Plant your heel against the center tunnel and make sure your foot is straight up and down. If you're like me I tend to drive (normally) with my heel under the brake pedal and my foot leaning to the right at a 45* angle or so. Planting your heel as far to the right as it will go and holding your foot straight vertical is a bit uncomfortable at first and feels odd but you need to make sure are planted under the gas pedal not the brake.

Try it, works like a charm.

 

 

You realize that is completely wrong? Downshifting should be happening in the straight-line braking area. By the time you start to turn in you should be done shifting. Think about it. Heel-toe really isn't a significant factor in driving at 10/10. It's a technique for rev-matching during downshifts and nothing more. To drive 10/10 you need to heel/toe lest you spin off the track but at 9/10th where most people are you can get away without it (your syncros will hate you tho).

Throttle - brake! - blip - shift - blip - shift - turn - ease brake - throttle

 

Threshold braking is in the straight-line braking area. You are braking just below the threshold of wheel lockup. Trailbraking is when you ease off the brake after turn entry.

Or maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying.

 

I dunno, maybe I'm not understanding what your saying either.

 

Don't worry about Erik. Sometimes his brain turns to Jello. Just smile and nod...

 

There are some rare and scary exceptions, and in these cases "heel-toe" is not just a good idea ... it's the law. If you do have to downshift while cornering, your car better not feel it!

 

Two comments:

I am a strong proponent of heel and toeing in orded to be fast and smooth, but one of the undisputed fastest drivers I know don't heel and toe. Hard to believe but true, and he is super smooth. But I still believe it is essential for 99+% of drivers.

Developing muscle memory is only good if you are doing the technique correctly. The risk with heel and toeing when braking lightly and leisurely is that the tendency is to brake with part of the pedal and part of the foot (so can be light and because the pedals are not on same level), and not with the ball (center) of foot on center of pedal (textbook). With stock brakes I've found the latter is necessary for optimal braking on the track.

 

I thought heel and toe was just braking and then being able to rev match at the same time while down shifting.

Does it matter how fast you're going when you do it?

Many top athletes practice their sports motions in slow motion to aid muscle memory.

I dunno, I only have a little track experience, and none of that is in my S, but I figure if you can't do it when you're going slow, how are you donna do it when you're going fast?

 

oh yeah, I just read this cool article in the SCCA magazine about how trail braking is fastest way around the track. I don't think it blows away the brake in a straight line theory, because just as you're coming off the brakes, you're initiating your turn-in anyway to maximize your lateral and longitudinal(?forward-backward?) traction, right?

I read lots of theory, but I drive slow as hell.