rec.autos.simulators

Can someone please explain? If it helps, I'm British/a newbie,
so I guess that would explain my ignorance.

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TAILBRAKING (no r) is the way to avoid understeer (front going straight)
when you enter a corner.

Part 1 : Theory - What it is

Simply put it a a way to make the rear slide a little bit to turn the car
sooner , just like what you could do by pulling the handbrake on your car to
make it take a real tight hairpin faster....

Of course you are not using the handbrake effect because you want the rear
wheels to "slide" gently, not to LOCK massively.

Part 2 : How to do it

There are 4 parts in a corner
    1) The end of the straight before the corner
    2) The beggining of the corner
    3) The apex
    4) Exiting the corner

In part 1 you brake in a straight line, quite hard at start and then less to
avoid locking the wheels
In part 2 you brake less and you aim INSIDE the apex, just before the apex
(say 1-2 seconds) start giving throttle WHILE STILL BRAKING
In part 3 start releasing the brakes, if your car wants to spin your
released too much / too soon, if your cas slides from the front towards the
outside you have too much throttle.
In part 4 apply gently and constantly the throttle while drifitng from the 4
wheels towrds the outside, the car should be in the direction of the next
straight as soon as possible (between 3 and 4).

Shit, I wish I could do it too !

It's braking into the corner so you can brake later, and it helps cut back
on understeer when going into a turn. I do it by going *** the brakes
while braking in a straight line, then easing off as i slow down, then
easing off a bit more going through the turn. you can't really be tought it,
you just have to do it however works for you.

Thanks,
Alex

Actually it is tRailbraking :)

Andre Kennewell

Isn't Tailbraking what surtees does?

Sudesh

On Thu, 06 Jul 2000 19:28:15 +0200, amos-opus

LOL!

no, he's not braking at all...he's tailhitting

I've been doing trailbraking all along and I didn't even realize it!
It's good to practice at Monza in the Parabolica and to a lesser
degree through Lesmos.

Good explanation of it.  I've run a best of 1:28.7 at Monza.  I think
I could take another second out with a better setup.

That's tail breaking.

Dave Ewing

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David A. Ewing

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Among the numerous answers, I guess the answer is all there except it's
difficult to pick out from the rest. In a nutshell, you ease of the brakes
as you turn in. You're not far off by picturing a smooth transition from
full brakes and straight-ahead to neutral throttle and maximum steering
input. This does two things for you. First, the weight is transferred to the
front when decelerating, helping your turn-in. This is why everyone says it
helps counter understeer. Second, it takes fuller advantage of the circle of
traction. The tires can generate lateral force while braking or
accelerating.

There are a couple of things to watch out for. Trailbraking helps to
overcome initial understeer, but it's not the solution for all your ills. I
prefer to setup for a little bit of oversteer at neutral-throttle (so that
it's very near neutral when I'm accelerating away). Trailbraking is still
effective on turn-in, but the transition from brakes to neutral-throttle has
to be very smooth, and timed to get the weight back over the rears just as
they begin to over-rotate. (If you have a FF wheel, you've probably felt the
kick it gives when you're a little late or too light on the gas.) The brake
is coming up as the gas is going doing, so use the left-foot on the brake if
you can possibly do so. The other thought is to not get too slow as you're
doing this. While it may seem obvious, the doing is quite a bit harder than
the knowing. Threshold braking is difficult enough in itself with the scant
visual cues in the sim. Getting to the turn-in point at the right speed --
not too fast, for the obvious reason, and equally important: not too slow --
is darned difficult, especially if you're counting on trailbraking to help
rotate the nose. Short of running off the track, getting on the brakes too
soon, and staying on the brakes too long, costs you far more in lap-time
than almost any other goof you can make.

So, who said it was easy? :-)

Michael.

On Thu, 06 Jul 2000 19:28:15 +0200, amos-opus

TailbrEaking you mean? ;-)

Ruud van Gaal
MarketGraph / MachTech: http://www.marketgraph.nl
Art: http://www.marketgraph.nl/gallery

After the initial hard hit on the brakes, the continued deceleration isn't
necessarily done by applying the brakes. It can be, but it can also just be
coasting or braking with the engine (a little!). One of my favorite quotes
(Tom Papst, I believe) " the fastest way to go slow is to brake too late".
Don't expect that trailbraking will make you quicker in every corner. There
is a time to use it and many times not to. If you've made it through Factory
Driver mode in NFS:PU, you've already learned this. One of the best parts of
the game. Set up your corners for a high exit speed. If there are several
corners in series, set them up for the highest exit speed on the corner just
before the longest straight.

--
Slot

Tweaks & Reviews
www.slottweak.com

Geeze! dudes!
There is no such thing as "trailbraking".   A driver uses his car to best
advantage so if you're still braking at turn-in, that's just driving.
I knew the first time I saw that cheesy buzzword that the squids would pick
it up and never stop talking about it.

Thanks for explaining Pony, you really know what you're talking about.

Andre

Must be those SCCA trophys talking.