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For all you beginner and intermediate drivers, I have decided to post these little driving hints that are basically a translation of what's in the book, with a couple of personal observations to expand on some key points.
You see, I'm not an anal-retentive racer who puts 120% of their ability to push their car to eleven-tenths driving perfection, so parts of Skip Barber's strategy guide went over my pointed head for quite a while.
Truth is, I'm an anal-retentive gamer-geek who just likes to drive fast and win often. As an experienced gamer, I'm used to taking information and presenting it from a slightly different viewpoint and sharing it in language the casual gamer can all understand.
In short, it all boils down to corollaries of one simple maxim;
- Don't upset your car, or your car will upset you
In other words, worry about smooth and fast will follow. An unbalanced car will waste some of it's gripping ability just trying to regain stability. That means that there's less grip available for doing the things you want to do, like yaw (turn), brake, or ACCELERATE! There are three ways to upset a car, and they correspond to the three basic controls, and I'll go over them in detail.
GAS: Hammering the gas will generally result in nothing good. If you're going straight, all you'll do is smoke the tires or trip the TCS; only bad if you're playing with tire wear on. However, if you're turning, you'll either take too much weight off the front and plow into the wall, or you'll break the rear end loose and spin out. If you don't either of these, you are probably skilled enough that you won't learn much from this post.
Usually, you'll be better served by using varying degrees of throttle, just like real-life. Binary throttle technique only really works on the drag strip. For road racing, learn to use a nice, gentle touch, especially in the corners.
BRAKES: Slamming on the brakes is only good if you either want to shift your weight forward (to slide/snap the rear around) or if you just want to slow down and/or stop with no regard to directional stability.
The key? Again, use a gentle touch. Of course this means that you'll have to start braking a bit sooner, but since speed is measured in seconds and not MPH (or KPH), you can sometimes go faster by going slower.
STEERING: We've all heard of the importance of the proper line through the corners. However, to a lot of us, it's all just words, magic, or just seemingly impossible. Until relatively recently, I thought so too. (Let's hear it for the fully-analog Dual Shock 2.)
The thing to remember about the steering is that the sharper you turn, the more you upset the car. Sure, some unsettling is inevitable. That's why we've got shocks, springs, and sway bars. But it's more effective if, instead of relying on the hardware, you just drive smoothly. The best, of course, is both good driving AND superior equipment, but skill is usually cheaper.
If you read the GT3 manual, you remember that the optimum line is the one with the largest radius. Therefore, the perfect line involves the minimum amount of turning, which means the least upsetting of the car.
As we all know by now, the less you're turning, the more power you can put down for forward motion. If all that talk of traction circles sounded like total gibberish, maybe this'll help. And once again, a gentle touch is the key.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: Basically, it's all in the manual; I'm not about to pretend that I know better than Skip Barber. But it was presented so dryly that it never really sank into my little mind until I figured out a way to visualize what's happening to the car as I flog it around the track. Personally, once I started thinking about things in terms of unsettling the car, the proper line became clear. I can't always actually FOLLOW that line, but I know where it is, which is more than I knew before. Ditto with the braking points.
I hope that this slightly different way of looking at Skip Barber's strategy guide will help some of you become better racers.- Don't upset your car, or your car will upset you - Don't upset your car, or your car will upset you
You see, I'm not an anal-retentive racer who puts 120% of their ability to push their car to eleven-tenths driving perfection, so parts of Skip Barber's strategy guide went over my pointed head for quite a while.
Truth is, I'm an anal-retentive gamer-geek who just likes to drive fast and win often. As an experienced gamer, I'm used to taking information and presenting it from a slightly different viewpoint and sharing it in language the casual gamer can all understand.
In short, it all boils down to corollaries of one simple maxim;
- Don't upset your car, or your car will upset you
In other words, worry about smooth and fast will follow. An unbalanced car will waste some of it's gripping ability just trying to regain stability. That means that there's less grip available for doing the things you want to do, like yaw (turn), brake, or ACCELERATE! There are three ways to upset a car, and they correspond to the three basic controls, and I'll go over them in detail.
GAS: Hammering the gas will generally result in nothing good. If you're going straight, all you'll do is smoke the tires or trip the TCS; only bad if you're playing with tire wear on. However, if you're turning, you'll either take too much weight off the front and plow into the wall, or you'll break the rear end loose and spin out. If you don't either of these, you are probably skilled enough that you won't learn much from this post.
Usually, you'll be better served by using varying degrees of throttle, just like real-life. Binary throttle technique only really works on the drag strip. For road racing, learn to use a nice, gentle touch, especially in the corners.
BRAKES: Slamming on the brakes is only good if you either want to shift your weight forward (to slide/snap the rear around) or if you just want to slow down and/or stop with no regard to directional stability.
The key? Again, use a gentle touch. Of course this means that you'll have to start braking a bit sooner, but since speed is measured in seconds and not MPH (or KPH), you can sometimes go faster by going slower.
STEERING: We've all heard of the importance of the proper line through the corners. However, to a lot of us, it's all just words, magic, or just seemingly impossible. Until relatively recently, I thought so too. (Let's hear it for the fully-analog Dual Shock 2.)
The thing to remember about the steering is that the sharper you turn, the more you upset the car. Sure, some unsettling is inevitable. That's why we've got shocks, springs, and sway bars. But it's more effective if, instead of relying on the hardware, you just drive smoothly. The best, of course, is both good driving AND superior equipment, but skill is usually cheaper.
If you read the GT3 manual, you remember that the optimum line is the one with the largest radius. Therefore, the perfect line involves the minimum amount of turning, which means the least upsetting of the car.
As we all know by now, the less you're turning, the more power you can put down for forward motion. If all that talk of traction circles sounded like total gibberish, maybe this'll help. And once again, a gentle touch is the key.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: Basically, it's all in the manual; I'm not about to pretend that I know better than Skip Barber. But it was presented so dryly that it never really sank into my little mind until I figured out a way to visualize what's happening to the car as I flog it around the track. Personally, once I started thinking about things in terms of unsettling the car, the proper line became clear. I can't always actually FOLLOW that line, but I know where it is, which is more than I knew before. Ditto with the braking points.
I hope that this slightly different way of looking at Skip Barber's strategy guide will help some of you become better racers.- Don't upset your car, or your car will upset you - Don't upset your car, or your car will upset you
