I don't know at what point I started driving with a ham-fist. Tonight, I
rediscovered the simple joy of letting the car take its set and drive itself
around the corners. After some weeks away from Spa, I've returned in the
trusty Eagle, and relearned the simple basics of contact patch physics. It
might have been my recent stint in the Ferrari at O'ring that did it; I
never did get that car sorted out. Anyway, it was a very big joy to
rediscover that very, very small movements of the wheel were all it took to
get the car to carve its track. Some of you might have found out for
yourselves that the car can be made to turn at the same rate at two
different wheel settings: the right one, turning the wheel just the
slightest bit, and a second one farther in, on the bad side of the
slip-angle/traction curve. The problem with the larger wheel motion is that
more speed is scrubbed off for the same turn rate; increasing lock only
leads to terminal understeer and even more scrub. Which is precisely what
the Ferrari did for me at O'ring. Well, it's getting late, children, but
first chance I get tomorrow, it's back to Austria to try slower entry speeds
and see if I can't pick up the 5 seconds I'm missing...
Michael.
