LeonV

This is an '04 AP2, all stock on RE71R rubber. My technique was to come into the turn full tilt in 4th gear, lift the throttle to turn in, and pick the throttle back up after the apex. I think I was just too slow to catch the slide.

I've run rear toe close to that setting before but I've been inching closer to zero. When I started tracking in 2013, I started at about 0.16° total in the rear (guessing, would have to check my records) and now down to about 0.10° so not much of a difference. The car has always been very easy to drive and correct. The biggest difference between this weekend and my last is the camber settings. However, I fail to believe that it would change the dynamic of the car so much. I'd like to think that the front ARB drop link was broken all weekend but it may also have just been multiple factors stacking up, including driver fatigue, that caused the incident. I'm certainly going to be more proactive in performing a more in-depth inspection of the car before and after each track day...

Singh_snisen

Not too bad damage. Spinning out is part of learning.

jyeung528

were you braking into the turn, or it was just lift off the throttle into the turn?

i think if you got on the throttle as planned, you should have been able to save it.

when the car started to slide, did you get back on the throttle or it sounds like you were still off throttle and off brake?

i'm shocked that an ap2 behaved this way and would, like you, suspect the broken front links.

LeonV

Yeah, I'd never had such behavior before and I've got about 16 track days on the car which is why I was surprised.

No brakes at all, just lift and turn in. I tried to listen to the video to see if I picked the throttle back up, if I did it was just a feather touch. I don't know if picking the throttle up more would have saved it or just sent me spinning into the inside wall. I'm sure it could have been saved but I didn't manage this time! Definitely could've been worse, I'm not upset.

DefSport

You didn't need more throttle, you needed to counter steer. The car was letting you know WAY before that you were a little high on your rear slip angle, and you just needed to pull that back a bit and the tire would give you more grip.

The broken sway bar link probably contributed to the change in balance in the car if it was there beforehand, but it didn't "make you spin," you just didn't save it. It's ok, it takes a long time to really get comfortable with the car getting too much slip angle on the rear and then bringing it back at speed.

I've found rain trackdays are where intermediate DE drivers really get more comfortable with adjusting the slip angle of the car since it's at a low speed.

jyeung528

it's a little difficult to see whether OP was countersteering or not since the steering wheel is not in view of the video. I would assume he had some amount of countersteer since the car did swing back the other direction of the spin, but just looked like it didn't have enough traction in the rear to catch.

LeonV

I was definitely counter-steering! It probably could've used a touch more but I was trying to be smooth and not send myself into a tank-slapper and end up in a wall. I did notice that you can kind of make out what I was doing in the video with the reflection coming off of the windshield. It's not great but better than nothing. I usually have the camera setup to see the driver but I hadn't put my interior back in after the roll bar install unfortunately. Like I said, I blame myself for not saving it and blame the drop link for the change in balance. I've always been able to correct slides easily in this car.

DefSport

The counter steering came way too late in the corner. The car started stepping out before it even got to the apex, and past the apex the rear was really out there, then the countersteering started.

Adding countersteering too late or not enough gets you about the same result as not doing it at all.

See above - the hard part of picking up speed on track is to recognize very early that the car is over or under rotating, and how to get things back to your desired yaw rate. I see your point in that the car was behaving differently than it normally does, but that happens all the time to various degrees. Tires aging, differences on track friction, maybe there's something that's slightly degrading the friction on the track that's short of a full fluid dump so it's not immediately apparent etc.

I'm not ragging on you here, sounds like you realize you didn't quite have the inputs right to save it. Just know that it WAS savable, and you will get there with more seat time. Luckily you got out of this off without getting hurt and there wasn't much damage to the car in the grand scheme of things, so a not very painful lesson.

LeonV

I hear you and appreciate the advice. I do have 3+ years on track, about 15 days in the S and probably close to that many in other cars. I've driven in time trials and Lemons races so I wouldn't call myself a complete noob. With that said, any (single car) incident is technically savable, and it's up to the driver to make the save. Trying to get as much seat time as possible this year!

DefSport

Not saying you're a n00b at all. You're in that intermediate/early advanced DE range that gets really tough to significantly add speed because the "low hanging fruit" is already gone, and any bobbles you have are at a much higher speed than say, your first few events. Some people never really progress past this point because it understandably gets you in some "uncomfortable" situations with having to deal with the car really moving around underneath you for the first time.


And just so you think I'm not some internet yahoo, I've been tracking regularly for ~15 yrs, and instructing for I guess 8 or 9 now.