I completely agree - Lifting off the throttle abruptly, bit him in the a$$.

More importantly, that is not the time or place to exhibit that type of behavior... skilled or not.

 

I am a huge fan of modern DSC systems because they save a lot of people with questionable car-handling skills. However, when some of us "old folks" learned to drive, this wonderful technology didn't exist, even though we had access to high HP and torque in the muscle cars of the 60s, and they had skinny, brick-hard, bias-ply tires.

When it snowed, my dad put me in a flat, deserted parking lot in a big-block Ford V8, and he just told me to nail the throttle and learn how to keep it going relatively straight. I spent hours learning how to kick the rear end out and quickly recover without doing a 180.

At the Z06 performance schools I attended, we spent a considerable amount of time on the skid-pad doing the same thing. Shortly after my daughter got her license, I sent her to a school where she also got to practice on a skidpad. Everyone should do this.

That all being said, I leave DSC on at all times on the street.

 

You guys have it all wrong. The driver already commented, it was all about the wrong tire pressures...


In all fairness, in my younger years, I did something similarly stupid and caused much more damage. I learned from my mistakes so I'm sure he'll learn from this one.

 

I read the rather lengthy explanation. Frankly, I think he would've been better off just saying "Yeah, I know..... I f**ked up. It got away from me" and left it at that . It's something everyone can relate to when they take an honest look at themselves and, if nothing else, he'd get credit for being honest.



Amen


Cheers
DD

 

As memory serves, the M4 has a "burnout" feature?

 

Maybe at this particular C&C they need to review the type of coffee being sold. Decaf maybe...

 

I used to do the same thing. Whenever it snowed me and a friend would head to the parking lots. I was in a FWD manual though so learned a few different skills. Mostly how to make the most of the parking brake. I actually saved myself a couple times years later in some pretty heavy snow with what I learned. Plus it was fun as hell!

 

I have lost control for a brief period of time with the performance button engaged which activates TracDSC, one time it was on a rainy highway full of bends, and the second time it happened last night from a restaurant nearby to my house on an empty road. I am telling you people this car is very tail happy.

 

With the operative word being [you're] happy.

Do you have a V6 or 8?

 

I test drove both at the track on a Jaguar event, I opted for the V6S because the 8 was way beyond my level of driving skills.

 

Happened to me earlier today. My baby (R) showed me her "***" so to speak. Was doing about 50-55 on the highway & went to pass someone because they seemed to be lost or something & was all over the place. Hit the gas & whoa!....she fishtailed quite a bit before I got her under control. I've driven many fast cars & I consider myself an excellent driver, ( have a class "A") but damn this thing is powerful! It was also 20 degrees out so definitely no grip with the P Zeros.

 

Says right on the side of the tire(and I paraphrase) : "don't drive like it's your last day on earth under 50 degrees, otherwise it will be"

 

You'll need far better skills to drive the S fast than the R. To stay alive, you'll need more skill for the R.

 

I agree....cold weather plus P-zeros on the F-Type R is BIG trouble....frightened me. I've had to learn how to drive this car and looking forward to driving it in warm weather in a few months.

My XFR was far more predictable, controllable and safer....

The difference between both cars is astounding, exhilarating, and a little scary...

 

The dealer was telling me a story of a guy that took out an XKR a year or so ago and immediately turned off traction control explaining he knew what he was doing. Pulling out of the parking lot he spun the car and then drove back into the lot complaining the throttle was too sensitive. I've had a couple of tail happy moments myself in the last year. First was when I had the Viper out with my wife in the passenger seat (the club's viper) and a motorcycle tried to race me on a freeway onramp. I mashed the throttle the car went sideways and my wife did her rendition of cat with tail stepped on. A lovely tune but rather distracting. I didn't lift the car straightened out and the bike was a little dot in the rear view mirror. Fun but far from smart. With the F-Type leaving a cars and caffeine on a wet day I gave a little throttle on a sharp right. Left wheel spun, posi kicked in and broke the right wheel free and the car did a bit of a jig. It caught but I'm much more careful in the rain now. In the wet this thing (V8) will spin if you breath heavily though traction control has saved my bacon a few times.

 

Having done my first track day in the coupe I can vouch for the tail happy nature of the car. Not the fastest around a corner but the most fun

MC

2015 Jaguar F Type R coupe'
1996 Acura NSX
1995 Mazda miata

 

1) For any two interacting surfaces the static friction is 25 greater than sliding friction. The abruptness with which that friction transitions from one value to the other at the threshold of motion is in this case a function of both tire and suspension set-up. If your are spinning your tires or drifting violently, you are down 20% on traction. DON'T DO THAT. It's the slow way around. You want to be right at the breakaway point.
2) Fast relies on two major factors: 1) smoothness, and 2) consistency. Pedal mashing will upset the balance of the car and not give it (or you) time (fractions of a second) to settle into a new set of conditions. Nothing says you have to be slow when applying the gas or brakes. Just do it with progressive pressure over that fraction of a second, not with a sudden application of full force. You need to progressively transfer the weight to the tire you want to maintain the maximum traction.

The reason the Vettes and Porsche are faster around the track isn't just a few extra hundredths of a G, but because the cars are less forgiving. If those drivers drive over the limit, they're off the track, so they have to keep it on the fast side of the friction curve.

 

My parents like to point out that when they drove the family '67 Falcon through the Tioga Pass, the snowdrifts were higher than the car - in June.

This was a car that didn't have brakes as we currently understand them, yet was driven in all weathers across the continent.

While there are definitely some morons that various driving aids have saved, the rest of us appear to have lost the ability to a: Drive in adverse conditions, b: Judge when it's not safe to drive no matter how good we think we are.

 

When you say you hit the gas, did you punch it full throttle?

I have learned that when you have >500hp you learn to squeeze the throttle. If you are punching the throttle and not squeezing it then you will crash sooner or later.

 

That's true to a point. However, "Darwin's law" bit a lot people in those times before the advent of advanced safety devices that are saving some people today.

One need only look at the dramatic reduction in U.S. traffic accident fatalities in the 1960s vs. today to see that difference. In 1969 there were 26 deaths per 100K population vs. about 10 today.

List of motor vehicle deaths in U.S. by year - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia