Ease off to Overtake!

Author
Discussion

Mini Spirit

Original Poster:

12 posts

101 months

Tuesday 12th January 2016
quotequote all
When overtaking, You should ease off as you pass, just enough to hold your speed. You don't want to be accelerating when you turn your wheel to pull in again because if you do you will under-steer more and it will take you longer to get in. I believe in easing off to pull
back into line even when there is something coming the other way
in the middle. "it's not a case of decelerating. You just hold the speed you're making. This may cost you a yard or so in actual forward movement but it gets you into a nearside lane faster and that more than makes up for it.

Taken from the Tom Wisdom book High Performance Driving.

Vocal Minority

8,582 posts

151 months

Tuesday 12th January 2016
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I guess if you are in a position where you need that difference, you cut the overtake far to bloody close anyway.

From my (totally uneducated) point of view the benefit is really only theoretical

DoubleSix

11,691 posts

175 months

Tuesday 12th January 2016
quotequote all
That's great but in the good ol' UK anyone you overtake will take offence and plant the throttle to regain their pride at such a grievous insult.

In turn you are forced to V max or die a fiery death.

Mr Sandman

26,140 posts

213 months

Tuesday 12th January 2016
quotequote all
Mini Spirit said:
When overtaking, You should ease off as you pass, just enough to hold your speed. You don't want to be accelerating when you turn your wheel to pull in again because if you do you will under-steer more and it will take you longer to get in. I believe in easing off to pull
back into line even when there is something coming the other way
in the middle. "it's not a case of decelerating. You just hold the speed you're making. This may cost you a yard or so in actual forward movement but it gets you into a nearside lane faster and that more than makes up for it.

Taken from the Tom Wisdom book High Performance Driving.
Indeed. What our Tom forgot to mention is that he's actually easing off the throttle to focus on his vinegar strokes.

rallycross

12,747 posts

236 months

Tuesday 12th January 2016
quotequote all
This is exactly the sort of nonsense you'd expect to find in the 'Advanced Driving' section of the forum.

I suspect Mr Tom Wisdom has never experienced real understeer (and even if he did, he'd be too busy shuffling his steering wheel back and forth in his faux-leather gloves to know what to do about it).

Mini Spirit

Original Poster:

12 posts

101 months

Tuesday 12th January 2016
quotequote all
DoubleSix said:
That's great but in the good ol' UK anyone you overtake will take offence and plant the throttle to regain their pride at such a grievous insult.

In turn you are forced to V max or die a fiery death.
lol 😃

MagicalTrevor

6,476 posts

228 months

Tuesday 12th January 2016
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rallycross said:
This is exactly the sort of nonsense you'd expect to find in the 'Advanced Driving' section of the forum.

I suspect Mr Tom Wisdom has never experienced real understeer (and even if he did, he'd be too busy shuffling his steering wheel back and forth in his faux-leather gloves to know what to do about it).
I agree.

Your tyres have a limited amount of grip and that's divided between turning, accelerating & braking. Loosely speaking, if all your grip is being used to accelerate then you won't have enough for turning and you're experience understeer. However, if you're using 100% of grip on accelerating whilst overtaking then you either need new tyres or something has gone wrong! Therefore, I'd say that statement about understeer is nonsense.



I suppose, legally speaking, you should only accelerate up to the speed limit to overtake, i.e. the car in front is doing 40mph and you accelerate up to 60mph to overtake. I'd stick at 60mph and then smoothly pull in leaving enough of a gap.
Although, in real-life you're just going to accelerate and get the overtake done as quickly and as safely as possible.

TurboHatchback

4,152 posts

152 months

Tuesday 12th January 2016
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What a load of utter guff! I usually ease off as I'm going past as by the time I'm alongside I'm usually going gratuitously fast anyway and more speed is not required. Quite how understeer comes into the picture I don't know unless his daily driver is a Saab with 1000hp on Nankang specials.

james_gt3rs

4,816 posts

190 months

Tuesday 12th January 2016
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I'll be lifting off on corner exit on track then, reduce understeer == higher corner speed rofl

Andy S15

399 posts

126 months

Tuesday 12th January 2016
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Mini Spirit said:
You don't want to be accelerating when you turn your wheel to pull in again because if you do you will under-steer more and it will take you longer to get in.
Just quoting this bit because I find the thought of under steering in a straight line quite funny.

