- Turn 3
You should enter turn 3 from as far LEFT as you feel comfortable. You should NOT go to the right side of the track to enter turn 3. Ideally you are carrying as much speed as possible through 2 and are brushing your driver’s side (assuming left hand drive car here) wheels right over the edge of the apex curbing at 3 on your way into the apex of 4. Cars end up in the wall on the exit of turn 3/entrance to turn 4 because they tried to enter 3 from the right hand side of the track. I believe the thought is that “Turn 3 is a left hand turn, you should enter it from the right side of the track.”, but turn 3 leads directly into turn 4, so driving from apex to apex in a straight line through 3 and 4 is MUCH more efficient and much, much safer. - Turn 7
Turn 7 is one of the two more important turns on the track as it is one of the two INCREASING radius turns on the track (the other being turn 19, see below). Instead you should take care to NOT late apex 7 and to track out of turn 7 to the right hand side of the track and then throw away turn 8. Unless you are driving a tricycle you are going to be traction limited going through turn 9, so entering turn 8 from the right hand side of the track (to get a ‘good run up the hill’) is just plain silly. - Turn 8
See above. Enter turn 8 basically ON the curbing on the right hand side of the track and force the car over to the right as much as possible to open up turn 9. Turn 8 is the throw away turn. - Turn 13
Turn 13 is often taken too fast and early apexed which leads to throttle bobble as you are exiting 13 (or going wide and off track). Instead take 13 a bit deeper and brake a bit harder and turn in a bit harder so that you apex 13 a bit later than you think you should and you’ll be able to constantly add throttle all the way into 15. - Turn 19
Turn 19 is an increasing radius turn, so it can be taken much, much earlier and much, much faster than most do.
The rest of the track is mostly just ‘regular’ corners and most get them mostly right.
However, the above corners are where my green, first day ever, students often end up being significantly more efficient around the track than just about everybody else in the run group, often to the point where the student will ask me “Why are they going over there to enter turn three?”, or “Why are they going over there to enter turn eight?” while we basically coast behind them off throttle so that we can give the car in front of us enough room to get through the corner. My answer “I’m not really sure why, but as you can see we are significantly more efficient by taking this line, aren’t we?” and, every single time, I get a very enthusiastic “Yes!”.
Data analysis bears out the above too…
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Cars and Code 