[The HACK]

Originally Posted by blipblip

Hmm...I still don't understand why shuffle steer. For me, if I have to turn so much that I have to let go of one of my hand to turn the wheel more, it means I made a mistake or I took the wrong line.

BINGO. I have yet to visit a track in a car where I need to turn the steering more than 120 degrees one way or another. And this includes Buttonwillow and the decreasing radius, off camber Buttonhook.

Take a look at in-car videos of professional racers and see how many of the really good ones shuffle steer (granted their hardware probably allow them to drive any track with different steering ratios). Or go for a ride-along with some of the best club racers and see if they shuffle steer.

There's a good reason why BMW CCA taught against shuffle steer. Also if you don't shuffle, if and when you need to counter-steer, it's easier and quicker if you don't shuffle. If you need to cross your arms over to counter-steer you're already too late...You need to catch that counter right as the rear end step out.

The BMW CCA school of thought may be a little on the conservative side, but it is RIGHT. The fundamentals of driving and driving fast is taught very well in BMW CCA schools.

[The HACK]

Originally Posted by joonsup

too bad there's no thunderhill track on gran turismo. lol

They still can't simulate that wonderful cow dung smell during a 95 degrees, 95% humidity days from middle of April to end of October, plus all the dragonfly sized mosquitos that sucks out a gallon of blood in about a second.

Or the wonderful smell of dried up sweat in your balaclava.

[satakal]

The HACK, I'm pretty sure I've ridden passenger with you at buttonwillow in july then the Roval in Sept. I hate that I'm bad with names. I'm that guy that skips the classroom sessions to beg for rides. Hi again.

I'm no savant. Check my youtube videos. '09 is turning into "the year of offs". I really, really want to be a better/faster driver. I'm a C/B driver and I got started at the July Buttonwillow event. Since then, I've gone through about 3 sets of street tires, kept the car stock, and have about 15 or so days on track with around 8 days of autox.

I had 2 experiences with GranTurismo and seeing a track for the first time this year. First at Laguna in Jan, and then Sears in Mar.

At Laguna, on the first recon laps in my C group with David Kay driving, I was amazed at the real elevation change and how the game didn't prepare me for it. Also the game has some scale issue. I found the distance between elements to be exaggerated in the game. Regarding these inaccuracies, it was easy for me to adapt. Just menatlly discard what I didn't need.

In preperation, I was driving a 118 hp miata. So, by no means was I looking to the game to simulate what speed my 300 hp car would yield. I wanted to drive a car in-game that would penalize me for being offline. In GT, I find that the real measure of a driver is who can win a "slow car race". When driving a high hp, high downforce car, I may as well be playing MarioKart. But, when you jump behind the wheel of a 70 horse, bouncy suspension car, you can really seperate the men from the boys. Smoothness, weight transfer, and momentem are rewarded highly.

It worked real well. I feel like I didn't need much input from the instructor. I knew where I wanted to be and about where I wanted to apex. I feel as if, my driving of Lagna by lunch time was where it normally would be by lunch of a day 2 hpde. A few weeks after this event, I went to Streets of Willow for the first time. It took till day 2 before I felt as good as I did by lunch time at Laguna in a one day event.

Sears, I was working on finding speed from session one in C. I feel so bad for my instructor. The GT AI drives a nice line. When I tuck in behind a similar car, I was able to soak it up. In my car, I feel like the first times through 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, and 11, I was apexing near perfect. Somehow, I knew how to get on the brakes, and throttle and where to apex all from the game.

Me spending hours on a new-to-me track in-game before actual seat time helped me tons. I can't speak to driving the track IRL, driving in-game, then going back to the track. Just my experience of "studying" before my track day made it so that I was faster and better from session one.

EDIT: additionally, I assume you have club racing experience. I'm a total novice trying to figure stuff out. You're reaction to a simulation / trainer / game is likely way, way different than mine.

[The HACK]

Originally Posted by satakal

The HACK, I'm pretty sure I've ridden passenger with you at buttonwillow in july then the Roval in Sept. I hate that I'm bad with names. I'm that guy that skips the classroom sessions to beg for rides. Hi again.

Me spending hours on a new-to-me track in-game before actual seat time helped me tons. I can't speak to driving the track IRL, driving in-game, then going back to the track. Just my experience of "studying" before my track day made it so that I was faster and better from session one.

EDIT: additionally, I assume you have club racing experience. I'm a total novice trying to figure stuff out. You're reaction to a simulation / trainer / game is likely way, way different than mine.

I think I know who you are, but I'm not sure if you had me with the right person. There's actually 3 of us with blue MZ4 Coupes that frequent and instruct the local So. Cal tracks, and that's not by accident...It's so that if one of us were to pull some ass-hattery at the track we can always blame one of the other two. But just in case I am mistaken and you have had the misfortune to be in my passenger seat, I apologize. (just in case you ARE wondering which of the guys with the blue coupes I am, I'm the fat one)

The whole thing with video game/simulation, I think, may vary from person to person. Maybe there are some people who responds well to driving laps after laps on a game to get seat time and get familiarized with a track and it works well for them. My personal experience and the experience of my other instructor friends were that the difference in the game and in real life is too great to make it a valuable tool. Personally I find that I have to dump all my visual reference skills picked up in a game associated with a certain track, and use all new visual references in real life. The problem for me is DEPTH and the ability to soften up my vision while driving at the track. You can't do that in a game. And that is the biggest area anyone can improve at the track, is the ability to see all 3 corners ahead while still know exactly where the next apex is to nail it. It's a skill hard to acquire in front of a flat screen TV. Maybe my eyes are jacked up, as my optometrist buddy is so fond of pointing out. Who knows. If it works for you, you may want to continue to explore it. I know it certainly didn't help me at my stage of driver development...But driving on the REAL track did help tremendously with driving on the simulated environment and it gives me braggin' rights when I whoop my friend's @ss in Gran Turismo.

As for club racing, I think it'll have to wait until my daughter is past 21 year of age and marries a multi-bazzilionaire (because, by that time, a Bazzilion is like worth a couple of hundred thousand dollars now) and moves the f**k out before I can explore any of that.