are 1/2" recesses - now, try to
turn the wheel.  The WHEEL(road) will turn a bit, but obviously, the tire
is deforming it to allow that movement - now, the WHEEL is pointed a
different direction than the tire would want to roll, right?  That's a slip
angle, backwards sorta.  Make sense?  When the tire is rolling down a flat
road, and you turn the wheel, the tire deforms a bit in the process of
changing the car's direction, creating the difference between where the
tire is pointing and where it is going.  As slip angles grow, you can feel
the car start to rotate or understeer.  If the slip angles in the front are
larger than the rear, the car is understeering.  If larger in the rear than
front, it is oversteering.  

It is a subtlety.  I first felt it while riding with a driver much better
than me - it all sorta made sense at that point.  Same goes with a lot of
things - I had heard of the elusive "plane" on windsurfers many times,
although it did not make sense until my sailboard actually did it the first
time(and I got catapulted & cracked two ribs, but ah ha!  I know what
they're talking about now....).  



  Can you really
>feel the car's rotation apart from that due to steering?  

Yes.  Again, the trick is feeling it in it's early stages - once a car is
SLIDING, and you have to think about countersteering, well, it is too
late(from a perspective of going fast).  Anticipation.  Also, rotation has
more to do with the rear wheels than front, IMHO.  A car is not really
rotating if the front wheels are simply rolling in the general direction
they are pointed - rotation happens when the rears' slip angle begins to
grow.  Grabbing the ebrake on wet pavement is rotation.  Turning the wheel
to do a u-turn is not rotation, really.  


How do you know
>that the frame is flexing?  Are you really feeling flex or just
>interpreting squeaks and rattles as flex? 

I can't really feel the trame flex.  I don't drive my car and say "I wish
it were stiffer."  I have taken my upper stressbar off to see what it did
without it, and I could feel that it was not as rigid - I can feel flex in
retrospect, but not while it is happening.  I am sure I would feel a
difference in terms of flex if I were to put a rollcage into the car.  Oh,
well, I felt flex once when I held onto a rollcage & got my fingers smushed
between the windshield frame and bar, felt that:).  


 People mention inputs from the
>seat but I don't feel much, as if I had a big shot of novocaine in my butt
>(or is that just fat?)

I believe there is a central point within the body(solar plexus?) that
tells the brain which way things are pointed, and from that, you can feel
the car rotating with you in it.  I don't feel much through my butt,
specifically, but it is, uhh, dense.  



>	Having grown up in SoCal and being a strict urban nightcrawler, I
>have no experience with snow, gravel, or ice, just pure asphalt,
>occasionally wet.  Is this a deficiency in my driver education?

Well, slippery surfaces will accentuate grip related things.  Understeer
becomes a MUCH larger issue when it is slippery - that's why people drive
so slow in snow(and part of why inducing oversteer is faster in rally
cars/ice autocrossing - it is easier to get rid of front grip than it is to
get it back on slippery surfaces, among other things).  Something inside
tells us that it is not wise to go that much faster.  You live in LA?
SoCal?  Drive into the mountains sometime and find snow!  Can't hurt, just
be careful.  Back roads near ski areas are normally snowpacked.  


  This is
>partly why I'm hesitant about adding sway bars.  Why add them if they're
>only going to make the car heavier and the wallet lighter?

I see your point.  If you cannot feel a deficiency as it sits now, why make
it "better?"  Makes perfect sense to me.  


>	I'd appreciated any inputs besides the chorus of, "go autoX!"
>Thanks, benton-----

Well, it _is_ the best way to get a handle on this stuff.  Doing it on the
street is dangerous, in parking lots illegal & a good way to get harassed.
Going to a go-kart track, like Malibu/Speedzone can be a good way to get an
idea of what we're talking about, too - just drive the same car again and
again, try to run the whole course flat.  Try to run it while lifting here
and there.  Try left foot braking.  I know people who can feel  toe
changes.  I can feel when I forget to adjust my shocks - if I leave the
fronts on anything but full soft, the car understeers more.  It _is_
subtle, but the differences are real.  

Should you add swaybars?  Maybe.  Might make the car handle better.  Will
you feel it?  I think so.  It makes a difference in feel, that's for sure.
Is it worth it?  Eh, who knows!  I like swaybars, but(for example), on my
street car, I don't really worry too much about what springs/shocks/struts
are in there.  I just work on getting the most out of the car - like the
onramp I use to get to work each day, it is a 90-100 degree right, a little
off camber, and requires a really late apex.  I don't speed into it, just
try not to slow down.  A swaybar might let me go through faster, stiffer
springs might help things, tires would get me through faster no question -
but my enjoyment would not increase appreciably.  I enjoy driving.  Who
knows.  I hope this answers your question, or at least lends insight!


I.Mannix



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