I'm sitting here eating summer sausage, cheese and crackers for dinner. I've been watching this BB discussion off and on all day and thought I might chime in, a bit more, on the whole thing.
When I first joined SNAIL, about 19 months ago, (good grief! where did that time go) I was quietly but adamantly against brake balance adjustments. The 5/5 seemed to be balanced, equal pressure to all 4 calipers. This went on for almost a year. This stance changed when, after almost a year of running that way, I was practicing with Owensracing and a couple other players I'd met in other series I'd been in, don't recall if we were practicing for SNAIL Sunday combos or the Stamina Series or some other series I may have been running at the time. At any rate, I was having trouble hitting the apexes with a car and Owens and the others convinced me to change my brake balance to help me get the car to steer, while I was braking. I gained a full second after the change and each lap where I was able to hit the apexes reliably, I got faster and faster. I even adjusted the brake balance further, thinking, hell, if that simple of an adjustment made that much difference, more would make a bigger difference. Since I've heard the saying "go big or stay at home" used in these kinds of circumstances, I did. It didn't work out so well. So, I backed up the BB adjustments until I found that sweet spot that allowed me to control the car while braking and put it where I wanted it to go. It was an epiphany for me. A simple adjustment would make a catastrophically loose car controllable and take a car that was an annoyingly pushy bi:censored:h, and make it as polite and civil as the Queen Mother herself.
I don't care that it might not be true to the spirit of "Spec" racing. It helps keep me on the track and heading in the right direction. It doesn't matter that you, and I, should be changing where and how we brake, it only matters that you can control the car when you do. Without being able to steer, no matter your braking situation, you have no control. Being able to control a car while braking, especially of you've just brain faded and completely missed your braking point, and are about the smash the car in front of you, is the only chance you have of avoiding it. If you can't drive it into the wall or the grass or go sand surfing, you will smash something, other than yourself. It's not about gaining time, it's about maintaining control. Without control you won't gain anything. We had a saying in my previous career in electrical construction, where our battles in a lot of cases involved getting overweight vehicles, like bucket trucks and digger trucks, through some mucky areas, so we could use them to do our job. That saying was this "Stab it and steer it." As a younger man I took this to always mean, hammer that go fast pedal and keep working that wheel. As I got older I came to realize, it didn't matter which pedal you were "stabbing", but the steering part never changed.
I'm not sure where I heard it, but I heard an understeering (pushy) car is a safe car. Slow, but safe. An oversteering (loose) car is fast, but dangerous. I don't like either. I want my car to go where I tell it go, when I tell it to go there. Brake balance adjustments help me do that. As long as they are "allowed" I will continue to use this setting to make a car behave in a way that is conducive to my driving style. If I like how the car drives with a 5/5 balance, I'll leave it alone, otherwise, it's getting changed. I tend to brake early, but use less pedal and keep the brakes on past my turn in point, but, when I'm into a heavy brake zone, I still want to be able to turn my car, while slowing down. As my division placement shows, it ain't the fastest way, but it's how I do it. Since I have no intention of taking the motorsport world by storm, that's how I intend to go on doing it. It works for me.
Ok. All done munching my dinner. Time for a smoke break.