What is the purpose of shuffle steering?
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On my way to my house, I have a 180 degree right hand turn off of a main road where the speed is about 60 mph. I have to downshift to 1st as I am breaking so my left hand is the only one on the steering wheel. I have found that the electronic steering control can be fooled by the rapid braking and thus does not provide any power assist, and it is quite difficult to turn the wheel sharply when the only hand on the steering wheel is at the 12:00 position. Shuffle steering might help in situations like this because I would have to get the second hand on the wheel faster.
Joined: Feb 2001
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From: Redondo Beach
Here's what an instructor from Skip Barber told us at a recent event (I'm paraphrasing):
Shuffle steering is *critically important* because it addresses BOTH:
1) Safety: It keeps a "cylinder of safety" clear for the air bag to deploy. In this sense, as the instructor observed, "Air bags changed everything."
AND
2) Performance: When done right, it prevents the driver from giving the car two *separate* steering inputs during a turn; this enhances smoothness and therefore control at the limit.
To see this, think of a corner in which you have to turn the wheel more than is possible without moving your hands; you could turn the wheel all the way till your arms are crossed, then change grips and continue turning. If you graphed that steering input versus time, there would be two separate curves conected by a "flat spot" during the pause where you switched grips.
Now, it's true that hand-over-hand steering removes that "flat spot" and is therefore okay from the peformance view, but it fails to keep open the "cylinder of safety" that's needed on newer air-bag-equipped cars. Shuffle steering is the only technique that does both 1) and 2).
As a last note, F1/Indy drivers don't need to shuffle steer because a) their wheels don't have air bags, and b) their wheels have only 1 or 1.5 turns lock-to-lock anyway, so they never need to change their grip.
Hope this helps,
John
[Edited by twohoos on 05-24-2001 at 02:49 PM]
Shuffle steering is *critically important* because it addresses BOTH:
1) Safety: It keeps a "cylinder of safety" clear for the air bag to deploy. In this sense, as the instructor observed, "Air bags changed everything."
AND
2) Performance: When done right, it prevents the driver from giving the car two *separate* steering inputs during a turn; this enhances smoothness and therefore control at the limit.
To see this, think of a corner in which you have to turn the wheel more than is possible without moving your hands; you could turn the wheel all the way till your arms are crossed, then change grips and continue turning. If you graphed that steering input versus time, there would be two separate curves conected by a "flat spot" during the pause where you switched grips.
Now, it's true that hand-over-hand steering removes that "flat spot" and is therefore okay from the peformance view, but it fails to keep open the "cylinder of safety" that's needed on newer air-bag-equipped cars. Shuffle steering is the only technique that does both 1) and 2).
As a last note, F1/Indy drivers don't need to shuffle steer because a) their wheels don't have air bags, and b) their wheels have only 1 or 1.5 turns lock-to-lock anyway, so they never need to change their grip.
Hope this helps,
John
[Edited by twohoos on 05-24-2001 at 02:49 PM]
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