On Track with Gavin - Mastering Downhill at Lime Rock Park
Another visit to the challenging Lime Rock Park for a one-day meet
Published by Gavin McKeown
I signed up for the Skip Barber 1 Day Racing School at the American Le Mans Series meeting at Lime Rock Park in 2011. I had done a couple of driving events in the past in my road car and I thought it would be good to try some race-prepped cars. The fact that the day included the single seater Formula Skip Barber car was also a big draw.
The classroom for events at Lime Rock is upstairs in the control tower building on the main straight which is a neat way to start the day. When I arrived I discovered that there were only six people signed up that day (they can have up to 16 in a class) and that there was a slight change to the schedule. Instead of using the MX-5 Cup cars in the morning and the Formula cars in the afternoon, we would be in the Formula cars all day.
That was exciting and slightly nerve-wracking at the same time. I’d never been on this track and I’d never been in a single seater racing car. I was hoping to at least learn the track in a somewhat familiar car, maybe even with an instructor alongside, before getting into the Formula car. Oh well, in at the deep end.
The class participants ranged from a personal trainer from New Jersey who was doing something on her ‘bucket list’ and had never been on a track before, a guy like me who’d done one or two events before, to a group of three friends who were really into it and had high performance road cars that they’d taken to several track events.
Hit the track
The first part of the morning is all about the track layout, the cones they put at trackside to help with braking points and racing line, and the basics of vehicle dynamics. Once that’s had a chance to sink in, it’s time to get suited up and head down to the track. Because it was a small class, they split us into two groups for the first lead-follow session. The three experienced guys were put in one group and the rest of us were in the other. The idea of lead-follow is to keep about two car lengths from the car in front with the instructor at the head of the pack. After a couple of laps, the instructor puts his turn signal on going down the main straight which is the sign for the first student car to pull over and slow down while the other two overtake and the student who was first falls in line at the back of the pack.
I noticed a few things about my first lead-follow session. Firstly, it’s hard to be the second student car because you’re still close enough to the instructor that you end up subconsciously following them and not the car immediately in front of you. It was a definite mental effort to brake when I got to the point on the track where the instructor was braking, not to hit my brakes when I saw his brake lights go on.
Secondly, two cars lengths sounds like a close distance to be following at track speeds and it’s hard to get yourself to be that close to someone but I can see why they say that’s the right distance. It means you can follow the line of the car in front better and when it comes to swapping places on the straight, it takes a surprising amount of time to make up those lengths even when the person being overtaken slows down.
We ran a few laps with the instructors in Mazda 3s and we students following in the Formula cars and then came back into the pits for a reshuffle. The experienced group were being held up by their instructor, so he switched to a MazdaSpeed 3 to lead them for the next session. In our group we were having to go at the speed of the inexperienced driver, so they split us into a group of two and one. They also gave the inexperienced driver a pep talk about how to drive on the track. It is harder to do than you think and the $3000 deductible, even if you’ve paid for event insurance, is always in the back of your mind (at least it was in mine!). After the morning’s lead-follow sessions there was feedback from the instructors, then a lunch break.
On your own now
The afternoon sessions were run as solo laps in what Skip Barber calls a ‘stop box’ configuration. After the track out marker at the end of the Downhill corner they set up three rows of cones to make two ‘gates’. At every lap you slow down and stop as they direct you to either the left or right gate. The stop box is a way for them to space the cars out on track so you’re never worrying about someone catching up with you and it’s a way for the instructors to give feedback to single seater cars.
The instructors take up positions around the track and note each student as they go by. Then they radio back to the guys manning the stop box and if an instructor has feedback for you, the stop box attendant holds the walkie talkie up to your helmet. It’s only one way communication but it is surprisingly effective. While it breaks up the flow of a lap, it’s a good solution to giving instruction to single seaters and for a one day event is the best compromise I think.
So, what’s it like?
Driving a single seat racing car is very different to a road car. It sounds obvious and you go into it expecting it to be different, but to me at least, it was more different than I expected. I’ve played enough GT5 with the in-cockpit view that I wasn’t too distracted by sitting in the middle of the car with the front wheels visible in front of me, but I can see that that in itself would be something very new to get used to if you were doing this as your first racing experience of any kind.
The main thing for me was the gears and the brakes. It’s fairly easy to get used to stomping on the accelerator when you want to go fast. That’s the easy part. The Formula cars have a sequential gearbox so there’s no way to tell what gear you’re in. You either have to remember and count up and down or just listen to the engine - not hard when it’s right behind your head! The cars were supposed to be able to change up without the clutch but needed the clutch to go down the box. I found that it was hard to break the muscle memory of using a clutch for one type of gear change only and I found my car baulked a couple of times trying to change up without the clutch. Maybe I wasn’t slamming the lever back hard enough, but whatever the reason I was more comfortable using the clutch going up and down. That might have cost me a few tenths, but we weren’t racing and we weren’t timing laps.
