by Justin Lancon

Created on: January 30, 2007

To start, I'd just like to say that this is a HUGE topic, and my teensie little article wont cover all of it (or even close to all of it). My goal here is simply to introduce the reader to the world of high performance driving, and to perhaps engender in them a little desire to learn more.

First, let's do some definition work.

Understeer- The state in which a vehicles front tires are losing their grip before the rear tires. Also called "push". Usually a pretty slow way to get around the track, and frustrating to boot. Visual signs- front tires that are "turned in" too far.

EXAMPLE!

Oversteer-The opposite of the above, in which a car's rear tires lose grip before the fronts, causing what most people would call a "fishtail". Properly used and executed skillfully, this can be a huge help on track (and huge fun too!). This is what usually causes spins, and what most often scares people new to track driving. Visual signs- front tires turned "away" from the corner. Car's nose pointing at inside of turn.

EXAMPLE! (lots of examples, really....

So, I'd like to talk a bit about tires (or tyres, if you're British).

Tires are THE most important part of your car, bar none. They are the only thing on your car (hopefully) that touches the ground, and those four little contact patches are the only things keeping you from either not going anywhere at all, or going somewhere you don't want to (like a hedge), very quickly.

As a result of that, you need to look at everything you do in the driver's seat as a way of modifying those contact patches. They don't stay the same size, you see, from corner to corner or moment to moment. They're constantly changing in small amounts as the car moves along the road, flexing with road imperfections and changing shape with weight transfer.

That last part is important, because it's weight transfer that most often causes a tire to go beyond the limits of it's grip threshold and start to slide.

You see, a tire's contact patch determines how much grip that tire can give. You may have the softest compound, stickiest tires on earth, but if the contact patch is tiny (bad tread design or extreme weight transfer) it wont matter one bit.

This is why you see "slick" tires on dragsters and lots of professional race cars. A slick offers the biggest contact patch possible on flat pavement. The problem is that if anything is between the tire and the pavement (water, rocks, or leaves all come to mind) they will have nowhere to go and will effectively delete the section

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