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      01-31-2011, 12:46 PM   #31
The HACK
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lucid View Post
This is simply why, at any given trackday, in similar cars, almost none of the novice drivers overheat their brakes whereas some of the faster and more advanced drivers might.
To this point, I must offer this nugget of wisdom.

First timers or very novice guys don't often overheat their brakes because they're not carrying enough speed. What I find is, it's the beginning-intermediates to intermediates that start to experience overheating problems because they've figured out how to go fast, but they haven't figured out how much to slow down yet.

My famous analogies follows.

Beginners are slow in the turns, slow in the straights.
Beginner/Intermediate to intermediates are slow in the turns, fast in the straights.
Advanced Intermediates are fast in some turns, fast in the straights.
Advanced guys are fast in all turns and straights.

So the problem with brake overheating lies in the beginner/intermediate level, in which they're consistently over-slowing for the turns, thus building up a ton of heat in the brakes, while ballsy enough to be full throttle down the straight (or have figured out enough of corner exit to carry speed through the last 1/3rd of the turn). The end result is overheating brakes due to not enough cooling available in the first 2/3rd of turns and retaining just enough heat in the system to eventually overwhelm it.

Another analogy. This goes to everything I "teach" at the track. The learning process goes in cycles.

Beginners almost NEVER overheat their brakes.
Intermediate guys almost always will experience overheating brakes at least once.
Advance intermediate guys rarely overheat their brakes.
Advance guys can and will overheat their brakes at will.

I once made a comment on another forum about how the tire noise and exhaust noise will go in and out of sync as you learn how to drive faster, and your hands will move faster and slower and then faster as you learn to drive faster, and while there are universal truths to driving fast, in order to go as fast as possible every single one of those universal truths will be broken.

Braking and heat management of the brakes is part of that learning process, IMO.
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