The hardest thing for me to get used to was the brakes. I knew in my head that racing brake pads are much better than road ones and only work well when they’re hot, but it was still hard to break the habit of road driving and being smooth on the brakes. There’s no power assistance and you’re effectively pressing down the head of a large bolt for a brake pedal, so the effort needed is very different to a road car. In a racing car the idea is to go as fast as you can right up to the point where you have to hit the brakes and then to hit them as hard as you can without locking up the wheels. A lot of the feedback I got was that there’s a short straight between turns 2 and 3 and that I should get on the power more coming out of turn 2 and brake harder going into turn 3. Of course, the first time I tried that, I didn’t brake enough and ran wide on turn 3 onto the grass. Luckily there’s a lot of grass there, so no harm done except to my ego.
There are a lot of skid marks to show you what can happen if you get it wrong - they go shooting off to the right at an alarming angle
I did get better at braking later. Coming out of turn 3, there’s a nice run through turn 4, down No Name Straight, through turn 5, over the crest and into turn 6. That was my favorite section of the track and I was getting better at braking later into 5 & 6. Going over the crest at the exit of turn 5 is quite an experience. There are a lot of skid marks to show you what can happen if you get it wrong - they go shooting off to the right at an alarming angle. That made me very cautious to start with but by the end I was getting the feeling of the car going very light and being a bit squirrelly on the way back down. The trick they told us is to make sure the car is heading straight as you go over the crest - if you’ve still got any steering input in the car, it becomes sudden oversteer when the wheels get loaded up again on the other side.
The part I was least happy with was turn 7, Downhill. There were two parts to my frustration. Firstly that it’s hard to keep your foot planted on the accelerator when you’re dropping six stories downhill into a 90 degree corner and secondly the fact that the stop box was around the corner really messed with my head and my trust in the brakes. I was so cautious about not locking up and skidding into the back of potential stopped cars that I backed out of the corner too early.
Probably the most feedback I received was to go harder into Downhill. They were happy with my line and where I was hitting the apex, I just needed to go faster into it and faster through it. There is a compression effect as you go down the hill and into the corner which gives more grip so you can take Downhill much faster than you think you can at first. The trouble is, you have to believe in your ability to stop before the stop box once you’re going in faster. I was getting it towards the end and it was great to feel that the car was so much more capable than I was, but it’s very hard to turn off your road driving brain.
Conclusion
Overall I had a great time. We did three stop box sessions in the afternoon and I felt that I was improving all the time. At the end of it, I didn’t want to stop and my heart really wanted to go out again, but it is physically and mentally demanding and I think the experience of the instructors shows through in knowing when to stop. Partly they want you to leave wanting more, but mostly I think they know that the adrenaline rush means that people would stay out long after they’re too tired to really control the car and that would mean more errors.
I don’t feel like I mastered any of the circuit, but I felt like I was really getting it in the section from 3 through 6. I don’t think I got the turn in point to turn 1 right all day, and that has a knock on effect to turn 2. Also through 1 and 2 I was thinking about turn 3 already which was the one I found hardest to get right, so that was probably a distraction. Downhill was very difficult, but I felt like I’d improved a lot there by then end of the third session.
I didn’t pay for the official photos or video but I had borrowed a friend’s Go Pro. The lasting impression is that it felt a lot faster from the driver's seat than it looks from a camera on the roll hoop!
I love living vicariously through these posts. It sounds absolutely brilliant and terrifying all at the same time!
I’ve played enough GT5 with the in-cockpit view that I wasn’t too distracted by sitting in the middle of the car with the front wheels visible in front of me
how much of a difference did playing GT5 (or similar) make. is there a direct correlation between virtual and the track?
I was getting it towards the end and it was great to feel that the car was so much more capable than I was, but it’s very hard to turn off your road driving brain.
Boy oh boy, do I know what you mean!
but it is physically and mentally demanding and I think the experience of the instructors shows through in knowing when to stop
It really is so challenging to maintain focus, absorb all kinds of brand new information and practice it for so many sessions. Knowing when to stop is so key, even if you would've wanted to keep going.
Also through 1 and 2 I was thinking about turn 3 already which was the one I found hardest to get right, so that was probably a distraction. It is such a discipline to remain totally present in the corner you're in, isn't it?
Downhill was very difficult, but I felt like I’d improved a lot there by then end of the third session.