CABC

5,534 posts

100 months

Tuesday 12th January 2016
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Correct method is to change down at least 2 cogs, overtake, accelerate more to be at the very limit of traction, turn in, lift off, correct the o/steer and carry on.

That author maybe qualified but that segment (if true) demonstrates he was writing stuff to fill a book.

Mini Spirit

Original Poster:

12 posts

101 months

Tuesday 12th January 2016
quotequote all
The book was published in 1966, & Tom Wisdom, was one of this country's better-known names in motor racing, rallying and journalism.

He had competed with success in such races as the Portuguese Grand Prix, Monaco Grand Prix, Le Mans 24-hour Race, and won the Grand Turismo
Class three times in the Mille Miglia.

He had competed in the Monte Carlo Rally 23 consecutive times and has broken World Records with Capt. George Eyston and the late John Cobb.

To be fair I'm really enjoying reading it, it shows how the high performance course came into affect. HPC

MagicalTrevor

6,476 posts

228 months

Tuesday 12th January 2016
quotequote all
I'd say that's well out of date then. Probably catering for the lowest common denominator whereas nowadays, even the cheapest car has bags of grip with modern tyres.

Mini Spirit

Original Poster:

12 posts

101 months

Tuesday 12th January 2016
quotequote all
MagicalTrevor said:
I'd say that's well out of date then. Probably catering for the lowest common denominator whereas nowadays, even the cheapest car has bags of grip with modern tyres.
The Candidates trained in the Aston Martin DB4, before the Maximum speed was introduced, at speeds of over 140mph on the road, with no seat belts required, although at that time DB4 had them installed, lol. Crazy

CrutyRammers

13,735 posts

197 months

Tuesday 12th January 2016
quotequote all
I would generally not be accelerating flat out while steering anyway, not in anything with any sort of umph. I don't think I'm ever likely to be still accelerating flat out when pulling in after an overtake, unless in something very slow, in which case it's not going to have enough power to provoke understeer anyway..

To get understeer while pulling in you'd have to be going some I reckon.

RobM77

35,349 posts

233 months

Wednesday 13th January 2016
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CrutyRammers said:
I would generally not be accelerating flat out while steering anyway, not in anything with any sort of umph. I don't think I'm ever likely to be still accelerating flat out when pulling in after an overtake, unless in something very slow, in which case it's not going to have enough power to provoke understeer anyway..

To get understeer while pulling in you'd have to be going some I reckon.
yes I would have thought it's much better practise to teach people the general case of linking their steering with throttle and brakes - i.e. if you want to add either throttle or brakes then you need to ease off the steering commensurately. The quote by the OP seems to me to be a very minor concern in that specific instance, but in contrast the general case of making concurrent demands of throttle or brakes whilst also steering is one of the major reasons for loss of control accidents.

brman

1,233 posts

108 months

Thursday 14th January 2016
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Tommy Wisdom.....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Wisdom

I reckon he probably knew how to drive wink

However, given some of the cars he drove he might have had to lift off at speed just to get enough front end grip to steer at all smile

rallycross

12,747 posts

236 months

Friday 15th January 2016
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brman said:
Tommy Wisdom.....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Wisdom

I reckon he probably knew how to drive wink

However, given some of the cars he drove he might have had to lift off at speed just to get enough front end grip to steer at all smile
Looks like Tommy drove some great cars on some great events (I retract my earlier poor comment)

carinaman

21,224 posts

171 months

Friday 15th January 2016
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I'm not sure it applies today. I can't say I've ever seen it as a problem. My overtaking tends to allow me diagonal, vector like path to regain the correct side of the road.

After seeing this thread lastnight I chanced upon this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aT7Qsg2tLDc

If not about understeer while overtaking it's a reminder about progressive, smooth throttle application and the reliance on grip and traction.

Mini Spirit

Original Poster:

12 posts

101 months

Friday 15th January 2016
quotequote all
carinaman said:
I'm not sure it applies today. I can't say I've ever seen it as a problem. My overtaking tends to allow me diagonal, vector like path to regain the correct side of the road.

After seeing this thread lastnight I chanced upon this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aT7Qsg2tLDc

If not about understeer while overtaking it's a reminder about progressive, smooth throttle application and the reliance on grip and traction.
Wow expensive.