Ultimate Speed Secrets: The Complete Guide to High-Performance and Race Driving

by Ross Bentley

As you enter a corner, before you even get to the turn-in point, you should be looking at and through the apex. You have to know where you’re going before you can know how much to turn the steering wheel at the turn-in point. Look as far through the corner as possible.

The better you know the course layout, the better prepared you will be. Always look ahead, and plan your route through the corners. If you mess up a particular turn, forget it, and keep looking ahead to the rest of the track.

As you drive through the corners, keep your head upright.

Many drivers wrongly feel they have to lean their head into the corner to be successful. The weight of your head leaning to the inside of the corner is not going to benefit the handling. Watch the best motorcycle racers: Even as they lean their bodies into the corner, their heads are cocked as upright as possible. That’s because they realize their brain is used to receiving information from their eyes in the normal upright position, not tipped at an angle.

As you approach most corners, what you can actually see is often restricted, and the view your eyes give is straight ahead of where they are pointed (left). But you have to see a curved view around the turn in your mind’s eye (right); visualize or picture in your mind the path you want the car to follow.

Do not concentrate on just one car in front or behind you. Look well ahead, and watch for anything coming into your overall field of vision. Pay attention all the time. And don’t just look farther ahead, think farther ahead.

The best race drivers have a tremendous ability to know what’s going on around them without having to look. Call it a sixth sense or extraordinary peripheral vision, but it is amazing what a driver notices when driving at speed, with experience. Like a person’s field of vi...

But as I became more accustomed to the speed, the more my field of vision and awareness expanded once again.

if a competitor’s car had more horsepower, he or she usually couldn’t use it, therefore equalizing our cars.

While I’m loving it, they’re hating it, giving me a mental advantage.

The general rule in rain driving is to drive where everyone else hasn’t. In other words, off the ideal line.

Through years of cars driving over a particular part of the track, the surface becomes polished smooth and the pores in the pavement are packed with rubber and oil.

That is exactly where you don’t want to be in the rain. You want to search out the granular, abrasive surface. This can sometimes mean driving around the outside of a corner, or hugging the inside, o...

Since cornering traction is reduced more than acceleration and braking traction in the rain, try driving a line that allows you to drive straight ahead more. That means a later, sharper turn-in and a later apex.

Often, in a race, the rain will stop and the track will begin to dry. Again, watch for, and drive the driest line. This can change dramatically from lap to lap. As the track dries, your rain tires may begin to overheat and tear up. If so, try to drive through puddles on the straights to cool them.

Since water runs downhill, it may be best to drive around the top...

The optimum slip angle for a tire in the wet is less than in the dry. On dry pavement a tire’s optimum slip angle may be in the 6- to 10-degree range; on wet pavement it may be around 3 to 6 degrees.

This means you should drive in the rain with the tires slipping less than you would on dry pavement. This reduced optimum slip angle range also means the line between grip and no grip is a little finer. Plus, once the tires have broken loose and begun to really slide, there is less scrub to slow the car down to a speed where the

tires can regain traction. That is why it often feels like a car picks up speed when it spins on a wet track. It’s because th...

it is critical to make the car slide from the instant you enter a turn in the rain. If you try to drive with no slip, at some point the tires are bound to go beyond the “no slip” range and begin to slide. When that occurs, it is going to take you by surprise. You think you’ve got lots of control, it’s hanging on . . . hanging on . . . and then suddenly it lets go.

Instead, enter every turn slightly faster than you think possible and make the car understeer, even if that means little or no trail braking at first. Once it is sliding, keep the car’s speed up by squeezing on the throttle. If the car is set up right, you can gently make it go from this understeer to a slight oversteer, always keeping the tires slipping.

With a little practice, you’ll be able to add your trail braking back in (increasing the initial turn-in speed), and make all four tires slip an equal amount all the way through the turn, using the throttle to control the balance of understeer to oversteer,

By having the car slide all the way through the turn, it will never take you by surprise. You know it’s sliding.

With each lap, try entering the corner a little faster, and a little faster, until the slipping feels like it is too much

Your initial turning of the steering should be as smooth, slow, and gentle as possible (allowing the tires to gradually build up their cornering forces). But when the car begins to slide, don’t wait; catch it quickly with the steering wheel.

Every time you accelerate out of a corner, feed in the throttle by squeezing the pedal down slower than you would in the dry. If you should ever have to lift off the throttle in a turn, “breathe” it, ease out, “feather” it.

Do not lift abruptly. That is probably the most common cause of a spin in the rain. Smooth and gentle—finesse—are the keys to driving in the rain.

You may want to try driving one gear higher in the turns than you normally would, using third gear in a corner you normally would use second in. This will lessen the chance of severe wheelspin by reducing the amount of torque available to the driving wheels.

AQUAPLANING

Aquaplaning is one of the trickiest parts of racing in the rain. Basically, it is when the tire cannot “cut” through the buildup of water on the track surface, and it...

Three factors account for this: the amount of water, the depth and effectiveness of the tread on the tires, and the speed the car is traveling. Be p...

Do not take your foot completely off the throttle, as the compression braking effect of the engine and forward weight transfer may cause your rear wheels to slip.

Therefore, whenever you begin to aquaplane, make sure your steering is pointed straight ahead.

Generally, you want to run a softer car: softer springs, shocks, and anti-roll bars

since there will be less forward weight transfer, and therefore braking, by the front wheels, you should adjust the brake bias to the rear.

add more downforce from the wings

the tire pressures. Use less pressure if there ...

more pressure (causing a slight crown across the tread of the tire) in heavy rain t...

When following other cars, you may need to drive just slightly off to either side, not directly behind, to improve your visibility and to avoid the spray and mist.

anti-fog products

So if you think of the competitors’ cars as simply changes in the track layout, you’ll be more relaxed and able to achieve your own peak performance.

One of the most important parts of passing other cars is to place yourself in a position that you can “present” yourself to take control of the track. Put your car in a position where other drivers can see you easily, and you have the line. Shutterstock

The goal is to deviate from your ideal line as little as possible while passing and being passed.

the general racing rule is that the overtaking car is responsible for making a clean, safe pass.

If the overtaking car is approximately halfway or more past the slower car and on the inside when entering a turn, it is that car’s line. I repeat, though, this is a general rule. The “approximately halfway” is a bit of a gray area.

“present” yourself, making sure you get into a position where your competitor can see you. When you go into a corner on the inside of him, it is not necessary to pass him completely

Often, if you try to go too deep into a corner to get completely by another car, you overdo it, and one of three things happen: you spin, are unable to make a proper turn-in, or you come out of the corner so wide and with so little speed that the other car re-passes on the straightaway

The wrong way to outbrake a competitor. If you get too enthusiastic and go too far past your competitor, it opens the door for him to repass you on the exit of the corner. This will probably be easily done, as you have gone too fast into the corner, cannot get back on line to block him, and will not be able to begin accelerating as early as your competitor.

When outbraking a competitor on the inside approaching a corner, do you turn in at the same turn-in point? No. If you did, it would be much too early. Instead, continue straight down the inside until you intersect, and then blend in with your usual ideal line. That puts you in position to begin accelerating earlier than your competitor.

When following a group of cars into a corner, you most likely will not be able to brake as late as you normally do. As each car in front starts to brake, the cars begin to “stack” up in front of you. If you tried to g...