Awesome! I think I improved as the day went on in the Downhill also. Like you said, trusting the car and feeling it's capabilities are more than our own was really something.
I loved this. Thank you for sharing about the home track! SidepodLimeRock!
A $3000 deductible is ridiculous. The insurance should cover all costs. I would assume this is more of a threat than a reality and only irresponsible drivers would be penalised this way.
I don't like the sound of the stop box. How do you ever build a rythm if you stop on every lap?
I always felt that everyone I ever saw on the track looked way smoother and was putting less effort in than me. I felt I was working my butt off and could see places where more time was available. Unfortunately you can only ever see your own laps from inside the driver's head. If only we could experience laps of the really fast guys as they are from inside the driver's head.
One of Martin Brundle's Le Mans team mates was a gamer who won a competition to find the best real racing driver from game racers. There was a whole TV series on it it. People like Johnny Herbert were judges and tested them on everything from fitness to driving. They worked them really hard on the track and there were a few really good racers. The prize was to do a 24 hour race in the Middle East and that was all. Instead the winner became a proper professional driver and ended up sharing a car with Brundle.
Games teach you to find lines and work down to a laptime by optimising braking, turn in, getting back on the power etc as well as in a lot of games learning to tune various aspects of the car to sort handling issues or improve times in some games. The big difference is no-one ever got their brains mangled on a driving game. As Kai said in her post you get thrown around in the car more than you think and that not only makes concentration difficult but also feeling what the car is doing.
In a game you are driving only with your eyes. In a car ever bit of your body from your finger tips to your toes is giving you massive amounts of information which you have to sort out.
I guess the latest example of a gamer turned racer is Nic Hamilton
absolutely, but those were insanely dedicated hardcore gamers who were then picked up by professional coaches. am curious if there's a match outside of that?
I guess it depends how good you are at the game. I did it the other way round since we didn't have all these toys when I were a lad. I found when i started playing the Microprose GP games that I learned stuff that would have been useful when I drove cars on track. I wish I had played the games before I went to racing school because I would have gone there knowing how to work down to a lap time and how to assess better what the car was doing.
interesting!
That would be best as a learning tool, with one of those seats that transmits the bodily sensations along with speakers that give you the full engine noise. Now we're talkin'!
But I do like videos of laps from just over the driver's head as a very poor second.
GT5 didn't give me much advantage for Lime Rock as it's not a track they have in the game. The main thing was it wasn't completely alien to be sitting low down and in the middle of the car, having the front wheels in my line of sight. I think if you'd never seen that perspective before, that would just be an extra hurdle to get over.
I had tried a few laps on the virtual Lime Rock in iRacing which is apparently a very realistic simulator, but as it only works on a PC and I only have a Mac, I'd only had a chance to try it at a friend's house. I think more laps in that might have had me better prepared for turn 3 but nothing (at least nothing home-based) can simulate the vertical loading in Uphill and Downhill.
It is..! One of the hardest things to wrap your head around is no matter how fast you think you're going, the car is probably capable of more, even if you're in a road car. It's very hard to turn down the terrified part of your brain and let the brilliant part get even more of a buzz..!
They didn't when I was a lad either - I'm just a middle aged man with a PS3 and a bunch of petrol head friends who like to virtually race at the weekends. ;)
True. It's amazing how much you can feel the tyres (tires at Lime Rock) squirming around. The phrase "driving by the seat of your pants" really has a grounding in reality. A friend of mine who did a Radical driving day in Las Vegas said the same thing - that you really have to use all your senses. I found I didn't look at the rev counter at all for instance. With the engine right behind your back, you can tell when it's time to change up a gear, and there's no speedometer so when your friends ask how fast you were going, you wouldn't be able to tell them anyway.
I should find a way to link to my GoPro capture. It looks so much slower than it felt though....
Probably, but I didn't want to test it. On the reconnaissance lap in a 15-sweater van, they did point out where someone had got a single seater up on top of the Armco barrier. That probably cost them the entire deductible...
I'd love to get some idea of the noise. Not worried about the speed. I really do know what you mean! :)
and how the car behaves, and the view.
In my on track post I am sure I talked about my first FFord experience. After two laps I was ready to quit. I had never worn a helmet before. I had never used a 6 point harness and was strapped in very tightly so a low car where I seemed to be sitting below the tops of the wheels. I felt totally claustrophobic. I am not sure how much a game could have prepared me for that. I guess the view from that position would have been more normal although it is hard to simulate the letterbox view from a crash helmet. Initially I was very aware of the areas of my view that were blocked off but once I started concentrating on the driving I just forgot about that.
Sounds like a lot of fun to drive a single-seater there, I can imagine how narrow and bumpy it must be in real life though after seeing the ALMS there!
