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>>>Is left foot breaking really that hard? I've never had a problem doing
>>>it while placing race games on my pc. Maybe I'm just a noob, but I
>>>couldn't live without doing left foot breaking.
>>Do you have a drivers license? Not trying to be offensive, but I have
>>no way of knowing how old you are. Assuming you don't drive in real
>>life: Most people drive their real cars and brake with their right
>>foot. That's the way new drivers are taught, that's the way most of us
>>have been doing it for years. To make such a drastic change in style
>>takes getting used to... If you've never known anything else besides
>>LFB, it seems weird to you.
>>Eldred
> I'd like to toss my $.02 in here. In a street car there is one very
> good reason not to LF brake, and occasionally it comes into play in
> racing. The reason not to LF brake is that it consumes more fuel that
> way - once again, the tradeoff for more speed being an increase in
> fuel usage. Most of the time in racing, that's a non-issue, but every
> once in a while it pops up. In the grocery-getting, it's one reason
> not to LF brake (along with the fact that using the LF technique
> doesn't gain you much on the street). In F1 fuel conservation rarely
> comes into play. In other series where it does crop up that's one way
> of saving a few extra drops, along with getting off the gas early and
> on late.
> Mike
LF braking doesn't increase fuel consumption by itself, it is throttle-
trailing that does it. And in a street car there's no real reason to trail
the throttle (unlike the racing where it's done to balance the car).
In the street car one would probably trail the throttle only when entering
the corner very fast and trying to overcome massive understeer (which is
hardly regular street driving style), in the case of [very] emergency
braking, when he hits the brakes while lifting off the throttle or in the
driving on snow, which is a very different case, because balancing the car
becomes quite important even in the street driving (particularly, if one
didn't bother to change his summer tyres ;->).
On somewhat related note, I wonder how people downshift in the street cars
(manual). For example, you exit the highway and the exit ramp turns and
tightens. Let's say reasonable speed for the final turn on the ramp is
50km/h (which happens to be a speed limit in that area too) and you
approach that turn at 100km/h. Braking has to be done with right foot,
because of downshifting and near the final turn it is necessary to put in
2nd gear (It depends on the car, but in most of them one will want lower
gear for 50 km/h than for 100km/h). However heel-and-toe is problematic due
to pedal layout which makes it impossible to give some gas to match revs.
The only way I see is to shift at the precise moment when the revs are
close to the right match. But it looks a bit more complicated operation
that one would expect to perform in a regular street driving.
Alex.
