Practice Makes Permanent: Pedal Techniques

Before I get to rally school I am practicing various pedal techniques. I'm doing this to accelerate the learning at the rally school and be able to focus not on what my feet have to do but everything else: How to approach a corner, controlling the pitch of the car with throttle and braking, etc...

The pedal technique I was asked to practice by the rally school is Left Foot Braking. The name says it all, it is braking (modulating the brake pedal) with your left foot. Why? I don't actually know but I'm guessing its so the front wheels of the car (in a FWD/AWD vehicle) don't lock up under hard braking or lose traction under hard gas. For example, say I want to pitch the car into an oversteer and I'm in a Subaru WRX. WRXs are AWD cars, as all Subarus are. That means if I want to break the rear end loose by accelerating hard (applying too much power to too little tire grip) the same will happen to my front wheels and I'll enter a four wheel slide or start to understeer (aka plowing, the wheels are turned but the car is going straight). That is where left foot braking(LFB) comes into play. Since the brake pedal of a car brakes primarily the front wheels, LFB can keep the front wheels of the car from trying to apply too much power to the ground and lose traction. If you see a WRC(World Rally Championship) car driving in the dark, often the front brake rotors will be glowing, although this could just be from hard braking.
Anyway I've been practicing modulating the brake pedal with my left foot and at first I was very hard on the brake because my left foot was used to clutching, not braking. Over time I got the pressure difference down with my left foot and now it clutches and brakes just fine. I initially started practicing LFB in a safe, empty parking lot just like when I learned how to drive. Once I became more comfortable with it I started using it in daily driving.

Another pedal technique I had read/heard about that was useful for high intensity driving was Heel-Toe down shifting. A misnomer for most pedal setups, Heel-Toe down shifts are now usually done with the ball and outside edge of the foot. What part of the foot is used depends on the pedal setup. A heel toe down shift consists of a few steps. The first step is to start braking with the right foot. When the revs drop to a certain amount (depends on the engine and what exit RPM you want), the clutch is depressed and held down by the left foot. The third and fourth steps are done simultaneously: The gear selector is moved to a lower gear while, with your right foot still on the brake, you blip the throttle with the outside edge of your right foot to bring the revs up. While still on the brakes the clutch is re-engaged (left foot comes off the clutch). That explanation of a heel-toe is not entirely correct, when you blip the throttle you're tapping it to bring the engine speed to what its going to be in the lower gear at whatever speed you're going. But the key element to a heel toe down shift is always having your right foot braking during the downshift.
Why would you heel-toe? Because you want to accelerate as soon as possible out of the turn. As well as being able to accelerate, in a FWD/AWD car it keeps the front wheels powered which helps prevent them from locking up. Locking up your wheels on tarmac is not good for stopping, or for your tires. Properly executed Heel-Toe down shifts also keep the car more stable in a turn. An abrupt downshift puts a load on the gears in the transmission, this load tends to change the wheelspeed and engine speed in an unpleasant way. In normal street driving the car will jerk, which is mainly uncomfortable and promotes wear on your drivetrain. However in 'high performance' driving the balance of the car can be upset mid-turn, this is bad. With tires screaming and grasping for traction in the turn, putting a load on them can cause them to break loose. So with a RWD car an abrupt down shift could cause you to oversteer and spin. I'm not so sure what it will do with a FWD car, but I imagine it could cause some understeer as the balance of the car could be shifted to the rear reducing traction for the front wheels. So I have been working on getting good at heel-toe downshifts.

Another downshifting technique is the double clutch. The Fast and the Furious brought the term to the new generation of drivers. The Fast and the Furious suggested it was used for straight line drag races, although it would of course be slower to double clutch in a straight line for upshifts and pointless. Regardless of most new drivers not knowing what double clutching is/was, it used to be a required skill for driving. Older cars transmission's did not have synchromesh gears. This means that in order to succesfully downshift, the driver had to shift to neutral, take their foot off the clutch, blip the throttle and then put their foot back on the clutch and shift to the gear they wanted. It may read like a cumbersome extended process but it is actually quite quick when executed correctly. With synchromesh gears double clutching is not required. However double clutching's purpose is still valid in modern transmissions. Double clutching was required to sync the engine's and transmission gears' rpm, but synchromesh gears do most of the work now. Double clutching a downshift is still smoother than relying on the synchromesh and saves on some wear and tear on the transmission and is very easy to execute.

The final pedal technique I've been working on is Heel-Toe Downshifting with Double Clutching. The heel toe technique is the same with the right foot, but blipping the throttle does not happen until the car is in neutral and the left foot is off the clutch. Then the shift from neutral to the target gear happens all while the right foot is braking. I'm not so great at combining the two so far, but it will come with practice and I've only been practicing for a few days. As with any new pedal combo I try it in either a parking lot or a very empty road at low speeds. Baby steps and patience, combined with a very forgiving car make this learning an enjoyable experience.

As with any practice it makes bad habits permanent. Practice does not make perfect unless it is perfect practice.

Hopefully my nifty camera mount from Stickypod will allow me to document these techniques and post them here as video.

SS1: The Start

I've scheduled a class with Team O'neil racing school. March 20th will be an exciting day for me, I'll learn to rally. And so begins my rally racing career.

For most who know me they know my obsessive behaviors, not obsessive in the creepy way but obsessive in the "I cannot stop thinking of it and I must get good at it" way. This can be seen in many of my endeavors: my Fixie (see Deets'), Muay Thai, Lacrosse, driving and of course with video games. How is this different? Because I've been obsessed with Rally Racing from before I started playing Lacrosse, knew what Muay Thai was or even dreamed of riding my fixie. I'm pretty sure I was into rally racing before I could drive. So why now? Because now I can. I am only a man of 20 right now, and I have my first source of real income (yes I am still in school too) so I can. Considering that rally school is thousands of dollars, hell I could buy a really cheap car for the price of two days of schooling, it doesn't come easily to a kid of 16-18.

What's so awesome about rally racing? First off, competitions are held with street legal, crazy reliable cars that are powered on pump fuel. These cars are no daily driver (we can dream though) but they are reliable enough to be one. Secondly, in some forms of rally racing the driver has never seen the road (s)he is racing on. Also, there is always a passenger. This passenger doesn't just sit idly or ask "are we there yet?", they are called a Co-Driver. They are just important to keep the car going fast over special stages as the driver is. The Co-Driver, aka navigator, tells the driver what the next few turns are and how to take them. Sometimes the Co-Driver even drives the car on the transit stages. Oh what's a transit stage? I hope you could guess that a special stage was the all-out race against the clock stage, but the transit stage is, as the name implies, a transit to the next special stage. Special stages take place on closed roads lined by spectators while Transit stages take place on open-public roads where the racers must obey traffic laws and arrive at the next special stage at a certain time. Many club held road rallies are just longer forms of a transit stage (often more complex too). Even a 1993 Chevy Minivan can compete and win a road rally of transit stages only. You can't win a special stage based rally without knowing how to complete transit stages correctly. The best thing about rally racing is that it happens on real roads. Real roads with production based cars somehow makes for the most exciting form of racing.

So I'll use this tool (blogspot) as a way to let friends see my progress with my dream. I'll use it to expedite other's dream of rally racing as they will be more informed by what has worked for me. I'll also use it to brag, cause I'm a bit of a showoff.