Hi,
I'm sure there were bunches of posts regarding heel and toe'ing...
The heel part works on some cars, but my experience is that you mostly use
the ball of your foot on the brake pedal (where the most pressure is
_needed) and the side of your foot to actuate the throttle. If you are
doing driving at wide open throttle (which you probably don't do on the
street, BTW, unless you have a Herald... Hi Andy!), and you are braking
heavily and "changing down", you more or less have to heel and toe... if
you don't, each time you let the clutch out after changing down, your rear
wheels will temporarily lock up and we don't want that when we're driving
at the limit now, do we?
I was driving a TR7 at a local road race course last summer and learned
this more or less the hard way. Entering one particularly nasty turn (turn
three at New Hampshire International Speedway in Loudon, NH if you care)
coming up on the corner I was going about 110 indicated (probably in the
high 90's if you consider tires etc...) anyway looking at the speedometer
was nearly my undoing, because in that brief instant, the Cobra in front of
me slowed dramatically... my change from 4th to third was done sans
"heeling" the throttle and the back of the car really locked up... I
floored the throttle for the downshift to second as I manuevered inside the
Cobra and around the corner... Needless to say, I was very aware of giving
the car throttle during down-shifting after that!
At then end of the day, I had a BIG BRUISE on the side of my right foot
from using that side of that foot for the throttle on down shifts. I didn't
feel a thing until a few days later. That's the power of adrenelin.
Heel and toe driving is _very important_ if you want to drive smoothly.
And you AutoXers out there, it's really critical to heel and toe when you
downshift to first for those really tight corners... no gear crunches!
The "real man" drivers can up/down shift with one foot only. You don't need
the clutch on the upshifts, and you need the clutch sparingly on
downshifts... of course they have transmission budgets that would make a
lot of countries envious... Oh, and if you have a car with a really light
flywheel, this heel and toe stuff becomes hyper critical...
But there's nothing like entering a big turn going in the wrong direction!
See ya,
rml
TR6's a lot of the time on two wheels... why is that?
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Bob Lang | Editor | New England Triumphs
Phone: 781-438-2568 | |
FAX: 617-258-9535 | |
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