rec.autos.simulators

Always. An alien that won't admit it :)
Dan

I suspect you are talking about the loose-off situation on fresh tires (and
even worn one's at times).  I never experienced _any_ sort of loose-in
problems, or even close to it, so I have to assume you are talking about
loose-off.  In fact, the turn-in characteristics of this and similar tracks
and their setups tend to negate a loose condition.

Atlanta is one of those tracks that is driven off the right-rear tire.
That's where most of your off-corner steering comes from.  For this reason,
it has to be set up a little bit on the loose side, especially at the start,
if you are ever to have any sort of decent lap times well into a tire run.
For this reason, you simply have to control the throttle application
off-turn.

In other words, Atlanta is an aero-grip track on entry (front down-force),
and a mechanical grip track on exit (rear suspension setup).  That's how I
see it at least :)

In addition, Atlanta is one of those tracks that you have to drive
differently at.  Brakes are BAD!  Letting off too much is BAD!  And the
setups are designed to reflect this.

At Atlanta (as well as C***te and Texas) when you get to your 'braking
point' you don't let up off the throttle the entire amount required.  The
'braking point' is actually where you start slowly (very slowly) bleeding
off the throttle as you head down to the turn in/apex point.  This prevents
too much weight from being transferred forward.

The trick is to slowly bleed off the throttle and reach the maximim 'let
off' point at the exact same time you reach the point of maximum grip loss
at the apex of the corner.  Those that perfect this will be the one's that
kick everyone elses asses at these tracks.

I didn't really understand this until recently, and never thoroughly
understood it until about 1/2 way through yesterday's race (too late,
unfortunately, to do any good).

In my attempts to save tires, I was actually making the situation worse.  I
was letting up too early, too hard when the tires started to wear down, and
I was in fact tearing them up even more in the process.

The reason is, by letting up too much on entry, I was transferring far too
much weight forward far too soon, and it was causing the front end of the
car to wash out thus scrubbing even more off the tires.

Once I realized this, I stopped letting off so much.  Even with the tires
worn, I continued to drive as I did with fresh tires, and instead of letting
up a lot when I reached the 'braking point' I just bled the throttle off
slowly.  This caused less weight to be transferred and the front of the car
stopped washing out on me.  I just increased the bleed-off rate so it still
reached maximum throttle reduction at the point of maximum grip loss in the
apex.

Until I realized this yesterday, worn tires were driving me nuts and I was
wearning the right-front fender off on the walls.  It seemed the slower I
went, the worse the front-end push got, and the more the tires wore out.
The earlier I let off, and the harder I let off, the worse the push got!

Yes, this is VERY hard to get right :)

I verified all this with some off-line runs last night.  My speeds didn't
fall off nearly as much as if I started letting up more at the 'braking
point', or started letting up earlier.  In fact, I found letting up earlier
to be a MAJOR mistake at this track.  You loose too much front down-force if
your corner entry speeds are too low.

If you are at a track where the entry is loose for you, here is a trick that
I use and it works.  This is especially useful at a track like Richmond
where the setups always tend to be a bit loose in...  Before you let off of
the throttle, apply just a _tad_ of brake.  This does two things.  First,
and most important, it transfers a lot of the weight off of the back of the
car, thus tightening it up a bit.  Secondly, it tends to stabilize the car a
bit better for entry.  Note that this assumes the brake bias is set
correctly for this sort of corner entry.  It's also best to be off that
brake completely before you reach the apex of the corner to prevent the
brake from helping the front-end to wash out.

That's my 2 cents worth :)

-Larry

After the conversations during practice, I tried not braking.  Yeah, the times
went down marginally, but I burned off the front tires a lot quicker.  When I
made my stops, the fronts were way yellow, and the rears were still pretty
green.

Eldred
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-Larry