I agree. Oversteer, in my opinion, is partial directional control via judicious application of the throttle. I learned to drive on rear wheel drive cars and used to own a '69 Olds 442. Talk about oversteer! Excellent torque, as well!

 

Where abouts in signal hills?

 

S2K Fan,

Where the heck is Alhambra?

 

No, he meant lifting as in -- lifting your foot off the gas too suddenly while drifting and making the situation worse.

I could be wrong.

 

SilverFog,

I like you VIN number. I wonder who got the 2001 VIN# 2001?

I'll bet it's a Black one!

 

To clear it up:

I was taking a hard right hander in 2nd gear.
Laid into the throttle a bit too much before I had it straightened out.
Rear end went left on me.
I see chain link fence and gravel about 8 feet to my right and I am at about 45 mph. This being the first time I have experienced this, I lift off the gas and steer into it and get it back together. I admit drifting it around the corner would be the more badass way to take the corner but this isn't the place I wan't to learn how to do that! Never had a RWD with enough juice to step out like that. Need some track time or nice safe road to practice on.

 

What do you mean? Where I live or where I was driving when it got loose on me?

 

This is a quote from http://www.turnfast.com and gives a good explanation why you shouldn't gas or brake once the slide starts:

"Because the objective is to have the car moving as fast as possible through the corner, the tires will be utilizing most of the available traction (done right they should be using 100% of the available traction). The driver must be very smooth with the use of the brakes going into the corner and the accelerator coming out of the corner. A sharp change in braking or power at these points will upset the car's traction balance just as quickly as if you were driving on ice. Working within the last 1% of traction means there is no reserve to call upon to gain control of the car back. Even the pros very rarely recover a car that has lost control. It's not because they don't know how, it's because there's no traction left to work with. It is imperative to learn how to be consistently smooth in braking and accelerating on a road course."

Interesting... physics well kick your butt if not careful.

 

What you should do with the pedals depends largely upon how the slide was initiated. If you got loose because you lifted, applying a touch of throttle will often help to transfer weight to the rear tires. If you are power oversteering, well, then your application of too much throttle is what caused the problem, so lifting is an obvious solution.

The problem with such generalizations is that they just don't do enough to help you really understand what to do. Only track time will do that and in the process you'll learn how to avoid unexpected oversteer which means you won't have to do unusual things to correct it.

For example, if I'm in a sweeper and ease off the gas slightly because the nose is drifting wide, the nose should tuck and the rear end may begin to rotate on me (one is possible without the other, the arc/path of the rear end through the turn may not change at all), so I can add a little more throttle and stabilize the car. But note that I was not in what most would consider a slide, I was just changing the cornering attitude of the car. If, OTOH, I jump completely out of the throttle mid-corner (which I would never do intentionally) and the rear end begins a lurid smoking slide, getting back into the throttle may not necessarily be the most judicious thing I can do unless, perhaps, I'm trying to keep it out of a retaining wall. However, I'll leave such heroics to the pros, once its gone I believe in both feet in.

Keep in mind that it is much easier to talk about such things than do them. I've been to some high performance driving schools and spent a fair bit of time on the track and I still do things sometimes that make me ask what I was thinking, or more appropriately, if I was thinking. Practice, practice, practice!

UL

 

Good post Lurker! Ditto!