Slow Points.

In high school I skipped a day of school to attend a car track day with a rented car from the school putting on the event. I showed up in a truck wearing a letterman jacket. There was a classroom session before any physical driving was started. In class, I was eager to answer questions I thought I knew the answers to; finding out I was completely wrong. After the classroom session, the lead instructor pulled me behind the classroom and said, “I’m not here to have one of my cars crashed!” Thinking I was going to get kicked out, and trying to understand why he’s so pissed off? I didn’t want to crash his car. So that’s what I said, “I’m not here to crash one of your cars.” We understood each other and my instructor sat in the passenger seat as the day proceeded on to the beginning of my addiction to the race track. I paid the fee a week before school and was given a study guide to read. They taught brake to the apex and accelerate away from the apex, for every corner. And the typical late apex for a decreasing radius turn and early apex for an increasing radius turn.

In last week’s newsletter I talked about how the length of the slow point (The Slowest Part of the Corner) matches the radius of the corner. But I didn’t tell you where it should be. Ken Hill and Yamaha Champions Racing School (YCRS), both teach it is what comes after the corner, that determines how you approach it. An Exit Corner has a longer acceleration zone after the corner, than the braking zone before it. With a slow point before the apex, to maximize acceleration. An Entry Corner has a braking zone longer than the acceleration zone. With the slow point at or after apex, to maximize the length of braking; efficiently using all the braking zone. A Balance corner has equal parts, making either approach resulting in the same outcome. By the way, if you have a race track with only entry corners, you don’t have a race track, you have a destination point; because you’ll eventually come to a stop. Thank goodness race tracks are mostly Exit Corners.

If the slow point is at the apex, that’s pretty easy. If the slow point is before or after the apex, how much before or after? I don’t know. This is where I struggle. Having a slow point too early runs off the race track as you accelerate. A late slow point kills your drive off the corner. Adjusting our approach, testing and repeating keeps us coming back for more.