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James Cater Racing

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Tag Archives: racing line

How To Get Faster

23 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by jamescaterracing in Formula Vee, Racing, Technique, Uncategorized

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2017, braking, faster, formula vee, going faster, how to, learning, on the edge, power, racing, racing line, rookie, technique

How To Get Faster

Once you get a feel for the car that you’re racing – and that part is just down to getting laps in the seat – you’ll probably find that you have to have a bit of a think about how to get faster.

At first, it’s all your brain can take to be able to actually control your car at high speed, and try not to exceed the limits. This soon becomes a subconscious act, and you’ll find that you’re able to think about other aspects of driving – and here’s where you can improve.

In my experience, the most important things to work on:

Racing line

https://i1.wp.com/www.driftingstreet.com/images/racing-line.gif

Learn the racing line. The racing line will effectively straighten out every corner, allowing you to carry more speed through them. There is a natural line to most tracks that you’ll get a feel for quickly, but there are lots of exceptions where the racing line will be different because of bumps or the camber of the track. Playing games may miss out some of these things, but watching onboard videos and following other cars around will help you, here.

And it leads neatly into the next thing…

Use all the track!

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If you’re ever more than a few millimetres away from the edge of the circuit, then you could have done it faster.

It’s amazing how even experienced racers will drive like they’re scared of the edge of the track – often sitting a foot or more away from the edge before turning into a corner.

If you concentrate on being as close as you can to the edge of the track, and follow the racing line, it will open the track up massively. Everything will feel less rushed, and you’ll be able to carry more speed everywhere. A few inches really can make all the difference!

Braking points

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/bc/f0/a1/bcf0a13a075a17bdcc6abe0fa9e205df.jpg

This is the main thing I watch videos for. I want to know exactly where the fast drivers are slamming the anchors on, so that I have a reference point to do the same. Consistent braking is the key, here, because you need to spend time working on it to be able to brake at the maximum.

And I should say that I’m talking about straight-line braking – once you’ve got this down, you should brake even later and trail brake up to the apex of the corner. Not everyone trail-brakes, and I suspect a lot also trail brake without knowing they’re even doing it…

Getting the power down

http://www.globalserve.net/~trauttf/Gilles/Gil_Vill.jpg

This one is actually between straight-line braking and trail-braking. If you’re on the power early, you should be able to carry more speed down the next straight. You should get the power on early enough that it carries the car right out to the very edge of the track on the exit – if you’re exiting the corner 2 foot away from the curb then you could have got the power down earlier, and done it faster.

This is also the safest way to go faster. if you go slowly into the corner but are fast coming out, it’s better (unless you’re racing another car that will stuff it up the inside of you and do a block pass!). If you go into a corner too fast you’ll just crash, run wide, or naturally have to exit the corner slower to stay on the track, so this is a far riskier way to get faster.

If you go in nice and safely and then get on the throttle, you can get off the throttle again if it all goes pear-shaped, or save it with some opposite lock (or drift it around on the power and look like a proper hero!).

“Slow in, fast out” is a great mantra.

Break it down

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Once you have all this, you’ll find you’re not doing it on every single corner. There will always be some corners that you’re slower in.

Take one corner at a time, and work on it. This is where testing helps a lot.

These are all the things you can do that can gain big chunks of time. There are a lot more smaller things that will chip away at those last tenths, and to be honest, even after a year and a bit of racing, I’m still not at a level where these smaller things are worth too much worry.

There are also the things that will make you smoother but not necessarily gain any time – heel and toe, anyone?

And so we’re nearly ready to kick off the 2017 season at Oulton Park on 01 April! I say “we” – my car still has no engine, but as I’ve said before, it wouldn’t be the start of the season if we weren’t still working on the car at midnight the day before the first race!

Good luck to everyone this year – let’s keep it safe and give everyone a great show of racing!

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Driving Silverstone International

28 Friday Aug 2015

Posted by jamescaterracing in Formula Vee, Racing, Technique

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braking point, circuit guide, first race, formula vee, lap time, racing line, silverstone international, single seater, tips, track day

Driving Silverstone International

I’m still buzzing from the weekend, and have woken up every single morning since then knowing how I can go faster, and how I should have done each corner better!

This blog won’t be an expert guide to driving the Silverstone International circuit, but it will be my notes on what I did, what worked, and what didn’t work.  Hopefully this will come in use for the next time I race there.

I still haven’t uploaded the qualifying footage – this is because the way I drove in the races was so vastly different that there’s not much to show for my qualifying, other than a bit more action.  Qualifying (and testing the day before) was me driving as fast as I could but still safely – that turned out to be so much slower than the other Vee drivers that I had to totally change my driving style and push way past where I thought my limits were!

So, let’s do a lap.

Turn 1: Abbey

Every Vee driver will tell you that this one is flat out.

From braking hard in testing, I did get braver through the day, and it might well be flat if you’re brave enough and get the line perfect.

