minordomo
Passed Driver's Ed
- Location
- Houston, TX
- Car(s)
- Mk7 golf r
Not really a specific detailed technical post, but I just wanted to say that what everyone says about driving in the rain is spot on. It's an amazing learning experience and really heightens your senses for what smooth inputs are, what traction loss is, how to recover etc.
As a beginner, my understanding of traction was basically binary, you either have traction and send it, or you have none and are basically sliding until you slow down enough or end up in the grass. Now though, after driving just a single 20-minute session in the rain I found all kinds of different variations. There's minor understeer on acceleration, which is different to understeer on braking or coasting. Same with oversteer, which isn't something I got much of at all until driving on a wet track. There's traction loss where you can still kind of control the car or reign it back in without just bailing completely. It's amazing all the different ways you can feel the tires slipping, and since you're going slower you can take the time to logically process how to react and get instant feedback.
The speed is so crucial to learning as a beginner I think. Thinking about how many times in the dry where I pushed it too hard and ended up losing traction or going off track. Afterward trying to think about what exactly happened it's just sort of a blur because it all happened so fast. But in the wet, you can get that whole event much slower and process it and remember the details. You can also anticipate it so you can react even quicker.
So anyway, that's all I just wanted to put my thoughts down on wet track days and say what everyone else says. If you have the opportunity, 100% recommend.
As a beginner, my understanding of traction was basically binary, you either have traction and send it, or you have none and are basically sliding until you slow down enough or end up in the grass. Now though, after driving just a single 20-minute session in the rain I found all kinds of different variations. There's minor understeer on acceleration, which is different to understeer on braking or coasting. Same with oversteer, which isn't something I got much of at all until driving on a wet track. There's traction loss where you can still kind of control the car or reign it back in without just bailing completely. It's amazing all the different ways you can feel the tires slipping, and since you're going slower you can take the time to logically process how to react and get instant feedback.
The speed is so crucial to learning as a beginner I think. Thinking about how many times in the dry where I pushed it too hard and ended up losing traction or going off track. Afterward trying to think about what exactly happened it's just sort of a blur because it all happened so fast. But in the wet, you can get that whole event much slower and process it and remember the details. You can also anticipate it so you can react even quicker.
So anyway, that's all I just wanted to put my thoughts down on wet track days and say what everyone else says. If you have the opportunity, 100% recommend.