I understand rev-matching your engine when you down shift from let's say 4th to 3rd on acceleration but never quite understood the benefits of braking and blipping the throttle as you downshift.

Is it to smoothen out the the down shift or to keep it in the powerband or maybe both?

I've been practicing heel-toe in my cars for a couple of months now and kinda getting used to it. Not a pro by any means.

 

Smoothness. Don't try trail braking through a fast corner without at least making some effort to match revs, or you will end up going off the outside of the track backwards.

 

Rear can get unstable if you down shift at high rev cause in lower geaers (ex 3th vs. 4th) the engines "breaking power" is higher than in higher gears.

You can archieve the same but letting go your clutch more slowly but that will take more time which you don't wanna lose in a race.

I am practicing heel-toe sometimes on the road but never used it in a race yet cause I am far from perfect yet.

At the moment it is taking more attention from driving than it would giv ebenefit in time

 

Thanks! Is "smoothen" a word? It is today.

 

chicks dig it

 

Most people on the street have learned how to match the engine speed and wheel speed by simply letting the clutch out really slowly. But when you want to turn fast times on the track, you can't afford to spend a couple seconds waiting for the engine to come up to speed. So instead, you depress the clutch pedal, brake, downshift, blip the accelerator (while braking) and let the clutch out fast.

The third alternative is to just let the clutch out fast, which will lock the rear wheels and cause you to spin if you do it just right (and you may break something like an engine mount in the process). Drifters use this technique to lock the rear wheels on purpose (clutch kick).

 

Basically, as others have mentioned, it's done so you don't upset the balance of the car. I doubt you'll ever need it on the street, although I always do it myself cause I'm just so used to it! Oh yeah, and chicks dig it too!

 

Why don't I ever meet these chicks? Damn....

 

You ain't that good of a heel-toer maybe?

 

You know that when you're coasting down and downshift without using the brakes, there's a sudden lurch of deceleration as you let out the clutch and the engine matches speed. Once the clutch is engaged, there's some braking from the engine, but not nearly as much. All that braking force goes through the rear tires.

On the track when you're braking as hard as you can, you're using almost all the available grip of the rear tires. If you were to downshift and let out the clutch without matching the revs, the extra spike of deceleration force going to the rear wheels would cause the tires to exceed their grip. That would at best increase your braking distance, and is likely to make the rear end get wiggly or slide out to the side.