On Tue, 12 Jun 2001, Patrick Jones wrote:
> Of course if you always right foot brake, then there is no
> compensating :-)
True.
> When I started Solo, I used my left foot and thought I was doing well.
> Then I watched and talked to Gene (can't remember his last name) from
> Team Viper at Dodge during a Viper clinic. This guy was a road racer
> who was showing us the new ACR on a Solo course at Mather. He tore up
> everybody, including Rich Bontempi, by several seconds. He never used
> his left foot. I asked him about it and he said he tried in the past,
> but saw he was 'covering' the pedal too much and was 'probably'
> exerting a little tiny pressure when he shouldn't be. His advice was
> quick hands and feet and some other pearls of wisdom I don't remember
> right now.
Yes, poor execution can always negate theoretical advantage. And Viper
brakes can negate even good execution.
> Now, I leave my left foot braking to plowing snow in auto transmission
> 4WD pickups.
That's fine. Be aware that you're leaving *potential* time on the course.
The point to my message (there usually is one if you look hard enough) was
that, for a change, we actually had a reasonably objective measurement of
LFB advantage. Customarily most of us don't use braking points that are
readily recognizable/comparable - even when we say "the dirty cone third
from the apex" that's not usually where we are looking while driving and
it isn't a very accurate data point. I believe that Byron now has some
LFB/RFB numbers for Geez!, but apart from that it's mostly been apocryphal
information that you could actually brake later or quicker.
I didn't measure the distance involved, but it was at least 20 feet, and
at reasonable 2nd gear speeds (call it 60mph, a CSP Miata was on the rev
limiter there), that's .2 - .25 seconds of time that I was still on the
gas with LFB as opposed to RFB. Obviously that doesn't translate to .2
seconds of scratch time, but it's still a significant number, and I
thought it would be of interest to know that there are actual demonstrable
gains to be had.
As far as your Viper instructor is concerned, I don't know for how long he
tried LFB, but I've driven automatics with LFB all my life, and it still
took me more than six months of intense autoxing to get back to my RFB
effectiveness. I do still have problems with overbraking, but it's not
execution. There are many parts of courses I walk now and think "How the
hell would I get through there trying to brake with my right foot?". The
answer would be that I'd be doing (relatively) a lot more coasting while I
finagled feet around.
KeS
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