it's the fastest way around the track and also happens to be the name of the show yes you guessed it on this
episode the racing line we're talking about the racing line
every corner on earth has three ideal placement points targets at which to aim
your car
the beginning of a corner is called the turn in next we have the holy grail
of the racing line the almighty Apax and finally exiting the corner we've got the
track out proper racing line should look something like this
start at the turn in come down to the apax and continue to the track out outside to the
inside of the pavement back to outside simple enough for racing line really the
fastest way around the corner well lets get in our track capable Cadillac ATS and
find out first I'm gonna take the inside line the shortest route then I'm gonna take the outside
line the longest route next I'll take the racing line to see which one is the
fastest ready here we go the inside line now the inside route around a corner is
the shortest way but is it the fastest
the outside line the outside route is the longest way around the corner which
allows for greater speed than the inside route racing line now for the racing line
it's the best of both worlds
outside inside outside using all available payment to make the corner as
wide as possible as you can see from the results the racing line is much faster
than the other two routes that allows you to carry more speed into the corner
maintain a high speed throughout and edged higher velocity but why is that
it's simple the larger the radius and more speed can be carried through the
corner now I'm driving a small diameter circle right at the limit of grip and
I'm able to maintain twenty miles per hour
now I'm driving a wider circle again right on the limit of grip and I'm able to go
thirty miles an hour now I'm drifting because it's more fun
and that's what your doing when driving the racing line more radius equals more speed equals less lap time it's
simple geometry speaking of simple geometry let's look at how tires
relate to the racing line on today's Tire Rack minute you can get the most
from your tires by isolating their functions and not overloading them and
you're racing line is the key
sometimes later and races tires start feeling greasy isolate your loads more
to save them
cornering loads distort the side walls in contact patch and cause them to
easily slide too much so use a late apex to straighten breaking
accelerations zones to capitalize on the better grip under vertical loads when
the contact patch is less tortured what I'm trying to say is tires need love too
big good to them so what we've been looking at so far are constant radius
turns now let's look at some other corners around the track to see how the
racing line varies help in this is a hairpin it's a slow corner and the
fastest way around a slow corner believe it or not is slow cars turn better when
slowing because it puts more load on the front tires be patient wait on the gas
and get to the inside and apex late in the corner this will straighten your
line to the track out allowing better acceleration and higher speeds going on
to the straight increasing radius this is an increasing radius corner it's the
most forgiving of corners it starts tight then opens up these corners allow you
to get on the power early as you pour on the coals with plenty of room to slide
wide there are lots of fun
decreasing radius and this is a large decreasing radius corner it tightens up
on you as you go through this most difficult and dangerous corner on a
racetrack planning ahead pays dividends here
enter with lots of speed but think ahead and inside apex very late in the
corner wait for the road to start opening up before squeezing on drugs or
you'll end up doing agricultural work off the road so far we've been looking at the ideal
line in a perfect world but there are some times when you need to adjust it
for maximum speed corner with bump take this corner for example from the
apex on the track out it's very bumpy on the normal racing line so I take a
later Apax a tighter exit to avoid the bumps and get the power down
off-camber corner and in this corner the road is crowned on the exit going off
camber so again I apex late to straighten the exit and keep from sliding off
the racing line we didn't name is show after it for nothing you know it can
make the difference between being a winner and being a sorry loser chump and
on that note Apax responsibly driving enthusiasts I will see you next time on
the racing line when I was a kid I started in all across and I drove flat
out like a raving maniac is good on the very first he would tell me with more
experience Randy slowdown you go faster but they're crazy arms beating that what
do they know until one event I tried to go slower on purpose and I want to check
the time it was faster in the region was I was using the racing line I didn't
understand it before