DavidNJ

It's related to the iRacing discussion, which discussed clutchless shiftings. And is about as relevant as that.

The earlier post on was about the OP's question on braking.

A 2

A bunch of us from the Albany area attended the TNiA event the next day. It was a lot of fun and I quite enjoyed my first TNiA event.

In any case, I'll leave you with a video of Skippy School instructor and coach Stephan Bastrzycki's narrated laps around LRP. Video is set to start as he makes his way down the front straight. You will see where he skip shifts from 5th to 3rd (at the point where he is hardest on the brakes). Work your way up to it next time out inch by inch.

Based on what you said, I am not sure if you have a problem with reaching the gas pedal. It sounds more like you are saying that the issue is you are coming off of the clutch pedal abruptly as you hear the rear tires chirp. Getting a pedal extender could fix your issue.

An instructor long ago told me that the best way to practice heel-toe was to drive through highway rest areas on the way home and I hit every highway rest area on my way home from Watkins Glen. Once I was comfortable with reaching the pedals, I found that I was being a bit abrupt. Then I read somewhere that the job of a driver is weight management and to gradually transfer it to where its needed to do an optimal lap. So I worked on:
A) Heel-toeing when I was braking the hardest
B) Giving the gas a good blip
C) Easing off of the clutch pedal, and if I felt the engine revs drop OR if I hadn't adequately blipped the gas, stay on the brakes a tad longer and give the gas pedal another blip before letting out the clutch.
This is not to say that I've completely cured my propensity to be abrupt. I still do tend to chirp the tires every once in a while and once that happens resolve to be smoother for the rest of the day. After all it is HPDE, and the only trophy is getting to drive the car home in one piece.

Hope to see you at a track sometime. I usually run with SCDA and most any other group that wont mind allowing the S2000. Where about are you located?

stooga

This is good stuff, thanks! I'm located in Edgewater NJ. Lime Rock is about a 2 hour drive for me without traffic. That TNiA event is the only one I've done but I intend on going to more and more events with any club that'll have me, and slowly building a time trials car.

A 2

Check out NASA NE. They have a 2 day event at Lime Rock around mid-July. Events / Registration | NASA Northeast
They usually do about two Lime Rock events every year. Given that they are based in Jersey they also do plenty of events at NJMP and Pocono. The former will likely require you to have a rollbar which you probably will as you work up to Time Trials.

SCDA is the organization I run with. It was started by the guy that was the chief instructor for the Skip Barber school when it first started and eventually passed on to his son and sons business partner. They run a record number of events at Lime Rock - more so than any other group.
https://www.scda1.com/

Check out their website and if you are interested in any of their events send me a PM and I'll get you a $50 discount for your first time out with them.

blueosprey90

In theory, everything.


If you listen, you can hear that I blipped the engine just before reaching the apex, but then waited too long before shifting.

Aashish was behind me and has a separate video of my pirouette.

To be honest, heal and toeing represents a lot of busy work. Putting proper pressure on the brakes with your toe while twisting your ankle to blip the gas while trying to manage your shift into the correct gear while trying to enter the corner at the proper speed is none to easy while you are careening into the corner at top speed.

When I'm racing the MGA, the pedal positions are off and I don't attempt to heel and toe - just to shift normally while rev matching. Sometimes I have to lift off the brake to blip the gas, but it's not the end of the world. The end of the world is when I come in too hot.

King Tut

As an instructor I would MUCH rather see a student explore threshold braking and the ABS limit while using the clutch to ease the transition between downshifts versus him worrying about his heel toe technique and not threshold braking and blowing a downshift. I'm sorry but you can't practice threshold braking on the streets in your daily drive. So there is no way to practice your heel toe downshift because your foot will never be at the position it should be while threshold braking. There are very fast racers I know that never worry about heel and toe downshifts. The clutch is there to ease the transition between RPM ranges. Feel free to utilize it to it's fullest extent.

Bullwings

What was your lead time? I'm assuming that these are made after you order based on all of the custom options?

stooga

I recently discovered that this is certainly part of my problem. There's too much time between blip and changing gears, and the revs fall too far. At least that's what's happening on the street. I'll have to look back at my video to see if that was the case on track.

andrewhake

Heel toe at moderate speeds and braking on the street is pretty different than heel toe at threshold braking. It tends to be easier to heel toe the harder you are braking as it puts your foot in the proper position to pivot your foot and get a solid blip of the throttle. At normal street speeds you actually have to be a little more precise and gentle. If practicing on the street you want to make sure you can smoothly rev match down the gears without using the brakes at all and get a feel for that, and then start incorporating braking and heel toe.

As far as timing, it isn't really something you think about while doing it, but I think I am usually changing gears right at the end of my heel blip motion or at peak revs. The goal is to only blip as much as you have to but it usually will be better to over blip than under blip. If you over blip you can wait for the revs to come down an extra moment and it will generally upset the car less.

You definitely want to make sure your focus is on braking though as others have mentioned. You absolutely should learn to heel toe, but don''t sacrifice your braking by putting your foot only partially on the brake pedal to make sure you can blip the throttle. Even if you don't have large feet you should be able to easily blip the throttle with your foot squarely on the brake pedal.

Bullwings

This, especially the bold.

If you're driving at around 3-4k rpm cruising, you should be able to rev into the next gear down (no brakes) smoothly and not feel any weight change in the chassis. You'll come into the next gear just below vtec. Once you have that feel down, heel-toe is easy.