Quote:
Originally Posted by csmith12
4. The general comment above assumes the bike or traction is greater than the rider - During a track day event, one should be riding somewhere in the neighborhood of 85% ability, skill, available traction. Therefore, making a longitude move while altering your line works because you have a purposely built in buffer. During a race and riding at 100% or very near, this buffer may not be there and you may find yourself having an agricultural experience.
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We're not quite talking about exact same thing, I'll clarify. I'm talking about a situation where you're trying to overtake/pass someone using a corner to your advantage. First, if you can pass them, that means:
1. you're faster than them at your 100% pace AND
2. if you're going at their pace, you're at less than 100% of your pace, say... 90-95%
Let's take a specific example to illustrate this. Say I'm dueling with a 600 at a tight track... Laguna Seca. Only one long straight and rest is cornering with not much rest in between. Due to their faster straightaway speed, they get away, 50-100ft ahead down the straight. I have superior braking and cornering speeds....
1. I catch them under braking and make up gap... but... can't quite get a wheel ahead to pass before corner... then
2. I have to fall in behind them in corner and go around it at sub-maximum speed 80%. They go around @ 50mph, I can go 60mph.
So... result is I end up braking early at 95% so I fall in behind them entering corner rather than 100% and overlapping their rear wheel. And I go around the corner at 80% speed behind them. Exiting corner, they leave me behind and pull 50-100ft ahead. I know from lap-timers that I'm 0.5s faster than them per lap if we each had our own clear track.
To get around them, I need to change
where I'm riding at 80-95%. Rather than doing it under braking and cornering, I shift that sub-maximum zone to just before the braking-marker:
1. Entering the braking-zone, I "coast" 2-seconds at 95% throttle, but not on brakes yet, to leave a 20-30ft gap between me and the 600 target
2. I do my regular 100% braking effort at usual brake-marker and close gap to 15-20ft
3. Entering corner, I take it at my regular 100% speed 60mph, a full 10mph faster than their 50mph cornering-speed
4. After a slightly-late apex, I start to straight-up and increase throttle. Being a 250, I'm at full-throttle somewhere after apex, but before complete end of corner
5. by the "exit" of corner, I'm almost fully-upright, 100% throttle and about to rear-end the 600 @ 70mph. This is the "exit" I'm talking about earlier, not tightening up line AT apex or after apex, but really just 10-20ft before straightaway.
6. Just as I'm about to rear-end the 600 in last 10-20ft of corner, I continue my cornering to get inside of them. Note that I'm NOT increasing lean to make a tighter line, I'm just not straightening up all the way right away.
7. I'm 15mph faster than them at this point and pass them on inside, both of us pretty much fully upright when pass happens. This extra 15mph helps me hold them off down the straight. They may or may not catch and pass me to next corner. And the process repeats itself.
I find my fastest laps are never in races due to having to take non-optimum lines to deal with other racers. The goal of the race is to finish
ahead of other riders, not necessarily to put in fastest lap-times. Due to the nature of the interactions and zig-zags needed to pass people, your lap-times can
never be as fast as if you're doing qualifying laps by yourself. AND if you're in the lead, you may not be going as fast as solo qualifying either. That's because you have to protect your inside lines under braking from drafting-mofos, thus taking you off the fastest lines around corners anyway.