IMHO, anybody can do the snake dance stupidly, not paying attention to those
around you, etc. Stupidity is something you just cannot legislate.
The snaking does not really need to be vigorous. Just the repeated act of
turning back and forth accomplishes most of the heating that needs to be
done for the start.
If I can get a little patch of track to myself I will go back and forth most
of the whole width. I do most of it early in the pace lap before we really
bunch up. I do not like to get right on the tail of the car in front because
pace laps tend to be herky-jerky until the pack-up and I want room for when
the guy in front brakes unexpectedly. If someone is going to be beside me
most of the way around (more common when the pace lap is very slow), then I
try to match the rhythm of his snake and still keep a good distance between.
Back when Carroll wrote his books, the slicks were not as gummy as they are
today. And as a result the off-line marbles were not as bad. As I said, we
always did it to warm up the tires, now we also do it to clean them off
which is a more recent reason.
Something else the snaking does is help bring up the pressures. I go out
about 6 lbs below my optimum pressures and some of that snake dance builds
up heat (in the tires' air) that helps build pressure.
Anyone who thinks a lap won't heat tires hasn't autocrossed. We only do a
lap at a time autocrossing, but the tires are definitely hotter at the
finish than at the start. OTOH, I have occasionally put on an "enduro"
autocross with a 3-minute run around a 20-second course. Fast guys can get
in 10 laps. By about lap 3 or 4 you begin to feel the handling change as
tires stick better -- something we usually do not experience in a 40-50
second autox run.
--Rocky Entriken
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Riddle" <dave@microworks.net>
To: <fot@autox.team.net>
Sent: Monday, April 19, 2004 8:04 PM
Subject: Warming tires (was Track pick-up)
>
> Rocky your observation brings up an interesting issue. While we have all
> seen cars on a warm up lap doing the "snake dance" as Carroll Smith
> referred to it he also said that it was a complee waste of time and was
> dangerous too.
>
> I am not sure what I think about it. It seems to me that when driving a
> low powered and "relatively" heavy car like a sports car or sedan I would
> agree with him. However, on vehicles with much better power-to-weight (my
> F500 or a kart for instance) I think I can feel some "useable" heat
getting
> put into the rear tires at least but not really in the fronts.
>
> While of course it could be argued that "any" heat is better than none at
> the start I wonder if Smith is right about the trade off when factoring
> safety with cars behind you and the possiblilty of being too "exhubrient"
> while still on cold tires while trying to put heat in them. I've spun my
> F500 sideways in pit lane just heading out to the track for a practice
> session just getting on the gas!
>
> I also try and get the brakes up to temp but of course the slowing.
> speeding up and braking while on the pace lap while trying to get a little
> heat in runs the risk of getting hit in the rear by some driver not paying
> attention.
>
>
> >Next session, waggle the car back and forth for a lap and it will be
mostly
> >gone. We used to do that to warm up the tires (we still do, actually).
Now
> >we do it to clean off the tires too.
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