r/rallycross • u/StellaFerum • Oct 28 '24
Question Any good resources for steering with the brakes and gas?
I hear this sentiment often where you should have minimal steering input to be a good driver; and then along with this sentiment they’ll provide an example video with Karts, Rally Cars, or F1 cars, and what I feel like isn’t really accurate is that they always fail to recognize that these vehicles often have low steering ratios so the input can be less. Does anyone have an example of this technique that uses stock steering set ups?
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u/lukemia94 Oct 28 '24
Honestly the best recourse for this would be to spend 100 hours or so in a good sim like dirt rally 2 or the latest EAWRC game. Once you understand the theory in the game you will have to relearn execution in real life, but the theory stays the same. Basically anytime you are over or under steering you are losing speed, sometimes it's necessary, sometimes it's not. Braking often helps your car turn in much faster, but sometimes it doesn't, the same applies to gas. Learning when it does and does not apply just takes a lot of experience
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u/deftmoto Oct 29 '24
Like someone else commented, this is difficult to teach over the internet, but if you can find a dirt lot, or grass field, and set up two cones so you have a small oval track (maybe 20’ x 40’) you can learn this relatively quickly.
Turn off traction control. Practice going around the track in a controlled fashion and note how much steering needs to be done. Then push the car faster and faster until it starts loosing traction. Notice how the front wheels push wide when steering under throttle. Practice braking later and later. Notice how the rear slides out causing oversteer when braking hard and late in a corner. As you get used to the cars reactions, try to time you accel and decel to make the car understeer out of the corner and oversteer into it. When you get the rhythm down you will hardly turn the steering wheel at all through the oval. You will also use the brakes less and less as you learn to control the oversteer while entering a corner which will decelerate you significantly.
Mastering a small oval track quick to learn and very fun. Applying those skills to a rally course takes loads of practice.
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u/Draco-REX Oct 29 '24
It's very hard to teach it over the internet. There's a lot of feel involved. It can certainly be done with the GD Subaru Impreza. Subaru never upgraded the rack speed from the base Impreza for the WRX or STI. But it's very possible to steer it from the back.
There are a number of tricks to use. Some use the brakes, some the e-brake, some like myself use sudden lifts off the throttle. But all of these methods are about upsetting the balance of the car at the entry of the corner. You are trying to initiate a controlled spin where the car is spinning at the same rate you are going around the corner. If you achieve this, you only need to use the steering wheel to fine tune the spin. Otherwise you could leave the wheel straight and still make it around the corner.
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u/StellaFerum Oct 29 '24
I can throw the rear end out with heavy breaking into a turn, or with a clutch kick. But it seems like I still have to use too much steering angle. Maybe I am using too much throttle and need to learn to control it better?
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u/Draco-REX Oct 29 '24
You're probably putting a little too much spin into the car. Picture the rear wheels slipping just 1 or two wheel widths wide, not a flashy slide from a rally video. If you've got the technique of starting your slide down, then now you should work on controlling how much you slide and start tightening it up again. It's an ongoing process.
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u/Funny-Patient3360 Oct 28 '24
My impression of this advice is about when you are mid corner I do see people losing time from correcting and over correcting. The idea that you wouldn’t have steering input to initiate turn in seems silly. That said using the brakes to transfer weight, left foot breaking, etc are all good skills to learn. I like some of the Team O’Neill videos on you tube for this.