Finally got signed up
Jen will be there driving our car
I will be taking pix

 

so i NEED to get the car shook down on a skid pad and i'm thinking this event (hoping everything is broken in by then) but am i reading this right that its $35 and you get 2 runs on the skid pad...or is it like last years hyperfest where you could just come and go as you pleased and their wasnt a limit as to how many times you went

 

Can someone explain to me what a skid pad value is for? I mean, I don't have a clue, but I want to start. This road racing shit looks cool.

 

Nothing new on the xA, but I may have different tires (R-comps) by that event though. I am planning on attending the time trials.

 

$35 in advance gets you tickets for two skidpad test & tune sessions, which will offer dozens of "laps" each. There are about 60 of these sessions available "first come first serve" between 8:30am and ~12:30pm, then ~3:30pm to 5:30pm, on the three Saturdays that NASA has rented VIR in 2008. Any sessions that don't fill via pre-registration will be available to anyone that day for $20ea (i.e. if you buy the two in advance you save 5 bucks) but the only way to absolutely guarantee that you'll get to play on the skidpad is to pre-register. For Sat Feb 23, the pre-reg is here:

https://www.nasaproracing.com/nasa_e.../?event_id=618

And for Sat Mar 29, the pre-reg is here:

https://www.nasaproracing.com/nasa_e.../?event_id=629

Sessions will be non-instructed, one car at a time, tech and helmets required. The skidpad will be wet the whole time thanks to VIR. You can run either direction you wish (or both directions) in each session. The idea behind the "two for $35" deal was that most people would probably run one or both directions in their first session, change something on the car, then get in line to go back out again. Hence the "test & tune" name.

There's no limit to how many sessions you can sign up for, and there is no "be here at 9:14am" - just c'mon over and get in line whenever you have time. Hopefully the line won't be more than a few cars deep at any time that day.

Jon

 

First off, here's what the VIR skidpad looks like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeVIbAbnL5I

Doing that - but with one car at a time - is exactly what these NASA skidpad events will be.

Most people in the high performance driving world consider a wet skidpad to be one of the most useful & enjoyable training tools available to drivers of all skill levels. Here's what Tarheel BMWCCA says on the subject:


"What You Will Learn at the Skidpad

For the novice skidpad student, skidpad training will introduce you to the behavior of your car at its limits of adhesion and will offer you the opportunity to master the control of your vehicle under those conditions. You will learn how adhesion loss occurs, why your instinctive reactions to that loss are almost always wrong, what the correct inputs are, and perhaps most importantly how to think through loss-of-control situations. Rather than being passive during incipient trouble, you will begin taking an active role in recognizing and minimizing or eliminating the problem. The skills you acquire may well allow you to prevent that future accident on the highway. That is the purpose of HPDS training.

For the intermediate skidpad student, more progressive training will allow you to master understeer (loss of adhesion by the front tires) and oversteer (loss of adhesion by the rear tires) and relate their control to safer HPDS driving. You will learn how the inputs you make to your vehicle control its attitude, how the lack of knowledge of basic car control can get you into trouble on the road, and how you can get yourself out of trouble on the road as well.

For advanced students, we work to hone your control skills to such a fine degree that you will be better able to cope with most threatening situations you might encounter either on the track or on the highway. In addition, precise control of your car’s attitude on the track will allow you to maximize your cornering speeds and safely use all of your car’s performance. This is all about balance. For all students, it is imperative to realize that a gap exists between your perceived skill level and your actual skill level. Virtually every student initially overestimates his or her car-control ability, which engenders a dangerous feeling of security on the road. We have documented this gap in more than 3800 skidpad runs by over 850 students. If you learn nothing else at the skidpad, understanding the limits of your abilities will lead to safer HPDS and highway driving as you will instinctively leave more of a margin for error as you drive.

