I hope I can express myself clearly here. Two obstacles are however in the way: English is not my first language and I am just learning advanced driving techniques. Despite this hopefully I will make myself understood.

I am reading "Going Faster" where they explain the concept of slower 1st part of corner so that you can accelerate out once you hit the apex, but have come across an important difference to what I was taught at a 1 day program here in Jim Russel racing school. "Going Faster" seems to maintain the apex at the center of the turn on a regular 90 degree turn, while at Jim Russel they suggested hitting a later apex to change the radius in order to make it possible to get accelerate out.

Jim Russel teaches that at a constant radius and at maximum grip you can't accelerate out of the turn, therefore making the late apex neccessary to accelerating out. Whereas Carl Lopez seems to say if you go slower in the turn-in to the apex, you can accelerate out even at a constant apex at max grip.

Now it seems to me the Jim Russel school of thought makes more sense, but I would really like to understand this better.

Any input?

 

here is my $0.02 -

think of the track as a bunch of straights with bends in-between. how you approach those corners depends, in large part, of where these corners fall in relation to the straights and in relation to other corners.

if it's a short straight that precedes a corner that opens to a large straight, it would make the corner exit much more important than corner entry and you should do whatever you can to get the most speed coming out of that corner. basically you won't loose much time if you go in a little slower than you could, but you would loose a ton of time if you go in too hot and blow the exit.

alternatively, if it's a corner at the end of the long straight, followed by a very short straight. you may wish to brake as late as possible and sacrifice corner exit. this doesn't happen too often, at least not on the tracks i've run.

next add into the mix the corner before/after and how they play into the way you would approach your corner in question. the idea is to be fast over the corse of one lap, which may mean that you would take one corner slower than you could if all you had to do just make that one corner, but by taking it a bit slower you will set yourself up for the following corner. gaining all time given up in corner 1 and then some. this is kinda tricky to master, most people new to driving tend to think one corner at a time.

these basic concepts would change when you actually have to worry about protecting your position on the track, or if it's raining as you might have to approach corners differently in order to find max grip.

last but not least, your car will also influence the line you'd take through a corner. ideally you should be able to dial in the car how you like it and drive the "preferred" line. but with limited budget and equipment, often times you have to compensate for your car's tendency to over or under steer, particular gearing, or other unique quirks.

all that being said, the fastest guys end up being fast in and fast out. go figure where the books tell you that. i guess you need to have balls after all if you want to race and be fast. best way to learn, imo, is to go out there and try it. get a laptimer if you're serious - they tend to make people into better drivers.

good luck

 

Keep reading. I imagine the book is just doing theoretical geometry exercises at the moment.

 

 

Thx for the great summary KGB

Maybe you are both right twohoos and payneinthe, tho I admit to cheating and looking ahead to see if Carl became more specific, and tho he speaks of adjusting the apex depending on track conditions, passing and as KGB explained in order to better setup a next turn, he does not seem to qualify his apex explanation for a simple regular 90 degree turn with no other considerations.

However, as you suggest , I will read on.

Hopefully it will become clearer, because the 2 major things I came away with that really made sense to me from my day at JR was heel and toe and the late apex to get better exit speed.

Thx guys!

 

Read the chapter/section on the 3 types of corners. As KGB probably said (short attention span; didn't read), the line through a given corner depends on the preceding/following turn/straight, not just the shape of the corner.