Easy on the (Early) Throttle
My worst habit is early throttle. I tell myself it’s a habit I picked up autocrossing, where frequently you’ll have to force the issue when it comes to weight transfer to get the car to do things it doesn’t always want to do, but that’s just me rationalizing.
So I’ll frequently see the telltale on-off-on blip of throttle too early in a corner as I try and cheat physics to begin my acceleration too soon. I mean, you can’t fault me for enthusiasm and commitment, right?
But even when you start looking at the math, it doesn’t quite math out. Hitting the gas a half tenth later is better than hitting it a full tenth early, then backing off for a half tenth, then finally getting into final acceleration a half tenth after that. It’s just a lot of unnecessary dynamic that don’t really do anything aside from making you feel like you’re trying harder.
So how am I going to fix this? Well, I have a couple routines in mind. The first is going to run a few track days where I’m not looking for time. Those can be tough to come by, but sometimes you have to dedicate actual time and resource to working on technique and not simple chasing number. Playing well demands practicing well, and you have to make time to practice.
So what am I going to practice? Glad you asked.
Well, the first thing I’m going to work on is a slower throttle application. Part of my issue is that I tend to snap the throttle open early, back off quickly, then get right back to it just as quickly.
I need to break that pattern of muscle memory, so before I even start worrying too much about the “too early” part, I’m going to focus on the “too fast” part. My hope is that by committing to a slower throttle, I’ll develop muscle memory for a single throttle application, and the timing and quickness parts seem easier to work out once that core skill is deeper ingrained.
Knocking Back Against Knockback
This next thing is something that was kind of rattling around in my head, but a recent chat with BimmerWorld’s James Clay helped me distill my thoughts a bit.
Since I’ve been driving our BMW 435i project car with its ZF 8HP automatic, I’ve fallen back in love with left-foot braking. Back when I was autocrossing and tracking a lot of FWD cars, I was a pretty committed LFBer, but in the last few years when I went from a 350Z to a Camaro to a Mustang to a Corvette, all with rear-wheel drive and traditional three-pedal manuals, I had sort of fallen out of the habit.
I’m a huge believer that left-footing just opens up a huge arsenal of dynamic possibilities that simply aren’t on the table otherwise, but even now, I find myself not taking full advantage of the technique.
The area where I’m lacking is those spots between corners, where that left foot is just sitting there, waiting for the next braking zone. Is there a job it could be doing there? Funny you should ask.
Our BMW 435i has been equipped with Hawk Performance brake pads since we started tracking it: HPS 5.0 for the street and DTC 60 for the track.
Those pads provide consistent, fade-free performance and great bite. But at north of 3600 pounds, even with the larger M-spec rotors, the BMW is converting a lot of kinetic energy to heat, and that means pad wear.
While the pads may still have the same grabbing and stopping power regardless of their thickness, their now-smaller dimensions mean more room to move inside the caliper, and that means brake knockback.
“It happens to all cars,” Clay explains. “It's worse on sliding-caliper cars, especially with stock or worn caliper. It's worse on strut cars. And it's WAY worse the larger the rotor diameter gets.”
Those larger-diameter rotors laterally displace their outer diameters during vibration–like the kind you get from jumping curbs, for example–farther than a corresponding smaller-diameter rotor would, and when that rotors shimmies, it pushes the pads away and slightly retracts the caliper pistons.
This means the next time you hit the brakes, the hydraulics have to now remove that slack in that system before the pads meet the rotors and clock in for the day.
That’s a perfect opportunity for that left foot to carry its weight down those straightaways, giving a little love tap on the brake pedal–enough to take up the dead space but not so much that you actually fight the acceleration of the car–to prime yourself for the next hard braking zone.
Clay’s conclusion after our chat: “Without question, your braking consistency over driving without those taps can be significantly improved, as will lap times, if from confidence if nothing else. Even with the most modern ABS, which do have some built-in mitigation, there are big benefits to taking up the knockback.
“It's a frequent discussion and topic of feedback, even at the pro level,” he continues. “So if you're telling me you may need to do that some, I would say that you should definitely be doing it all the time as a standard part of your driving vocabulary into every notable braking zone, in any car, at every track.”
Point taken. Add this to the list of things I know I should be doing but didn’t think would be impactful enough to worry about much.
The question then is how to integrate this into my regular habits. I think the answer here is simpler than the throttle thing.
It will take some trial and error to get the feel for the nudge without actually triggering notable friction, but that’s what test days are for, right?
This one actually seems like a habit that could be picked up and ingrained inside a couple weekends. Maybe the trigger is just a Post-it or piece of tape within view of the driver for a few sessions with a reminder, but this seems like a fairly easy win on something that could make a real difference.
Get Feedback From the Pros
Anyone who’s ever seen my haircuts knows that there are certain things that you just shouldn’t do yourself. Thankfully there are hats.
Anyway, it’s hard to tickle yourself, you can’t lick your own elbows, and teaching yourself is certainly on that list of things that seldom works as good as you hope it will. In that spirit, it’s been far too long since I’ve gotten some real coaching behind the wheel.
I get it, it’s intimidating bringing in a coach. Not just for the ego hit–although I think our track culture has gotten to the point where we all realize that coaches who don’t live inside our own skulls are a net benefit and not a threat–but for the logistics involved. You’ve got to get someone to a track, sync schedules, blah, blah, blah. It’s a lot, and we’re not all professionals who have that kind of time and budget to toss around.
But not all coaching has to be day- and place-of. There’s an increasing number of coaches working remotely through data and video analysis, both in real time during track days and offline in more low-stress meetings during the week. I mean, if we can learn to speak Spanish or make pasta in a Zoom meeting, why not driving faster.
So in 2025 I’m vowing to spend some of my wheel time getting real feedback from a pro, whether that’s at the track or remotely. If nothing else, it will help me build some confidence for the next time I’m the one doing the instructing, knowing that I’ve taken the time and effort to make sure my skills are at a level suitable to pass on to others.
Well, that’s my plan for 2025, and it’s certainly not complete.
The great thing about this sport is it constantly presents unexpected opportunities for growth and learning, and I look forward to being surprised by some of those as well. I’d also love to hear your goals behind the wheel for this year, and how you intend to get there.