There are a lot of entry points, but you want to be as far onto the left curb as you can on the entry, and turning in hard to a blind apex.  At best, I’d breath off the throttle, turn in and let the lift-off oversteer start to bring the back wheels around, then get back on the power and drift out wide towards the curbs on the exit.

There is a lot of time to be had here, and even the slower cars were doing this with a lift off the throttle, and absolutely hammering through the turn.  Get it right and it’s a shouting-in-your-helmet with joy moment!

Overtaking is possible with a bit of soft trail braking to keep you in tight, just in case the car on the outside doesn’t lift off for you.

Turn 2: Farm Curve

This is fully on the power.  The front tyres were skipping  through the turn as I tried to drag it back over to the left side of the track, but I don’t really know why I wasn’t just letting the car run out to the edge of the track on the right, anyway?  There’s still enough time to get back over to the left as you’re on the brakes…

Turn 3: Village

Brake hard just after the curb has started on the left side and whack it in to the ‘hairpin’, dropping down to third as you do.  Some were keeping the exit tight ready for the next left-hand flick, but I found using all the track was the way to go.

Turn 4: The Link

This is just a left flick that you can do flat, but if you’ve exited wide from the previous turn may find you need a brief lift off to get you turned in on the tighter line.  Mid-turn there is a big bump followed by a fair old drop, so expect to be in the air and sideways, angled towards the left side of the track…

Turn 5: Becketts

Stabbing the brakes as you land, you don’t have much time to get lined up on the left before you have to turn right.  This is your exit onto the Hangar Straight, so very important.  It’s a no-brainer to sacrifice the last corner to make sure you get a good exit here, because you’ll carry any extra speed all the way down the straight.  You can run out wide onto the other circuit, but watch out for the cones they may have put out, and make sure you’re back on the International track before the green stuff, or you’ll be at risk of being called for track limits.

Turn 6: Stowe

You need to get your brain to stay flat on the power until the impossibly late curb on the left. brake short and hard here and then trail brake to a late apex.  The curbing on the left hand side actually tightens on the exit, so it’s easy to run out from the apex too early and end up on the astroturf.

Gearing choice is split here, and depends really on your car.  I found snatching 3rd on the way into the turn upset the car too much, but you get better drive out.  I kept it in 4th through the whole turn, but the exit felt slow.  I did notice Pete Belsey was changing down to 3rd on the exit, last year, but didn’t get a chance to try this as there were still some worries about over-revving the engine.

I know I could have grabbed a lot more time here, and I was getting braver every time I took it.

There are loads of overtaking opportunities here on the brakes into the turn, or by cutting back for the exit and the short blast into…

Turn 7: Vale

The corner that I don’t think I ever did to my satisfaction – this section was definitely my weakest/slowest.

There is a crest just before the start of the curb, and some nasty bumps that are the reason I was running such hard front damping. Any softer and the front wheels pattered around like the desperate hands of a drunken faller trying to keep his face off the ground.

It’s the only corner you’re braking really hard for, but I tried braking everywhere from the crest to about the mid-point of the curb, and couldn’t nail it.

Turn-in is at the end of the curb, but again this wasn’t ideal.

Either way it’s really a sacrifice corner, because you need to be setting up for the main straight through this complex.

A right turn is immediately after, and you can compromise your line into it by being far to the right and lifting to get turned in, or try to get out of the first part of Vale as far to the left as you can and try to power through.

Turn 8: Club

Club starts with an easy curve to the right, where you need to be heading straight at the curb on the left to get the speed up,  before the fast apex leading onto the straight. This should be flat, but beware as, much like the pit straight on the National track, there is a big hard concrete wall to the inside that you really don’t want to be spinning into.

I was at 7000rpm when I hit the exit curb, so was having to shift very quickly to fourth – there wasn’t much I could do about this, and so was the hardest section on the engine.

Also remember the finish line is a fair way before the start line, so get any last lap dives up the inside done early or it’ll all be for nothing!

My fastest lap was a 1:21.33 (avg. speed 81.89mph) when I was reeling in Ed Lowndes and Alex Jones, but from the footage I had a huge lift off in Club at the start of the lap to avoid a slower car. Although I took Abbey with probably my smallest breath ever off the throttle, the rest of the lap wasn’t particularly outstanding – so I know I can take a big chunk out of that.

I need to find another 3 seconds to be up with the leaders. 1 second I’m sure will be there. 2? Possibly, if I up my game considerably.

I was expecting to be 8-10 seconds off the pace, so I’m pretty chuffed with that for my first time out in a Sheane that was built back in 1995, and hasn’t had any modifications other than lowering the rear!

I can’t wait to see how far I can take the car! If my performance wasn’t a fluke, I can’t see a reason why I can’t put myself in the top 10, with a lot of hard work, a few set up tweaks, very hard work, and a bit of luck!

On the other hand, Silverstone International is the only track the other drivers don’t know so well, and their experience will make things a lot tougher at Snetteron and Donington…

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