prana

So you've pushed your car round a bell bend, but you miss judge the brake pressure. The car pushes outside of the track and spins .... you correct the wheel but to no avail, the rear continues to swap ends with you.

What is your best method of recovery ? A friend believes in both foot on method. One sharply on the brakes and the other in the clutch. It makes the spin out more predictable for the others following, and it stops quickest. He also has a tonne more experience.

In my limited experience, I would steer but have one foot on the clutch, none on the brakes. It seems to stop the "swapping ends" syndrome quickest, but can be quite unpredictable for the following cars.

When and what would you do to recover quickest and more predictably ? Awaiting your experienced opinions.

BruceWarne2

Oh! I know this one! It happened to me once on a public road. I got through it quite nicely by closing my eyes tightly and screaming like a baby!

prana

next session !

Jza

Slam the brakes on!!!!!

Jza

AvalancheS8

If there is space and you really don't reckon you are going to get it back then just slamming on the brakes at least has the advantage that you will keep going in a straight line and stop quickly.

To my shame I have to admit to having had to resort to this after falling pray to big lift-off oversteer in my old Corrado. After I had been on full opposite lock each way once I decided to call it a day and just locked up all the wheels. Slid along the road to a halt....

Paulo P

iTrader: (42)

One thing to bear in mind if you are going to spin is not to turn into it, it sounds odd but that will just make the radius of the turn bigger and put you into a wall, hedge etc where as if you tighten up and hit the brakes you are more likely to spin and just do a 180 or so where you are. This theory doesn't always work but it can be worth considering if you're running out of space.

Paul

Dodge

That's an interesting point, Paul, and I could well believe it would work. Never would have thought of it, though!

vindaloo

Lost it once in my AXGT. 00:30 AM on a cold winters night.

Trying not to press on, middling speed off a slip road and turned left on a neutral or slightly trailing throttle. The road was frosty, unfortunately, the white lines were icy and I clipped one of them.

I caught the anti-clockwise spin but as I'd backed off, it came back at me faster the other way. Once I'd caught my thumb in the steering wheel I didn't think I'd catch it, so I let go of everything. Slammed on the brakes when I realised I was heading off-road backwards. Ended up on a downslope before a hedge having passed over a grass verge and a footpath....missing the nearby lamppost thank f***.

Best bit is a passing car stopped and two big blokes rocked the car back onto the road for me. Otherwise I'd have been there overnight. I reckon I was off-road for less than 2 minutes......

The lesson I learnt was either drive like a p*ssy or drive like a demon in a FWD car. If it starts to go, don't back off.


Jeremy.

AvalancheS8

That's pretty much what happened to me with the Corrado, damp off camber corner. I took the same lesson from it, and after some practise in safe places developed the reflex to floor the throttle again and steer when the back end went, comes back no problem. Of course, that's only for FWD

Paulo P

iTrader: (42)

'til the rear grips again and then sends you into a big understeer slide Been there too and only just caught it with very very quick reactions.

AvalancheS8

Worked fine in a 16V Corrado, not too much torque and a very grippy front end equals very little power on understeer.

Paulo P

iTrader: (42)

Also another thing to bear in mind then if you have a lowish power front drive car is that if you boot it to pull the back end round & you are still on opposite lock catching the slide (spin) then the weight transition could cause the rear to grip and the front wheels will pull you in the direction they are pointing (the wrong way)

AvalancheS8

Indeed, you always have to be very on the ball with the steering and keep the front wheels pointing the way you want to go.
The best explanation I have heard of what to do was to try and ignore which way the car is actually pointing, keep looking at where you want to be going and keep steering for that. For sure though, the hardest part of catching an oversteer slide is winding your corrective lock back off fast enough at the appropriate time. The key I have found is that you must keep adjusting the steering input as you need to, particularly during the correction of the slide. There is a great temptation to wind on corrective lock and then freeze and wait for the car to come straight, if you do this you will be in plenty of trouble when it swings straight - Keep Steering !!
I was lucky in my FWD drive learning process that on a damp surface the Corrado swung back quite gently if you have some power on, so it is quite easy to make a smooth and controlled correction and indeed to delibarately swing the back end round and catch it without a big lurch, it was a lovely handling car in that respect, it felt like modulating the throttle mid-corner made the car rotate around the gear lever ! Haven't entirely got the hang of doing it smoothly in the Scoob though, there tends to be a moment where it snaps back suddenly.

DaveW

If you happen to be in a viscous centre diff Scoob (been told it works to a lesser degree in a DCCD car) then you can recover from almost impossible angles (130 degrees to the way you are travelling) just by using full power and full lock in the direction you are travelling.

Learnt that on a driving course with Don Palmer

Dave.

TopBanana

Dave: Good tip... same with FWD. Just boot it

DaveW

Jlanng,

When I first got my MY99 people kept telling me that if I got into trouble just to point the wheels in the direction I wanted to go and boot it. Going on that course certainly showed that to be one way to do it

Now I've got a car with DCCD I know it won't work to the same degree as with the diff open its more rear wheel drive.

Dave.

StickyMicky

so a dccd car is harder to recover from a massive slide then a normal model?

Faire D'Income

Dave. I'm doing Don's course next Friday so I'd appreciate any advice you can give me. Perhaps you could throw a few of your ideas as to how to get the most out of the day in my thread on Driving courses?

Cheers, Jason.

prana

9-3, look far, sit upright and arms bent at 12 to the wheel. Apart from that, I would say, emphasis on making every movement AS SMOOTHly AS POSSIBLE!

ex-webby

Be careful chaps

There is no set procedure for getting out of a spin.. Every car is different, every situation is different.

Hitting the brakes solidly in a non-ABS car will have a very different effect to hitting them in an ABS car.

If you're right on top of your game, a Scooby can be brought back from BEYOND 90 degrees even! But of course, if you're not totally confident you know what you're doing, you could make thinng 10 times worse by fighting it.

Often the best thing to do, is as soon as you think things are about to go wrong in a big way, just pick a SAFE exit. If it means you go off the circuit, so be it! It's better to be a safe whimp, than the bloke who wrote off three of his mates car by fish tailing all over the circuit for 100 yards!

My advice is as above, get some really good training, and develop your own inate talent to control the car; that way, any situation will be within your control, rather than trying to build up a portfolio of tricks to save you in certain situations.

You'll have a lot of fun also

All the best

Simon