[acj75]

Originally Posted by The HACK

One of the lessons I always try to teach, is forget everything you've learned up to this point and ADAPT. You'll quickly find that the fastest way around a track is to get on the throttle as soon as possible and get to FULL THROTTLE as quickly as your traction allows. Any instructor that continue to preach "don't drop the hammer" to an advanced student is probably afraid said student does not have the required skills. The "don't drop the hammer" speech is what I give to C and D students. A & B students, I'm asking "why aren't you at full throttle yet?"

Once you advance past a certain basic skill level, you need to learn to figure out what feedback is right and what is wrong. The guy I was talking about has close to 100 track days under his belt at the time and I trust him implicitly when sharing a track...That should say something about what he knows and don't know. The fact is, when he had reached full throttle as he exited a turn, the automatic transmission dropped down one gear on him and caused him to spin out of control.

Again. If you're not in full control of your vehicle at all times, you're not in control, period. If you have to feather the throttle longer because you're afraid of the car downshifting on you unexpectedly, you're not going to be able to extract that last 1/10th of a second out of said corner.

Put the transmission in manual mode and control what gear you're in, don't let the car do the guesswork for you.

Good info. I didn't mean to sound like I doubted your friend's experience if that's how it came across. I'm not an advanced driver, but like many of you who frequent this area of the forum, I'm sincerely interested in improving my driving. When I read your post, I was trying to relate to my own personal driving experiences for context. In my mind, "putting the hammer down" is how I would describe mashing the gas as the light turns green while brake torquing at the drag strip.

I drive my AT in DS mode with DSC off during autoX and track days. However, I've found that the car will still downshift if your revs are low enough and you hit the kick down switch.

Mashing the gas and hitting the kick down switch coming out of corners caused me to spin my car several times when I first started out (fortunately during autoX and never on a road course). Instructors would tell me I was over driving the car, too eager to stomp the gas, too jerky with my hands, etc.

Over time I've found that when I'm pushing hard on exit, "rolling into the throttle" can be done quickly, but not so quick as to trigger kick down or spins. I'm not trying to imply that I'm afraid of the car downshifting, but rather I'm working to find that perfect balance between maintaining traction while getting back to full throttle as quickly as possible.

By the way, the rubber grommets really are a good idea, and I may try that out.

[E90 87ss]

Originally Posted by acj75

Good info. I didn't mean to sound like I doubted your friend's experience if that's how it came across. I'm not an advanced driver, but like many of you who frequent this area of the forum, I'm sincerely interested in improving my driving. When I read your post, I was trying to relate to my own personal driving experiences for context. In my mind, "putting the hammer down" is how I would describe mashing the gas as the light turns green while brake torquing at the drag strip.

I drive my AT in DS mode with DSC off during autoX and track days. However, I've found that the car will still downshift if your revs are low enough and you hit the kick down switch.

Mashing the gas and hitting the kick down switch coming out of corners caused me to spin my car several times when I first started out (fortunately during autoX and never on a road course). Instructors would tell me I was over driving the car, too eager to stomp the gas, too jerky with my hands, etc.

Over time I've found that when I'm pushing hard on exit, "rolling into the throttle" can be done quickly, but not so quick as to trigger kick down or spins. I'm not trying to imply that I'm afraid of the car downshifting, but rather I'm working to find that perfect balance between maintaining traction while getting back to full throttle as quickly as possible.

By the way, the rubber grommets really are a good idea, and I may try that out.

This is why being able to hold/control your gears is important. I had an instructor force me to drive in D with traction control on, a miserable experience because I didn't know how the power was going to be delivered, i.e., if the car was going to downshift or upshift for me + the lag as the trans figures things out.

Generally speaking, from my experience you want to know what gear and rpm you should be in when going into and around a corner since you don't normally shift while cornering... When exiting a corner your rpm should be relatively high, at least high enough for you to exit with a good amount of power. If you're in D or DS and your rpm are low enough that flooring it as you exit the corner causes a downshift then you are probably in too low of a gear for that corner to begin with. I could be wrong so feel free to correct me...

On a short auto x course i stay in 2nd... on the road courses usually one or two gears depending on how slow a corner is or how long a straight is. Even on twisty roads I usually stay in 3rd or fourth all the way through...

[DUI Elite]

manual mode everyday, rain or shine, track or daily.

I like being in control, but I'm not stupid enough to justify taking loss on my car, and then putting myself through hell to find the manual version of my car.

It is a discernible difference between driving in just "drive". It feels like better power delivery. Less work on the trans in my opinion too. less thinking, "okay, fully engange throttle now? or halfway anticipate driver might begin to brake soon" type scenarios.

[N54_Fan]

Originally Posted by acj75

Good info. I didn't mean to sound like I doubted your friend's experience if that's how it came across. I'm not an advanced driver, but like many of you who frequent this area of the forum, I'm sincerely interested in improving my driving. When I read your post, I was trying to relate to my own personal driving experiences for context. In my mind, "putting the hammer down" is how I would describe mashing the gas as the light turns green while brake torquing at the drag strip.

I drive my AT in DS mode with DSC off during autoX and track days. However, I've found that the car will still downshift if your revs are low enough and you hit the kick down switch.

Mashing the gas and hitting the kick down switch coming out of corners caused me to spin my car several times when I first started out (fortunately during autoX and never on a road course). Instructors would tell me I was over driving the car, too eager to stomp the gas, too jerky with my hands, etc.

Over time I've found that when I'm pushing hard on exit, "rolling into the throttle" can be done quickly, but not so quick as to trigger kick down or spins. I'm not trying to imply that I'm afraid of the car downshifting, but rather I'm working to find that perfect balance between maintaining traction while getting back to full throttle as quickly as possible.

By the way, the rubber grommets really are a good idea, and I may try that out.

I dont use the rubber grommets but I may look into that...seems like a good idea. I just trained myself (with the car OFF) to feel the point at which the click for the kick down occurs. You can then get used to just accel to THAT point and NOT trigger the kick down yet still get WOT in the gear you are in. Even though I have done this on the track it still feels like you are rolling into the throttle because you are not in the next lower gear at higher rpms. So if you exit a turn in 3rd gear and do this you will likely be around 3000 rpm rather than "kick down" which would go to ~4500 rpm in 2nd gear. The car will not jerk as much and you may not have as much accel but you will have more control and less wheel spin or chance of spin out. Also you should have better tires for the track than you do for the street which helps. Also, I am not at the point of extracting the last 0.1 sec off my lap time because I think so much more time at my level is made up in proper entry and exit lines. FWIW,... These are just my opinions of what seems to work for me.

[neilvosko]

interesting, thanks all.

manual mode seems to be the way to go

[turb0mik3]

Originally Posted by DSC_OFF

I've been on 7 different tracks.

Note I said one gear can get you around, not it was the fastest. What tracks have you done that can't be done in one gear once you've gotten to speed?

Yup, 3 gears at most.

[neilvosko]

nice distribution: 75% in M mode, 25% DS

[Slops]

Reading this thread makes me think that none of you guys have had an xdrive on the track yet? I only ask because to me I felt confident enough with stability control still on to mash the gas on any corner and trusting my traction to be there from all 4 wheels at least to the point where the car will avoid spinning out when said corner exit downshift happens.