We use the brakes for a few different reasons,
1 - The obvious one, to slow the car down on turn entry. Typically you might see that on a paperclip style track with long straights but sharp, narrow corners. Combine braking with turning the car sideways and the sideboards also act as an air brake to further slow the car down.
2 - To limit wheelspin mid turn, this is more driver preference and driving style but riding the brake mid corner while getting back into the throttle gradually can help keep the tires under the car instead of wheel spinning.
3 - Loading the birdcages up to lock the car down on turn entry. This one is a little bit more of the black art of dirt racing. Riding the brake hard with a lot of throttle still in the car on turn entry helps keep the car stable. You can visually see this happening when a car enters a turn, wings down hard and stays winged down through turn entry, despite banging around a bit on the cushion, the car remains stable. Without riding the brake a car will start bouncing on entry and will get worse until it flips, or the driver has to straighten it out and get out of the gas. You see this a lot at a place like Tulare Thunderbowl where even riding the brake on entry can not be enough to keep the car locked down through the infamous Turn 1 Rut.
The other visual que that a driver is riding the brake hard is a glowing rear brake rotor.
Also, some teams/drivers run two rear brakes, an inboard rear brake on the left side of the diff is standard then some teams will run a brake on the Right Rear axle to load that birdcage up for turn entry on narrow heavy tracks.
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Reply to:
Posted By: nzsprint on December 18 2017 at 02:58:22 PM
We use the brakes for a few different reasons,
1 - The obvious one, to slow the car down on turn entry. Typically you might see that on a paperclip style track with long straights but sharp, narrow corners. Combine braking with turning the car sideways and the sideboards also act as an air brake to further slow the car down.
2 - To limit wheelspin mid turn, this is more driver preference and driving style but riding the brake mid corner while getting back into the throttle gradually can help keep the tires under the car instead of wheel spinning.
3 - Loading the birdcages up to lock the car down on turn entry. This one is a little bit more of the black art of dirt racing. Riding the brake hard with a lot of throttle still in the car on turn entry helps keep the car stable. You can visually see this happening when a car enters a turn, wings down hard and stays winged down through turn entry, despite banging around a bit on the cushion, the car remains stable. Without riding the brake a car will start bouncing on entry and will get worse until it flips, or the driver has to straighten it out and get out of the gas. You see this a lot at a place like Tulare Thunderbowl where even riding the brake on entry can not be enough to keep the car locked down through the infamous Turn 1 Rut.
The other visual que that a driver is riding the brake hard is a glowing rear brake rotor.
Also, some teams/drivers run two rear brakes, an inboard rear brake on the left side of the diff is standard then some teams will run a brake on the Right Rear axle to load that birdcage up for turn entry on narrow heavy tracks.
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great explaination right there, and couldnt agree more, as previously mentioned, Wolfgang tuned alot with brakes and I as well picked up a few things from him and began my own habits, good or bad, they seem to work sometimes, and a guy just doesnt know how much brake effort he is going to use untill he really gets rolling up to speed and finds a nitch that seems to work, BUT, the brakes have got to work flawlessly to aid in the driver manipulating the car thro a corner or in the slick, alot of guys will say something is wrong with your settup if your standing on the brake , thats simply not true, every track will have its time and amount of brake a drivers taste will present , traffic and selective groves may need direction to hit, alot of times incorrect gear selection was my downfall to too much brake on entry, natrally a place like Eldora will require less brake pressure and disruption of free wheeling the tires, a RR brake can aid in entry , as the larges (dominant ) wheel on the car has the most centrifical force while on the gas, I found this great on tracks i wanted to get the car to min the nose on entry and keep a large amount of steer on the front, it kinda straitened the car out and makes the car go into a skid less likely, but its a huge deal to get in the comfort zone of skid/ slip and car rotation to get the car pointed or "scewed" in the direction you want, remember when you were a kid, you could pedal your bicycle down the sidewalk and slam on the rear brakes, now holding that skid and allowing the bike to fishtale was up to you, if you drpped a foot to keep yourself upright you lost momentum and you felt uncomfortable, thus you drop a foot to hold yourself upright, now holding both feet on the pedals, dragging the brake, rotating your weight onto the handelbars the rear would slip, but you were in a controlled slide, you could quickley reguain pedal contol and accelleration, without dropping your foot. its a fine line and takes a driver with great talent to master, now me, i recall being the fastest on tracks where they were start and stop type slicks, shutting down to the bottom was something i became comfortable with, I would limp arounfd for two days afterwords because i had used the brake that much, but we were fast that way, the otherhand, I wont mention any names, but some drivers i have chatted with say no way, the brakes only break my momentum, and with watching them i would agree just by the character of the chassis in the corner ,the flex in thier tire, they dont use them much, and others do. you just have to know what to look for (without a glowing rotor that is)
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