Teh Car Blogz

One of the most rewarding experiences you can have while driving a car is attacking a truly challenging piece of tarmac. At least, that’s my opinion. Some people get their jollies from heads-up drag races. That’s interesting once; then the result is the same every time if your technique is any good. Revs up, drop clutch, spin tires lightly, hold till redline, clutch and shift, rinse, repeat, snore. Great, your Mustang runs 13.1 seconds in the quarter mile.

But a good road is different every time you go down it. On a long curvy piece of tarmac, there is an infinite number of permutations as to how you can take it, what line to follow, how late to brake and which gears to use. On a truly good road, a better driver in a slower car will beat a mediocre driver in a more capable car every time. That’s why I love a good road. Plus, lateral g-forces are more fun that frontal.

The question then becomes: what exactly is the best conveyance to fling yourself down that favorite backroad like your hair’s on fire? The answer: there is no answer. Like the cat-skinning question (as an aside: who would want to skin a cat? That’s just mean. I love cats) there are many answers.

1) With A Scalpel

And by scalpel, I mean a Lotus Elise. Or a Toyota MR2 Spider, or an Ariel Atom, or a Porsche 914, or to stretch things a bit, a Porsche Boxster. Maybe an Opel Speedster, too. Which is a Lotus Elise. These are the cars that offer the closest connection between operator and machine. Balanced on a knife’s edge, low to the ground, engine where it belongs, and a spartan and single-minded cockpit. Most enthusiast drivers consider them to be the most rewarding to drive. Good technique on a backroad awards the driver with a truly blistering pace; this mainly the result that these machines can inspire if driven properly. With these low-power examples, preservation of momentum is the name of the game. Fast in, just as fast out. Don’t step out an inch from the line - and you don’t need to - it’s balanced, and there’s tons of grip. It’s the car for those that prefer a delicate, precise touch to their driving.

2 ) With A Sledghammer

I’m looking at you, four-wheel-drive Japanese and German supercars. How does it work? Simple: beat the road into submission with tons of mechanical grip from four driven wheels and wide, sticky tires. Control the chaos with a raft full of computers to keep the shiny side up. Shoot yourself down the road with a fat wad of turbocharged torque, always staying in the right gear for the optimum shove. Don’t caress the road: pound it into unholy submission. initiate mild four-wheel drifts on long, shallow corners to kill understeer by using weight transfer from the brakes. Power out of tight corners with the rear end sliding out a few degrees by using a lower gear than necessary. Pound over imperfections like they weren’t even there, rather than swooping around them. This is the domain of the rally-bred special. i’m looking at you, Lancer Evolution and Subaru STI. But it’s not just these WRC-wannabe’s. Nissan’s new GT-R seems like the poster child for this “the pen is NOT mightier than the sword” school of thought. Ditto Mitsu’s ridiculous 3000GT VR-4. Don’t forget the VR6, Haldex-equipped VW R32 hatch as well as the twin-turbocharged (B5) Audi S4. Brutal, blunt, but effective as a hand grenade in a rabbit den. Yikes.

3) On Two Wheels

just because this is Teh CAR Blogz, doesn’t mean we don’t respect our two-wheeled crazy friends. Despite the inherent risks of riding a two-wheel death chariot, it’s hard to beat a well-driven sport bike down a curvy road. They can transition quickly and most of them can carry quite a bit of speed through corners. The Power-to-weight ratio on pretty much any sport bike, even a 600cc “starter” model (hardly true these days) is greater than most any car on the road. A 1,000 literbike or a big-twin sport bike has a positively astronomical bhp/ton ratio. While I don’t necessarily have the desire to rub my knees on the road while I drive, I do see the appeal. Winners here: A big-twin Buell like an XB14S, a Japanese crotch-rocket like a GSX-R 1000 or a CBR1000RR, an Italian sex machine like a Ducatti 998 or Monster, or whatever else it is that gets you two-wheelers going. I personally have a soft spot for the Triumph Speed Triple - have for a long time!

2) Sideways

There’s always the classic: big, powerful engine up front. Two seats in the middle. Fat, driven wheels in the rear. Throw in gobs of horsepower, a stick shift, good suspension and strong brakes. Any undue understeer from the frontword engine position should be terminable via the right pedal. Carry lots of speed through long turns thanks to the nice natural balance of these cars, depress right foot hard on tight corners to sharpen your line, and put all that power down as god intended you to! The candidates are obvious: BMW M3, Corvette, 350Z, a Turbo Supra or suchlike, a Honda S2000, A BMW M Roadster, or even an SVT Mustang if you’re brave and so inclined. This is undoubtedly the most popular sports car layout, and with good reason. While AWD and suchlike are cool, they add weight - which offsets performance. Pare it down to the essentials, and you are left with the raw driving experience. Not only is it good clean fun, but if done right it’s still very fast.

1) Improvements Between The Steering Wheel And The Seat

What, hands down, is the best way to be faster? Learn to be a better driver. You can have all the turbochargers, four-wheel-drive, and other goodies in the world on your side, but if you suck at driving you’ll still probably wind up backwards in a tree. Send an experienced driver down the road in a Corolla, hell-for-leather. Then send a n00b down after him in a Viper. Chances are A) The experienced driver will make it down the road first through good driving, and B) The experienced driver will actually make it down the road, whereas the 16-year old will most likely run his Viper into a mailbox and explode. This is two-pronged: if the car remains constant, a better driver will be able to get more performance out of it, and will be faster. Alternatively, there is a limit to how much car a driver can really handle. A new driver would probably be faster in that Corolla (well, let’s say it’s a twin-cam GT-S AE86 at least) simply because they’ll be more confident and more willing to push it.

And in the name of safety, a slower car is also less likely to bite back at an inexperienced or untalented driver. So if you really want to get the most out of your car, go to a performance driving school. if you don’t have the time and money for that, at least get track experience. Autocross helps you expose the limits of your car in a safe environment. A drag strip teaches you about launching as well as maintaining stability at high speed. And so on and so forth.

A final word of advice: before you go tear up that favorite road, make sure you’re ready. Air in the tires, pads in the brakes, blinker fluid in the turn signals, sober as a judge - all necessary. Drive smart - don’t pass or hit an apex at the top of a hill or where you can’t see. Don’t outdrive your headlights. Don’t pay attention to only what’s ahead of you - there are deer, cars on side-roads, drivers behind you and potentially drivers in front of you. And most importantly, don’t drive beyond the collective abilities of your car, the road you’re on, and most importantly, of your own skill. This is how bad things happen in fast cars most of the time.

Until next time, go make use of the gift the gods of the DOT have blessed you with! Hug a road- they’re people too!

-James

This entry was posted on Monday, June 23rd, 2008 at 11:24 pm and is filed under Car Theory. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.