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Re: Geez and left foot braking

To: "Dave Vasko" <davevasko@adelphia.net>
Subject: Re: Geez and left foot braking
From: "Byron Short" <bshort@AFSinc.com>
Date: Sun, 20 May 2001 08:24:13 -0700
I'm out here again with GM this week, and your question becomes even 
more clear here.  The drivers who use left foot braking get many 
advantages on their GEEZ score, most of which I believe correlate to 
improved time as well.

First, you can be much smoother when you are using both feet as you can 
more readily blend the release of the brake with the onset of 
the throttle.  This is critical in long sweepers where the transition 
area can be extended with early braking followed by early acceleration.

It happens in short turns to, of course, but there left foot braking 
gives a different primary benefit:  speed.  The left-foot braker doesn't 
have the annoying time lag between brake and gas in a quick turn.  This 
time lag is a period in which you are literally coasting.  If you happen 
to be pulling max lat g's at the time, it doesn't really matter...your 
Usage is high because of the lats.  However, in short turns the max lats 
occur for just an instant, and you probably won't land those max lats 
right in your coast point.  So the result is usually a significant drop 
in usage.  It's also clearly a loss of time.  

And as if that's not enough, the car will take two "sets" instead of one 
in these instances.  By that I mean, the car must change it's 
attitude from nose down braking to squat and accelerate.  If you are a 
left foot braker you can make the transition quickly enough to do this 
in one step.  But the right foot braker will get two "sets", one from 
brake to coast, then another from coast to accel.  Now in some turns you 
want this transition to happen very quickly, and left foot braking helps 
because you can do it pretty much instantly, often even overlapping 
brake and gas to increase the speed of the transition.  And in some 
turns you want this to happen very slowly so as not to upset the car.  
And again, left foot braking is better at this since you can alter the 
attitude very gently over a long period by carefully manipulating both 
gas and brake simultaneously to make a seemless transition.

Smoothness, speed, and weight transfer.  Just three small benefits to 
left foot braking.  

--Byron

Dave Vasko wrote:
> 
> Well enough talk of sampling times and adjusting runs. :-)  How about some
> discussion on how to go quicker.
> 
> After looking at the usage graphs, is seems to me that is would be harder to
> fully use the car if you right foot brake.  Has anyone used GEEZ to compare
> left foot and right foot braking technique? What were your results?
> 
> Dave

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