ok, more of james's controversial advice:
left foot braking might be theoretically better but i dont like it for two
reasons:
1. it makes braking seem more important than it is so most left foot brakers
over brake all the time
2. it makes most people less decisive, and being decisive is very important
in autox.
having to DECIDE when to give up the brake and get on the gas gets you on
the gas sooner, where all the good stuff happens. (however, it does nag at
me because sherry, who drives my car very nicely and left foot brakes, can
do some things i cant, still, i always get on the gas sooner and am usually
faster)
on the big track, smoothness is more important than decisiveness (lots of
time to time about stuff). (left foot braking and clutchless downshifting)
-james (left AND right foot brakes on the road race course, right foot
brakes in autocross)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe Ciarcia" <veloimpreza@yahoo.com>
To: <ba-autox@autox.team.net>
Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2002 5:43 PM
Subject: Re: The hardest autox skill?
> --- Darren Madams <darren@madams.com> wrote:
> > An excellent question. I'll answer it in two
> > (possibly more) ways.
> >
> > The "hardest" autox skill to learn is without a
> > doubt left foot braking.
>
> There's an understatement. I first tried it at the
> autox school. All I can guess is that when we did the
> full course it must have been very amusing for
> everyone watching to see me pop out of the start box
> and then come to a dead stop. The look on my face must
> have been absolutely priceless. You see, I had a
> little difficulty at first distinguishing between the
> brake pedal and the clutch.
>
> I'm now much more comfortable with it and use the left
> foot to steer with. Using the left foot also allows me
> to keep my turbo spooled up which is tremendously
> useful. My transitions from wide open throttle to
> being hard on the brakes are also faster. It's a
> double edged sword though, on my car I can lose my
> brakes completely if I'm on the throttle too much.
> That's resulted in more than one downed cones. Right
> now I'm trying to relearn where that threshold is
> which I'm finding difficult as it's a characterstic
> that's specific to my car. It's also dynamic based on
> the course, and how much brake and throttle I've been
> applying over time.
>
> Despite all the difficulty I believe I'm much faster
> with left foot braking. I dropped at least a second
> (on an "average" 60 second course) off of my times by
> introducing my left foot into the equation.
>
> Joe
>
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