How Skidpad Training Improves Driving

While the emphasis in skidpad training is to promote skills that may prevent a crash on the road, the added benefit is that car-control skills learned on the skidpad also allow you to take your dry track driving school mechanics to new a new level.

What many students find surprising (until they have spend time practicing), is that the mastery of understeer does the most to promote efficient use of the road while simultaneously reducing the risk for a crash. While mastery of oversteer may help you get yourself out of trouble, it is a skill that one would hope is never needed on the road. If you use your skills at oversteer correction, you must immediately admit to yourself that you just covered a mistake. This should be a wake-up call; next time, even with excellent car-control skills, you might not do as well—you may “catch the car” but you may still run out of pavement and go off.

By contrast, mastery of understeer is what keeps you out of trouble. While harder to master than oversteer, it is the skill that allows you to fist sense a change in adhesion of your car. Mastery also allows you to optimize your grip when trail-braking into a turn. It allows you to “throttle-steer” a car with a brief and controlled lift in a turn to correct your exit position. It also gives you an immense advantage over other drivers because you can actually approach your limit of adhesion gradually with the confidence of knowing exactly how much grip you have left.

Most spins on dry pavement are a direct result of the driver not recognizing and effectively correcting understeer. When entering a turn too fast, the car will understeer. Intuitively the driver makes the wrong correction (tightening the steering wheel while jumping off the gas) which results in a spin. Recognizing and effectively correcting understeer at the earliest moment will prevent such an event.

Far too often, students come to the skidpad and want to breeze through the part of this program dedicated to understeer. The immediate assumption is that after three laps on the skidpad, they have it mastered. This is clearly not the case as it is very difficult to make a counter-intuitive correction a reflex. Nevertheless, students typically want to start to “hang the tail out” because that is fun. It becomes entertainment much like drifting or an off-road rally. Everyone wants to drive around a turn with the front wheels in counter-lock. Please bear with the program. Without mastering understeer, you will never achieve the level of car control that you desire.

Target goals, in the sequence in which we teach them:

Initiation of understeer: Driving so that your front tires begin to lose adhesion with the pavement: Detection of the onset of understeer via visual, audible, and tactile cues. Most on-road problems in dry weather begin with understeer.

Recovery from understeer: Applying inputs to your steering and throttle to regain front-end adhesion: Earliest possible detection and correction with minimal inputs to maximize recovery effectiveness.

Initiation of oversteer: Driving so that your rear tires begin to lose adhesion with the pavement: Detection of the onset of oversteer via visual, audible, and tactile cues. Most on-road problems in wet weather begin with oversteer.
Recovery from oversteer: Applying inputs to your steering and throttle to regain rear-end adhesion: Earliest detection and correction maximizes recovery effectiveness.

Progressive correction: Driving to provoke and correct progressively an understeering or oversteering attitude: Using proportional steering and throttle inputs in correction to minimize disturbance of your car’s balance. Note that the application of large throttle and steering inputs can cause over-correction of the original problem, resulting in a worse situation. When you reach this level of achievement, you will be able to correct most driving mistakes that otherwise would cause a loss of control on the highway or during participation in a High Performance Driver School.

Unstable balance: Driving to provoke and maintain an oversteering attitude. Balancing your car in an unstable attitude requires detection and correction of minute deviations in your car’s position. The very high skill levels required will allow you to cope with nearly any situation that can happen on the closed circuit training environment or on the street. For each goal, we employ these exercises:

Initiation of Understeer
Establish a constant-radius path around the skidpad. Accelerate smoothly with no additional steering input until the front tires begin to lose adhesion. Mild understeer is heard audibly as a chatter of the front tires and felt as light or greasy steering, more so than detected visually. Detect understeer as soon as it occurs. Learn to fight your initial instinct, which is to add more steering, because that makes the understeer worse.

