I saw at the wheel
Discussion
I watched your vid at Brands, going into Paddock in particular you take two bites at the steering angle required to turn in, both applying a similar amount of lock. Is it two bites because you feel a kick of oversteer coming? would be be odd to just do it like this for the hell of it but it looked to me like the car was staring to kick and your just reacting to it. Odd thread this.
NJH said:
I watched your vid at Brands, going into Paddock in particular you take two bites at the steering angle required to turn in, both applying a similar amount of lock. Is it two bites because you feel a kick of oversteer coming? would be be odd to just do it like this for the hell of it but it looked to me like the car was staring to kick and your just reacting to it. Odd thread this.
I know the Indy circuit pretty well and I’m not sure how much more speed I could’ve found in Paddock Hill Bend. I agree though the turn-in action on the wheel was odd that lap. One of the setup issues we had with the car that weekend was a very rearward break bias- Driver #1 (Dad 
) had already been off at paddock earlier in the race blaming the brakes. We couldn’t stand the car on it’s nose the way we like to in order to get rotation on turn-in. Perhaps the car didn’t respond the way I wanted it to on the first stab and I was trying to provoke it a little. If your car is prone to turn in oversteer then that certainly promotes the two goes at turning in thing. Then as your confidence is low it turns into a defensive habit.
It's easy to say but a car that turns in as you want is very helpful.
But maybe you are at the point of compromise that moves to understeer from tur over steer.
Bert
It's easy to say but a car that turns in as you want is very helpful.
But maybe you are at the point of compromise that moves to understeer from tur over steer.
Bert
Sorry slow response here but just had a look in this corner of PH. I'd say that the sawing is a symptom, the car looks quite oversteery and you have a tendency to turn in aggressively to the point of it looking like a 'send' on occasions. It unsettles the car and the sawing looks like you're compensating for oversteer or bounce (tyre or suspension) either from the base setup of the car or provoked by the turn in.
It's an old cliche but letting the car know what you're doing before you tell it is massively important. The only time you ever throw a car at a corner is if it has a bucket of understeer and you want to try and make it to do something else... something quite common in a low powered Caterham it has to be said! Loosen your grip, focus on being softer and more progressive with your initial movement (even if your main turn in phase is quick!!) and I bet you'll find the car behaves completely differently and you stop sawing.
Those old videos of the touring car look like he's got an oversteery setup on it and he's simply correcting each twitch of oversteer with a stab of oppo. Also if you look closely he still loads the car up with a slight movement of the wheel before he gives it a big input and gets it moving each time.
You won't generally see a modern touring car driver consistently doing that as they're too unpredictable to work with that sort of style in the dry. It's not manageable and consistent enough to be competitive. You might get one quick lap out of it but it's just as likely to bin you off spectacularly with little warning. In the dry a fast BTCC car is generally a tidy one, partly as it's so fecking competitive you need the car to be predictable as well as have the grip so you can tease that last fraction out of it.
In the damp it's a different story, my steering inputs look very much like that, particularly the damp if I'm dealing with cold rears and fighting to get heat in the fronts, but it's just the nature of the conditions and the car.
Send my regards to the old man by the way
It's an old cliche but letting the car know what you're doing before you tell it is massively important. The only time you ever throw a car at a corner is if it has a bucket of understeer and you want to try and make it to do something else... something quite common in a low powered Caterham it has to be said! Loosen your grip, focus on being softer and more progressive with your initial movement (even if your main turn in phase is quick!!) and I bet you'll find the car behaves completely differently and you stop sawing.
Those old videos of the touring car look like he's got an oversteery setup on it and he's simply correcting each twitch of oversteer with a stab of oppo. Also if you look closely he still loads the car up with a slight movement of the wheel before he gives it a big input and gets it moving each time.
You won't generally see a modern touring car driver consistently doing that as they're too unpredictable to work with that sort of style in the dry. It's not manageable and consistent enough to be competitive. You might get one quick lap out of it but it's just as likely to bin you off spectacularly with little warning. In the dry a fast BTCC car is generally a tidy one, partly as it's so fecking competitive you need the car to be predictable as well as have the grip so you can tease that last fraction out of it.
In the damp it's a different story, my steering inputs look very much like that, particularly the damp if I'm dealing with cold rears and fighting to get heat in the fronts, but it's just the nature of the conditions and the car.
Send my regards to the old man by the way
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