Going over 10/10s

I'm a little confused on the wording between your subject and your actual post. This is also potentially a very loaded question.

Disclaimer: Anyone who knows and/or has worked with me as a coach in high-level professional motorsports knows that I keep and respect privacy beyond the call of duty. My engagements often contain NDAs and such, for several reasons not the least of which what I do is considered a competitive advantage and no one wants to give those away. So that being said and disclaimers out of the way...

Based on your subject line, controlled crashes can and do happen. I have a good friend (who's a member here) who once suffered a fire in a DP car. Upon discovery, this driver rightfully pulled the car over and bailed. The car suffered immense damage (over $100k) because it was fast expanding and workers couldn't get to it in time. Afterward, the driver came to the conclusion (reinforced by the owner and other drivers), in case of fire - crash the car! Insurance (yes, race cars can carry insurance and at that level, a team owner is all but crazy not to use it) will not cover a car that burns on its own. If; however, the fire is caused by impact (keyword IMPACT), damage is covered.

Another good friend of mine whose name you'd recognize was in an IRL race and left the pits with a crippled engine. Said engine had been worked on continuously without real benefit. Upon leaving the pits and hearing the engine get significantly worse; and fearing that a catastrophic failure at 200MPH would be worse for everyone including competitors, the driver floored it, popped the engine (so as to get a new one) and ended that race... Slightly different situation but 'controlled' nonetheless.

As for my interpretation of your actual post; when in the heat of battle during competition, sometimes throwing caution to the wind is the way that we find our limits are really higher than we thought. Sometimes going balls out is what it takes - pushing ourselves and our equipment past what we think is reality only to discover there's more there. When it works, the pass may be made, the race won, or position on the grid improved, etc. When it doesn't, it doesn't. This could lead to a loss of positions, a loss of usability, loss of car, injury or even death. That's all part of the game. I suppose the question really becomes what was the intuitive insight just before execution - that you'd make it, or not? Sometimes we execute even when our intuition is screaming otherwise. At 200MPH, there's no time for deliberation or over-analysis. It's make a choice and execute.

I'd sight that as a major distinction between Senna and Fangio I: Senna was far more calculating and expanded his personal limits in a bit more controlled manner, where Fangio was an in-the-moment expansion kind of guy both on and off the track. Both took many risks and gained many rewards or suffered serious setbacks. Just their approach on how to do so was different.

I think we've all just 'gone for it' at some point or another (more often than I'd like to admit) and had it work both ways. That's how we learn.

Cheers & C U @ d'Track!!
C

Chuck Hawks,
Pro-Driver, Coach, Instructor & Facilitator
DreamsFulfilled, LLC & rEvolution Performance Driving System ©

 

Done.

 

Well, I only tried ovals by the wall once. But in rallye, it's almost always about pushing past the limits.

In a more general sense, I'd say that the non-business part of racing is all about pushing back the limits -- to get to the edge of what a car and driver can do, and to find ways to push beyond.

Or, as they said in "The Right Stuff", to chase that demon that lives in the thin air.

 

You can't win by stuffing it, and you can't win at 11/10ths. Depending on the car, you might have to slide it around (exceed traction) but I would argue this is 10/10ths, and it does not mean you are not smooth. As you get better, you learn not to overdo the 10.1/10ths. You just go over and under by a hair. This level of competition exists "even" in SCCA at the amateur level, as I am discovering.

 

I've gambled and won.

I've gambled and lost.

And I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to do both.

 

In an Indy car you are in a constant battle with drag and in order to get max speed you are trading downforce you need in the corners. The net result is that if you can't get the speed you try to take out rear wing and that makes the car drive like on a knife edge. You have to drive it smoothly and perfectly or you end up in the wall. It isn't that you are going over the limit, it is that there is no "flat spot" at the top of the curve. In this case you don't dare go over the limit by the slightest amount or you end up in the wall. If you go below that you are slow and don't make the show. Since there is no top on the curve it makes for some of the most difficult driving there is.

In sports car racing the limit generally isn't as sharp, and pushing beyond the "limit" generally slows you down, so the key is to identify where you are pushing past the point of best speed. In most cases a little over the top doesn't hurt you a lot so try to go where the car is telling you that's all it has, and if you go a bit over the top, just beause the road is a bit wavy or there is a bit of dirt that wasn't there on the previous lap doesn't send you flying, then you are at 10/10's

 

Well said!

Cheers & C U @ d'Track!!
C

Chuck Hawks,
Pro-Driver, Coach, Instructor & Facilitator
DreamsFulfilled, LLC & rEvolution Performance Driving System ©

 

I'm amazed there haven't been any 'Spinal Tap' references. This driver...he goes to 11.

 

great post.

 

My contribution to this thread is to simply mention that I nearly wrecked an expensive and new Porsche 911tt with the owner in the front seat as I entered a corner very quickly and had a twitch reaction expecting it to act like a heavy, front-engined car. Hard core flop sweat and a few cubic feet of gravel later I saved it and ended up buying dinner.

 

Since my amateur car racing career/hobby/money pit has just started, I can't speak to driving more than 10/10's, but in my former life as a pro cyclist, there were many downtown criteriums(a race around a 1km downtown course), in which I rode more than 10/10's. Not the same speed as cars mind you, but in the rain and in a breakaway and on the way to 'lapping' the field, you are on the edge in every turn. In my opinion, the guys that could ride their bikes in the rain at full tilt were the best bike handlers in the peloton. In one such occasion, I remember a course that had 10 turns per 1km lap and in each turn on every lap, my back tire ever so slightly slide out. There were 3 of us in the breakaway and we were pushing harder than I had ever gone in the rain... Only 30 guys finished out of 100 starters and yes we lapped the field(I got out sprinted though and got 3rd).

