> When I'm driving on course, my tires are always "talking" to me. Should I be
> striving for near silence? When going around tight 180+ degree turns, my
> front-heavy front-driver is almost always plowing, and my SP9000's are
> letting me know it! I have often wondered if I shouldn't take the turns
> slower & tighter, and your post seems to advise this. Is this what veterans
> mean when they say "slower is faster"?
>
> Mike Healy
Mike,
Yes, this is precisely what they mean. When I had my street tires, they were
always talking to me, too. But my goal was to keep them quiet in a turn, or at
least down to an on-again, off-again squeak, as if to say, "We're at our limit!
We're at our limit! We're at our limit! - This is all we got, man!" :-)
I don't know what kind of car you've got, but my Honda Accord is a pretty
front-heavy front driver too. Your use of the word "plowing" leads me to think
that you might be letting it plow too much. Just because your car tends to plow
doesn't mean you should let it.
To take a turn at its fastest (and tightest), you need to slow down enough that
you can turn it at the very limit of your tires' adhesion to make "the line" you
want to follow. It may seem like you're going slow, but the alternative is this:
Any amount of plow can and will take you off-line, and usually it will take you
a long while to get back. There's where your time is going. It's ticking away
while your speed is slowly scrubbed off (at the expense of your tire life, by
the way), and while you struggle to get your car back around, tires howling all
the way.
Some extra-green novices will demonstrate this for you in a very exaggerated
way. This is because they're driving from gate to gate. This really amplifies
the plowing problem because when you finally make it to a gate and through it,
you're pointed *away from* the next one! This brings up another popular
veterans' mantra: Look ahead, look ahead, look ahead. You need to do this to set
up for the gate after the one you are approaching, and to set up for the one
after that, etc.
As you get better, there will come a time when you feel you're doing everything
the tires will let you. At that point, have a veteran ride with you, or have one
drive your car. He/she will be able to point out the areas where you may still
be able to cut seconds (yes, seconds) from your best time. Better yet, have a
veteran ride with you next event!
Good luck.
John
--
John Crooke
HS Honda Accord
Silver Spring, Maryland
Crooke_John@bah.com
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