Team-BHP - Essential Guide: To driving fast!

A few things to add here.

1) Most times while negotiating twisties, we cut down speed considerably to do the curves. Reasons given for slowing down are persons limits, cars limits,tyres, body roll, soft suspension etc. While accepting that all this is true to a very great extent, one thing that helps you really do curves fast are lines. Its atonishing how correct lines help you keep far higher speeds in curves without doing anythhing extra at the wheel. This point assumes importance because the cars limits that we refer to all the time becomes a lot more accomodating when lines become correct.

2) Work the gears according to the road. This is a very important part of driving that gets ignored by most of us. If you find yourself caught in wrong gears at the exit of corners all the time, its time to change a few things in your driving. Learning to read the road ahead is a skill that can help being in the right gear.

3) Braking smooth and prgressively is also an eye opener when it comes to car control and mileage optimization.

4) Judge the surface ahead for grip levels which change constantly because of various reasons(gravel, rain, slush, cow dung..)

5) sitting posture for effective pedal usage. Does pedal switching happen nice and easy for you?

Another thing to think about is to see how well you drive on unfamiliar roads. If one is a bad driver, an unfamiliar road easily shows us just "how bad" we really are.

While drivng fast do these things happen frequently?

a) Braking very suddenly for a turn (caught by surprise)
b) Turn is too tight and a mid turn emergency braking is required to stop going off.
c) Do you find the nose of the car venturing into the opposite lane while taking corners?
d) How good are you at handling the steering wheel especially in a corner.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mclaren1885 (Post 1089195)

- Anticipation skill: One must be able to anticipate how other road users will move/react given a particular circumstance. Always think one step ahead, take precautions necessarily and preferably well in advance. Never wait till the last minute to react. The saying, better late than never doesn't apply here.

I found this most useful when driving 'fast' on highways. Important when you want to maintain the rhythm and avoid unecessary excessive braking.

Quote:

Originally Posted by megazoid (Post 1422792)

Bingo !! It is amazing how much the lines help you to travel faster, when tackling twisties. They tell you how tighter the turn is getting, even in the night and you can use them to exploit your's and your car's abilities to the max. I was driving on the Great Ocean road(Melbourne) yesterday and it was a great drive and I was thinking the same thing - How much the lines help in traveling faster. However, I could see many people who did not have good control over the steering, going all over the place, despite the lines.:Frustrati. Another thing I found here is, they have good warning signs, advising the recommended maximum speed you can take the curve at. They err on the side of caution: After driving for a while, I know that a 55kph corner can be taken at 80kph, while still being under safe limits. So when I see at 25 kph turn, I realize it is going to be very very tight, and I slow accordingly, and what do I see just past the curve? A sedan that has gone into the side railings, because he did not heed the warning sign. Duh!

The twisties really separate the men from the boys.

Quote:

Originally Posted by megazoid (Post 1422792)

5) sitting posture for effective pedal usage. Does pedal switching happen nice and easy for you?

Thanks for the tips megazoid.

Posture is often an overlooked aspect when it comes to driving fast. I've noticed that people tend to lean far back with the backrest of the seat reclined a few notches.

When seated and your hand outstretched, the edge of your wrist has to come on the top (12 o'clock position) of the steering wheel. Adjust your seat so that you reach this position.

By this, you know if you are sitting too far back or crouched in towards the steering which is equally bad. With the right posture, you can enjoy many hours of fatigue free driving.

The essence to driving fast is driving smooth. And one major factor for smooth driving is smooth gear changes.

For smooth gear changes you need to rev match the transmission speed to engine speed. Now, often people talk about rev matching while down shifting. But one scenario which is oven overlooked is that you need to do rev matching even while up shifting.

Consider the following scenario. You are driving in 2nd gear at 6K RPM and up shift to 3rd gear. The RPM at 3rd gear for the same transmission speed would be around 4K. Now if you change gear slowly or if you press the clutch without pressing the accelerator, the RPM would fall down to idle RPM and so you will feel jerk while up shifting. In such a scenario you need to rev match while changing the gear from 2nd to 3rd to avoid the jerk.

This is not a concern when you are driving at city speeds but when driving fast it will result in jerky gear changes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by narayan (Post 1089222)

my 2 cents

being faint hearted may not necessarily be a "physical limitation" - but then its something you can get over slowly by doing the above

field of vision - COMPULSORILY GOES DOWN AS YOU GO FASTER. as you go faster, it becomes narrower and narrower
so there is NO WAY one can increase field of vision as you go faster
...BUT YES - you need to increase your concentration by leaps and bounds to make up for that decreasing field of vision

While driving fast on Indian roads, vision and concentration are most important because the traffic is mostly a nuisance. Often a person can lose traction and end up crashed somewhere.