Do first read my comments on Heal and Toe. This section is about car control on a track day or at the autocross track.  What to try, and what not to try when in doubt of the next step. Ultimately, the comments made presume enough power on tap for the traction conditions. Just keep the revs above 3000 rpm on snow, 4000 in the wet and drive something above 200hp for dry conditions. It also presumes a 19mm front and 18 or 20mm rear bar on the early Impreza. To some of you this section may be old stuff, for others, it may keep you out of trouble.

The problem with performance driving is that it is very easy to push into the edges of your performance envelope. The survival plan is to make sure that your envelope is the one that came with the car you showed up in. With experience, you will be able to explore these limits with some degree of confidence. Let's say you are in a situation that calls on 8/10's of a really good driver's ability. In that area above 7/10's comes a region where incorrect actions quickly produce 11/10's situations and correct actions can quickly produce 5/10's conditions. The trick is to have a body of understanding that will tell you what to expect and what you can try to reduce the danger of going to 11/10ths of your ability. Yes, most people survive driving 11/10th of their ability, but often their cars do not.

OK, you have put on the brakes, it is time to start turning in and something tells you there is no way this corner is going to happen. At this moment, is it is time to bail and look for a safe run off or learn to pitch the car into the corner hard? What can happen with the inexperienced driver is their judgment is so poor that they have arrived at a corner much too fast and they are going to crash if they cannot find a safe run off area. It is your responsibility to have enough wits about you to avoid really big mistakes like this. Little ones this article can fix. Big ones, well... monkeys fall out of trees, too.

Usually, and as long as your judgment is not WAY off, you can get turned into the corner, but the car is simply going so fast that centrifugal force will not let it hold the arc of the required curve. Mental condition: "I am running wide". The idea is to do something to grind off speed. You know, slide it sideways right on the edge, until it slows enough to turn some more. That is the idea. Just mashing the brake may not be what is called for at that moment. Oddly and for the most part, actual traction conditions do not matter. Just relative entry speed matters. As long as you learn your car, you will find that it will slide in a corner. Making it not slide is fast, but making is slide will cover those times when you are a little bit off. That is what quick driving is all about. The fine edge.

Let's take the time to point out what happens when a car turns in. You will have to apply this framework to your level of experience. For some it will be a revelation, for others merely a confirmation of your experiences.

Come into a corner way too hot, well, Ronni Peterson himself could not help you. He was noted as perhaps the least smooth, great driver. He was (and I stress, was) capable of creating and recovering from impossible situations. Henri Tovinen was really good at this, maybe even better than Ronni, but unfortunately he is also was. The smoothest? - IMHO, the one truly smooth driver on a racetrack or a rally stage is Walter Röhl. He seldom created impossible situations and he is still alive. Note the difference. Think smoothness above all else. Always use fluid transitions, just like skiing, stay 30 meters ahead of your skis at all times, even when trying to recover from a situation. However, that being said, and to paraphrase Sterling Moss, it is acceptable form to go from a very ugly manageable situation, like drifting into a rock, to a bad, even unmanageable situation with any maneuver necessary, including losing complete control for the moment. With, of course, the firm expectation of regaining control as soon again as possible thereafter. If you only apply that rule once in your life, you and others may live to tell the tale.

Trying to drive with current technology Automatic transmissions will make most of what I'm going to talk about 'mission impossible'. One cannot finely modulate light throttle pedal induced deceleration/acceleration rates with automatics. These deceleration/acceleration inputs are the critical ones for turn-in because they control the weight transfer, front to back, and that controls whether the car is going to pay attention to your feet or your hands or both, or not at all.

What if it is so slippery that you can't get or use any weight transfer? Well, that is what the handbrake is for, but that is another story. First, find out what weight transfer is and how to use it. Smooth counts for a lot. Sometimes you have to learn to wait on the chassis to develop the next move for you. Remember that.

It is common racetrack stuff to use trailing throttle braking. You have already braked, if needed, for the corner, but you keep a strong into mild deceleration rate as you turn-in so that there is still weight transfer onto the front end. This gives you front tires turning power. The front tires have weight on them and the rears do not. I use this word 'rotate' a lot, well, with weight on the nose, that is what happens. The car rotates and begins its turn. You then go to neutral or accelerating throttle to take the weight off the nose. The car stops rotating. It is now turning. You may be surprised to notice that if you do it right, other than moving the wheel to a turning position your hands do not have to move all that much. The feet find the balance.

The best explanation I have heard for the concept is the G force circle. It is a very simple concept. The idea is to take the negative G of braking and smoothly (that word again!) translate it into of the lateral G of cornering, and then back around the circle into acceleration G. You are braking and your body is pulled forward, and you should feel that force vector smoothly rotate to your side and then into the seat back as you accelerate off the corner. Because maximum brake G is often greater than maximum lateral G you must unload the G of braking as you load up the lateral force, but this is intended to be a seamless transition. All the talk in the world will not find it for you, but when you find it, the lap times will tumble. At this point, if you have not read 'Heal and Toe', please do so.

