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Race
Driving Fundamentals Chapter 10 Early Apex As explained in Chapter 9, we take an early apex to enable our car to have room to be in a position to have a high exit speed. We want to have as high of an on exit speed as possible when we enter a straight away. Practice on a slow speed corner which has a straight of any length following it. Pick out a braking point before the corner and take note of your RPM and write it in your logbook. Hit an early apex and make a mental note of where it is. Then proceed through the corner. Go back through the corner again and move the braking point deeper into the corner if your “setting” (refer to chapter 7) of the car was smooth. If the “setting” was a little out of control, move the braking point away from the corner. Practice this over and over again until you are “10/10” of your ability. You will know when you get over your head once in a while and go “11/10”. Many times I have seen great crew chiefs tell their driver who is making little mistakes in corners to slow down just a little. The result was a faster lap time. But, you must get out of control just a bit to know where the limits and boundaries are. In regard to gear changes, most corners are east to figure out. You brake first, bring down your RPM to a safe level to change into the next lower gear without unnerving the engine when the clutch is let out. You then “set” the car and accelerate out without too much wheel spin. On hairpin corners your exit speed is so low that you may change down 2 or 3 gears before exiting. The dilemma comes when you have too much wheel spin coming out. Let us say you are in first or second gear. On big engine cars and cars with narrow rear tires this can be a real problem. Seek out a corner like this. First try coming out of the corner in first gear, then change into second gear. A few seconds into second gear find an “exit speed” point and notice your exact RPM. Do this at least three times to get an average. Next try exiting the same corner with the same apex as before but this time use second gear. Notice your 2nd gear RPM at the “exit speed” point. Was it higher or lower? Do this 3 times to get an average. Whichever exit gear produces the highest “exit speed” is the correct gear for that corner. As stated earlier, high exit speeds translate into high speed and lower lap times. The importance of great early apexes cannot be overly emphasized! It is literally the most important corner of any racecourse. You can lose a tenth of a second taking a sweeper incorrectly. You can get all crossed up taking a late apex in a corner that leads into another corner and possibly lose 2 tenths of a second. But, blow an early apex in a corner leading into a straight and it can cost a full second or more because of lost top speed throughout the length of a straight away. As an experiment use a stop watch to measure how long it takes to go through a corner from entrance to exit. Next do the same on a straight. Measure the time from the entrance to the exit. It becomes apparent because of the sheer volume of time you have to lose on a straight. This reminds me of the great color commentary they do on the Indy 500 race showing the different segmented sections of the brickyard racetrack. There, in full color, you can see exit and entrance speeds and what dramatic consequences they have on lap times. What is so great about Indy is that they only speak in terms of overall lap speed averages. This makes it easier for the general public to understand since they do not have to contend with elapsed time in addition to speed. Drag racing is the only form of racing where someone can have a slower speed at the finish line and still win the race! It all has to do with the reaction
times on the starting line, tremendous acceleration rates and a very short duration of
actual track time.
Chapter 11- High
Speed Sweeper
Motor Meister Inc. 12262 Woodruff Avenue Downey, California 90241 Motor Meister is not
affiliated with Porsche Cars North America or Dr. Ing. h.c.F. Porsche AG. |
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