The stop box would be infuriating, just let me get on with it for a few laps, bring us in to give feedback, then go again.
Racing games definitely help with basic preparation. Point of view, the racing line, how to apex a corner, how to deal with other cars on the track (though on my FFord laps of Thruxton I was scared near other cars - what if we didn't see each other with the tiny shaking mirrors?). I'm talking simulation games rather than the pick-up-and-plays which often have dreadful physics models nothing like reality.
I've only done one day on track but I've been karting a few times, not necessarily very quickly! What I struggle to get used to is the feeling of the helmet which is really claustrophobic as Steven says, and heavy, and it restricts your breathing a bit and the visor fogs up. At first the belts in the FFord were too tight but then once on track I didn't mind because I realised I didn't want them loose.
I do recommend it though, even if you're bad at karting you can say you've driven a single seater on a race track even if you don't do it quickly. If you're not a speedfreak go for a lower-end car like a FFord 1600 with no wings.
The first semi-track event I did was an Advanced Driving Skills class with the BMWCCA in New Hampshire. The day was great fun, especially finding out how much more capable the car was than you ever get to see on the roads. The worst thing though was the pain in my left leg from bracing against the dead pedal all day..! Tight belts seem uncomfortable when you're stopped, but they're so worth it when you're going fast. I ended up buying Scroth clip-in 4-point belts for the MINI I had and it was much better doing another driving skills class and a track day once I had those.
Oh, and the friend who has iRacing practiced for his Las Vegas event in the Radical by wearing a helmet when playing the game! Maybe I should try to get him to write an article..!
Gah..! I've just found out that I didn't know how the Go Pro software worked. I thought it had imported all three of the 30-40 minute sessions I recorded. I was wrong.
All I've got is the quick edit I made of a few stop box laps... :(
Oh well, if you're interested, here's the link www.youtube.com/w…tch?v=FqHNtPooLW8
ooooooooops!
love the video, but you're simply going to have to do another track day and record it all again i'm afraid...
I have been thinking about learning from games. I reckon I have been to around 2000 football matches in my life and have played in a few hundred. I have also watched loads on TV. I have argued formations and tactics since my teens. So it would be reasonable to think I had learned pretty much all I was going to learn. Then I played about 50 season of Championship Manager and had my eyes opened. I suddenly started understanding advantages and disadvantages of different formations that I had never realised before.
Putting myself 'inside the driver's head' made things clear.
If I can learn about football tactics from a game then anyone who is knew to driving on a track has to benefit from racing games
What a great idea!
ok, well, that's bookmarked!
I found myself feeling the sensations of each corner as if I was in the car. SO cool. Thank you for posting that.
Having to slow down after each downhill is annoying and totally interrupts the flow. I know it's a class, and getting feedback is essential, and what you're there for, but I can see the down side of doing it that way.
Oh, how I love the uphill...and NO TRAFFIC!....and the beautiful day....
I do not know how I would ever have 'gotten' the turn in point in turn 1/Big Bend if I hadn't had an instructor in the car telling me when to make the move. There are so many nuanced things, like the 'brake, brake, WAIT, turn in' that I wouldn't have learned, but the freedom of being on your own with no traffic is just incredible to imagine. I guess each has its pros and cons. I think I may love to try that.
Must win lottery.
Which? Playing video games in a helmet or persuading him to write an article? :)
The helmet got me first, but getting him to post is good, too. :)
I don't know if they run classes with instructors alongside in the morning and solo laps in the afternoon, at least not where you get to use the single seater. The MX5s we were supposed to use in the morning was still going to be solo I think. It would be a good combo though.
You have to do the multi day single seater school before you get to run full uninterrupted solo laps though.
I wanted to do that so badly that years ago, when I lived in Sharon (about 2 miles from the track) I was tried to get a job at Skip Barber. I interviewed for a position in the travel dept. It was a very involved job, coordinating all travel arrangements for all driving instructors. I didn't choose to pursue it because it just seemed like way too much for way too little in compensation, but I considered it. I just wouldn't be able to live on the salary. I wanted to do it for the employee discount on the track days, though. :)
seconded :)
I finally got round to watching Gavin's video. That stop box slowing down really would drive me nuts.
I thought you looked very consitent with your lines and that is the best you can expect at this stage. The hardest thing to do is not try to apex early especially on really late apex corners and you didn't do that.
He's visiting the UK at the moment (and doing a Radical day at Silverstone - another post?) but I'll talk to him when he gets back.
Thanks Steven. I was aiming for consistency more than speed. I'd love to go back again before I forget it all - even a short track like Lime Rock is hard to learn in one day.
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