Here is what you already know. You are in a turn and holding the wheel still and lift the throttle. Car tightens the line. Accelerate lightly, car straightens out a bit. But, accelerate too much? Rotate, slide wide or spin. Decelerate too much? Rotate, slide in or spin. Remember smoothness. The first time you pitch a car sideways, (it happens), it will where 8/10th meets 11/10ths. Remember! Above 7/10th of your car's ability to run hard in a corner comes the zone where you must make the correct control inputs or you can create a loss of control situation where a more experienced driver takes corners every day. Smooth, smooth, smooth. Anticipate the required corrective actions. Have a mental check list of what to try and what not to try. This is the education part. I still remember when my great uncle once told me that luck is where preparation meets opportunity. It is a time worn phrase. Get smooth, get timing, then get quick.

AWD cars have to be driven into corners in a very positive manner. Wait on it to rotate onto a heading toward the apex of the turn before transferring weight to the rear (i.e. getting on the gas, hard or otherwise). Once on the gas, AWD cars tend to not rotate very well at all. Trying more steering input at that point (while still on the gas) is not the answer and trying still more gas is not an answer for sure. Rather, a little lift with the gas yields a little tuck of the line, and then gather it up and take another bite at the corner with the gas. The steering wheel is just for getting into and out of the corner. The throttle and the brake balance the car and that dictates how much bite the front end has. If you ride with me, you will notice my hands do not move a lot or all that quickly, but if you watch my feet I am doing a virtual tap dance!

So the question is what causes the rotation and what is done to counter act it?

If the car is decelerating into the turn and you turn-in, and say because of the slow speed and/or slippery conditions, everything happens slowly, but the car rotates just the same. It is then possible to enter the curve and keep adding to the rotation by failing to apply neutral or slight throttle. By the time you notice and touch the throttle you may have crated a yaw (rotation) rate that requires A WHOLE LOT OF THROTTLE and some really quick unwinding of the wheel to stop it. OR a yaw rate will develop that will be unrecoverable. Yet, spinning the car up to that moment was an option, if you take the correct action. You have to read the road and the chassis. The trick is experience and anticipation. The irony is that at speed and under dry conditions, while things do happen much faster, they happen exactly the same way. Only, the faster you go, the more subtle events become. Experience and anticipation become ever more important. That is why "Get smooth, get timing, then get quick." is the golden rule.

With 4wd and a manual transmission, you have a very good change of catching the excessive yaw, or rate of rotation, by standing on the gas to some lesser or greater degree. Control and recovery are much better than rear drive cars or front drive cars. Certainly, if the rear end starts to feel loose and you are still decelerating or are only slightly accelerating and things at the base of you spine say, "we are still rotating", certainly always try the adding the gas before you try a lift off the gas.

Do not add too much power, but some times, lots more is better than not enough in order to quickly unload the front end. (That fore/aft balance thing, remember?) Usually getting sideways with power (the correct and usually smallish amount) will both stop the yaw rate and also begin to grind off speed at the same time. At that moment every thing comes into balance and you can drive away from the apex. Perhaps not THE PROPER apex, but the one you just created for yourself. It is not the fastest way through the corner, but perhaps the only way at that moment.

On the other hand, if you have entered the turn phase (after the turn-in process) and have a wheel spin condition or just plain old loss of grip, certainly you have to get traction before you can correct any other problem. Ease the gas a bit and steer to get balance, but don't pull the big lift of the gas either. You do not want to take that dynamic weight transfer ALL off the back end just yet. You are just searching for balance. You just want to gather the car back into control, hoping to drop a little speed at the same time. But trying to drop too much speed too fast will also spin you. Balance and smoothness, again, is everything in this situation.

I once hit a huge, long patch of rough ice in a big slow turn at about 30mph. It was over 25 years ago during a long Chicago winter. The 25-30 mph speed had been fine all over town on the snow packed roads, but it wasn't fine just now. The car entering the curve in front of me slid sideways and slowly went straight off the road. I could tell, as I tried an ease off the gas, that the car wanted to just spin or go straight in. So I hit the four-way flashers and just softly peddled the gas and nipped with the steering wheel until my car sat in the long arc it needed to finish the turn. I have turned in to serious 130mph corners since and have never forgotten the touch it took to stay in that long, shallow 30mph curve on ice.

As it happened, I had told myself immediately to get back on the gas, because a very soft lift off the gas was not working. Trying to slow down and trying to turn at the same time was not going to happen. I used a bit of throttle induced deceleration to start a rotation with also a bit of steering wheel and then a bit of gas to stop the rotation and small wheel corrections until the arc seemed right. It took about four or five soft cycles before the car was sitting in the turn. Once through the turn-in process and balanced, I was able to slow down and tighten the line. Slowing down first would not have worked.

What is the difference between this example and a 90mph corner? You do not get four or five soft cycles before the car is sitting in the turn. Time is short, you are sometimes lucky to get two tries. This is where "do it right the first time" is ever so true. Balance and smoothness are everything.