I don't understand why someone saw fit to leave a post that implied that this was the third car in a row that had been crashed, by a single person. It seems like a stupid thing to do, and I'm "miffed" because it confused people, lead to some hard feelings, was unnecessary, and was just plain stupid.

If it was a joke, the thread that follows took the funny out of it.

Am I the only person here who finds misleading posts offensive? (That is a rhetorical question; we all know the answer. )

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by RED MX5
What I can't understand is why your buddy is so upset, and tried to imply that you had a history of trashing cars.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by RED MX5
... Anyone who has never made an error in judgement is a liar

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Chazmo
You know what I think?

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by honda606
I would venture to guess that your error was shifting in mid turn.

 

Observations from likely the oldest S2K owner on this forum, 68 yrs. Driving a sports car has inherent risks not usually found driving the family barge. After over fifty years of driving sports cars, I still get that feeling of excitment and satisfaction hearing the engine scream in vtec, making smooth up and down shifts, hitting the exact line, etc.
Years ago I wrapped a Porsche 356 around a telephone pole and a palm tree in that order! Being lucky enough to survive the crash and embarrased having destroyed a beautiful car, I decided to learn how to drive. You see, I thought I knew how to drive, but in reality I didn't know squat.
What I later learned on the track SLOWED me down on the highway. On the track you gradually increase speed as you learn the line, the optimum braking points, the road surface condition and slope and most importantly you know once the car is set into a turn, you won't meet something coming at you.
Bottom line guys, set the ego aside, spend the bucks, take at least a two day high performance driving class and learn how to drive your pride and joy with safety and skill.
BTW, the 04 on warm tires sticks like glue and will, as reported, push at the limit.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by CrazyPhuD

 

Alfredo, I feel the same way. If I had the time and felt qualified, I'd try to write up a short article discussing vehicle dynamics in general, and RWD in particular, but the task looks a little daunting. I do believe that an understanding of vehicle dynamics is as useful on the streets as it is in competition. What you say is very true, but doesn't cover every situation. I think perhaps we can come up with a more general way to avoid this entire class of problems. I'll give it a shot, and then everyone else can blow holes in the idea.

Think SMOOTH. Smooth driving puts less stress on a vehicle, and is also the fastest way around a race track. Any time that we do anything that can upset the vehicle in any way, we can do it in a way that minimizes the upset. If you get in the habit of doing everything smoothly, you are liess likely to upset the car at a critical moment.

The other thing that is important to understand is the concept of the circle of traction. If you are using all the traction for cornering, you don't have any left for acceleration or breaking. If you are on the edge and you shift the weight of the car around, left to right or front to back, you won't have any traction available to generate the forces needed to carry out the change. Traction will vary with surface and other conditions, but the traction circle remains. If you can corner at .9 G's on a given surface, and that is the absolute cornering limit of the tires and surface, you have to be very careful even as you slow down if you want to avoid a spin. At the limit any shift in weight will have a consequence. If we make it all smooth, we can feel it start to go, and "un-do" a little of whatever we are doing. If you are driving on the street this close to the edge on a regular basis you are probably taking way too many risks, so practice on an autocross course or race track is preferable. It is good to know what the limits of your car are, because happens. If you haven't had occasion to push the limits, or when something unexpected happens, it is important to be able to feel the limits as they are approached. A true life example ...

Back in '76 we bought a new 9C1 Camaro. While it's not too impressive today, the stock car could pull .89 G's on the skid pad, and in '76 that was good enough to scare the out of most people. We'd had the car for a day or two, and I was going up an on-ramp, at a rate that at the time seemed insane. We were probably cornering at somewhere around 0.8 G's, because I was absolutely NOT pushing the car, but I was pushing my own courage. I knew that there was plenty left, but didn't really know how much. As the radius of the turn started to widen, I started to feed a little more throttle, gently and smoothly, to *feel" what the back end of the car would do. Just as I started to increase pressure on the accelerator, a dog came out of nowhere, and ran directly across in front of us. Now I won't wreck a car to spare a dog, but I will do whatever I can when something like this happens. I had to apply the brakes very quickly to avoid hitting the dog, but at the same time I knew that I only had a fraction of the total traction available for breaking. What you have to do in a case like this is feed brake smoothly, and as you do, feel what the car does. Don't add the next bit until you have felt the effects of the last bit. It is like a closed-loop servo system, with the driver in the middle. You can quickly bring any car right to its limits this way, even if you have never experienced those limits before. Anyone doing it intentionally on the street will likely end up being sorry, so "don't try this at home, kids." Before you HAVE to do it on the street, it is a good idea to practice somewhere where it is a little safer.

A few autocrosses will teach most people more than a textbook on vehicle dynamics. I've been doing it almost since I started driving, and I'm sure it still improves my ability to handle the car (any car) when something unexpected happens on the street. Anyone thinking they are too competent a driver to be able to benefit from practice is a fool.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by jyeung528

 

Okay,
so you should always be in gear during any turn? even like wider left turns?