When you are good enough to have the car drift ever so slightly in every turn, then I would say you are over 10/10's(if there is such a thing).
Watching the coverage of the VIR grand-am race was exciting(since I drive there often) and seeing those drivers drifting the cars up the uphill esses, was just mind blowing. I know how scary it is at 9/10's and to be drifting through those turns.... yowza. One mistake and you are toast...

Hunter

 

The secret is to plan the "continuous slide" and not be constantly reacting to it. When you choose to have and make the car "progressively un-stuck," that is when you are on the limit most consistently.

I have certainly experienced and seen many people successfully "dance" that fine line between in-control and beyond-control (9/10 vs 11/10) and those best prepared and open to what the car, the tires and their tenuous connection to the road are telling them are the ones most successful in navigating that divide.

From an old FChat post: http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showpost.php?p=135913068&postcount=32

Hunter, you've been there on the bike already...

 

I guess that a lot of people define as fast as you can go as being barely in control. If you want to define 10/10'ths as the limit of control, then yes you are sliding and hunting for traction a bit, and if 11/10'ths is an almost out of control slide where you still catch it, then ok, I'll buy that.

But then the fastest way around in that parliance is somewhere around 9.95 tenths. You have to feel the tires working hard, but not sliding, just using big slip angles and really working.... If you are sliding at all, you are in most cases past it and losing time. Not to say that in some cases you aren't way out there, like having the back end start to loosen where you have to restick it with a bit more throttle, or a having little bit of push where you have lift a bit to restick the front end in a fast transition, but most of the time to be really fast, you shouldn't be out on the edge of control, you will just use up the tires and at the same time be slow...... Really good drivers are constantly using the throttle, brake and steering in harmony to keep the tires on that big slip angle, but not over it to where you start to slide.

This is one of the reasons why really fast guys look much smoother than people who are BIC (Barely In Control). The really fast guys are using all of the capability and not going past it, so the car isn't hunting for traction and they are just moving out...

"You have to feel the force Luke" ...... (I always wondered it the guy who wrote that line was a road racer)

 

I think my 10/10ths is more or less than someone elses 10/10ths because if I make my 10/10ths crappy input I get my 10/10ths crappy output. Someone else who had a better input may well be faster with a better output but be only at his 9/10ths. I think the car is usually faster than 90% of us can drive it. I think 9/10ths is still car on rails and 10/10ths is car sliding as it tracks out heating up tires and you which causes 10/10ths to not last very long if you want to finish a race or if you want the car to finish the race. I think you can go 11/10ths at your level to gain a position where your car may be faster or trap a competator behind a slower car by taking a chance and catching your car back to sub 10/10ths but that ultimately that will cost you laptime. I think in timetrialing or qualifying 10/10ths is all you could hope for for a very short time... a lap and 11/10ths is worthless for this endeavor because it is slower for the car and your body can't do 11/10ths for long either. I think in racing "negotiating" 11/10ths may be the difference between finishing a couple of positions ahead of where you might be just taking a timetrial line and is faster in racing because of the dynamics of "racecraft" not ultimate laptime. Maybe 11/10th's is what makes timetrialing and racing two different games played on the same surface.

 

+1,000,000!

Any tire engineer will tell you, tire cF and grip levels are greatest with single to low two-digit (in degrees) slip angles.

 

Yes, 10/10ths is where the car is constantly developing slip angles. 11/10ths is where you have to change from planning to reacting to "catch" the slide, meaning you have to get out of it.

Yep.

On the contrary, at 10/10ths you're starting these slides all the time, you're just using the absolute and correct harmony of control inputs to govern the rate and amplitude of that slide...

Man, it feels good... Spent time today doing just that!

 

I like to say "Sliding is slowing, slipping is gripping."

Tires get their greatest traction when they are just beginning to slide, so to go fastest with the greatest amount of grip, drive 'em where they're just beginning to slide as much as possible. This is all about leveraging slip angles... As Peter says - intentionally and predictably. Reacting = 11/10s and is less than optimal.

A controlled (keyword...) 4-wheel slide is optimal in many cases and doesn't slow the vehicle much at all but there are also times where we want to slide the tail and yes... the nose resulting in slowing the car where we are but providing the opportunity to press the throttle sooner and/or harder on exit, resulting in a faster overall segment. A general 10/10s is knowing how to do so and executing such on purpose. At 11/10s, you may pull it off but weren't expecting to do so and therefor are 'behind the car' and slower as a result. Of course none of this takes into account preservation of equipment and strategy... that is a whole different conversation.

When we're talking the 10s scale though, in my book everyone has their own scale that matches their current ability. So my 10/10s looks different from someone else's 10/10s.

Then there's the car's 10s scale which is less dynamic and much more difficult to reach the top. 99% of all drivers are too underskilled or inexperienced to extract 100% (10/10s) of most any car's ability. For (extreme) instance, I might think I have wrung every bit of what a VW Beetle has to offer and there's nothing left only to have Schumi show me another level of what's there to be extracted. So my perceived 10/10s from the car was indeed not 10/10s.

Cheers & C U @ d'Track!!
C

Chuck Hawks,
Pro-Driver, Coach, Instructor & Facilitator
DreamsFulfilled, LLC & rEvolution Performance Driving System ©
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Perfectly put...

That's what I was trying to say, that feeling of running high slip angles and feeling the tire nibbling at the limit of slide is where it's at.. But once you are sliding you are slow.

One thing tho, race tires are very different than street tires in this regard. Some race tires have softer sidewalls coupled with sticky rubber, run with higher slip angles, and as a result you can feel the limit approaching and run on the top of the curve a lot more readily than a lot of stiffer and less stickly, more streetable tiresthat fall off faster as they go over the top.