please excuse if this topic has been done to death...i was just curious about the techniques used by modernday rallydrivers...have advanced electronics eased the need for specialist drivers tricks?

They still use the hand brake to cause the car to over steer. The modern electro-hydraulic differentials only improve the torque transfer from the slipping wheel to the nonslipping wheels. Check out www.rallycars.com (http://www.rallycars.com) this site rulez! It covers all of the modern technology in rally cars, like, electro-hydraulic diffs, ALS (Bang-Bang) and suspension. Hope this answers your question.

Steve

I almost forgot. Juha Kankkunen (if I remember right) is a big fan of left foot braking and I think he is one of the top rally drivers out there.

Steve

anyone that has a planetary gearbox and doesn't have to use the clutch would be a big fan of left-foot braking...

from what i've heard not many pro rally drivers use the handbrake much, if at all (and only then, on the tightest hairpins). From personal experience, its actually less natural to use the hand brake than using LFootBraking; LFB is much more efficient and less stress on our AWD drivetrains too. As far as double-duty for your left foot, once you get a feel for LFB and switching btwn cluth & brake you learn to downshift in prep for a turn then LFB through it. When you actually get it right, it feels soooo coolhttp://www.i-club.com/ubb-files/smilies/biggrin.gif

yeah,LFB takes alot of practice to get the feel for it to be effective...i guess it helps if your a farmers son from Finland...rallycars.com is a great source!...thanx for the link...i did'nt know how ALS worked until i started browsing around the i-club!...it's hard to find alot of detailed techspec on works rallycars,racecar engineering mag does some fine articles-but they're far and few inbetween...i ordered a coupla issues of Rallysport mag but was disappointed from lack of tech content-though its still pretty damn good...thanx everybody!

LFB is a great way to drive, though it definetly takes practice. in the words of Yoda "you must unlearn that which you have learned" the hardest part for me has obviously been downshifting. i talked to a DSM rally driver at C/T and he told me that he heel/toes and then slides his left foot on to the brake pedal as he removes the right. he said he had modified the brake pedal to aide with this. i have a hard time keeping good brake force doing this. instead, for downshifted turns, i just heel/toe and then trail brake really deep with my right foot. this works well to bring the back around. then counter steer and gas and the usual mumbo jumbo.

as far as the e-brake goes. yes, its only for the tighter sections. basically you are sliding your car to a near stop and then romping the gas. this is only faster than a traditional line if you are traveling really slow anyway and need alot of rotation. its not the kind of thing i use often (except for fun of course) but i did use it for a left 90 at a snow auto-x in IN. it was quite effective on that turn.

Remember that the rally cars have a switch on the handbrake level that they hit while using the handbrake to release the diff so it doesn't screw it up. We don't have that sort of technology on our cars so we can't do it regularly. I've never done it and I won't since I sort of like my diff...

As for LFB, all the drivers use this technic.

-myk