Recovery from Understeer
Correct understeer by reducing throttle until the front tires regain adhesion. Correct understeer by decreasing steering angle until the front tires regain adhesion. Hold a constant steering angle (the instructor may choose to hold the steering wheel) and you will control understeer by use of the throttle alone. Try to drive at the maximum speed allowed by front-tire adhesion, slowing as necessary. Hold a constant speed (turn on your cruise control, if your car is so equipped) and control understeer by use of the steering wheel alone. Try to drive the tightest circle allowed by front-tire adhesion, running wide as necessary.

Initiation of Oversteer
From a constant radius and a constant speed, accelerate sharply to provoke power oversteer. From a constant radius and a constant speed, decelerate sharply to provoke trailing-throttle oversteer. From a constant radius and a constant speed, understeer onto an area of drier pavement. As the front tires dry out and gain adhesion, the nose of your car will pull sharply to the inside, and your car will rotate into oversteer. Detect oversteer as soon as it occurs. Learn to fight your initial instinct, which is to delay momentarily before taking corrective action, because that delay rapidly decreases your chances of a successful recovery.

Recovery From Oversteer
Correct power oversteer by smoothly retarding the throttle (to allow the rear tires to regain adhesion) and apply steering to counter the rotation. Correct trailing-throttle oversteer by smoothly increasing the throttle (to transfer weight to the rear tires) and apply steering to counter the rotation. Prevent oversteer due to pavement transitions by removing the undesirable steering input to cancel the understeer before transitioning.

Progressive Correction
Drive around a series of cones on the skidpad, arranged as the points of a pentagon, in the least time possible. This requires control of wheel locking under braking, control of understeer on turn-in, and control of power oversteer on exit. It also requires progressive correction, i.e., correction spread over the distance between cones, or between the cone and the edge of the skidpad, to minimize loss of time. A similar exercise is run without cones. This is substantially harder, as we have removed the visual reference that the cones provide. Instead, you must continually scan, and then lock your vision on a distant feature of the pavement or landscape to achieve progressive correction.

Unstable Balance
Provoke power oversteer, allow the car to rotate between 30º and 45º, and apply corrections sufficient only to maintain that attitude, rather than correct or exceed it. Work on minimizing steering and throttle inputs. To do so, not only will you have to sense small attitude deviations and apply corrections as early as possible, but you must also read impending changes in the pavement to anticipate corrections that will be needed. Note that this level of skill is extremely rare among drivers and requires a very large amount of time and effort to achieve. Demonstrating this level of skills shows that your car control skills have become intuitive: something you will now be able to draw from without thinking when the emergency arises. Practicing this exercise hones your ability to recognize and control loss of adhesion at both ends of the car distinctly and simultaneously. You will reflexively control front wheel understeer and direct the car while reading and managing the steering wheel. Simultaneously you will “read” the rear end (attitude) of the car by using auditory, visual, sensory, and vestibular inputs and then control this with your gas pedal. Graduates from the skidpad program unanimously agree that this level of skill gives them an uncanny prescience when they become instructors. Their skidpad mastery allows them to sense from the right seat what their student’s car is doing and enable the instructor to direct the student to make corrections earlier than they otherwise might."



Hope that gives you some idea of the possibilities. If nothing else, just c'mon out and try to drift all the way around the skidpad circle.

Jon

 

Our event that Sunday (Feb 24) on VIR's 1.1 mile infield Patriot Course may also be of interest to you. It's a school followed by a fast autocross, and it would be an EXCELLENT "intro to road course driving" event for anyone. It's also less than 1/3 the cost of a full weekend HPDE:

https://www.nasaproracing.com/nasa_e.../?event_id=621

Food for thought,

Jon

 

alright...i'm gonna be there i just havent decided between skid pad or us drift practice event

 

Why decide? Why not do both? Literally just c'mon down to the skidpad in between your drifting sessions...

Jon

 

i'm not gonna lie...i'm a little sliding it on the track, considering it'll be my first time drifting the new setup(cage,new suspension,+150whp) so i'll figure it out, but thats always an idea