Fast cornering

[Tonsko]

Hi All,

In my old Mk2 G60, I got into the old heel-toe game, you know the score, keeping the revs up as you downshift to hit the powerband to kick out of the corners faster!

I'd forgotten all about it, and was trying to do this last night on the .:R - except it's a lot tougher 'cos the accelerator is a lot lower than the brake pedal. Does anyone do this regularly in their .:R, if so what's the easiest way of doing it? Have you found you have to contort your leg horribly to get the action right?

[Dan32]

I've been doing this since I first passed my test some 17 years ago (VW Beetle as 1st car - would stall when cold as you approached junctions etc, so had to learn heel and toe to keep it running!). For me its more the ball of my foot I'm using for both brake and throttle with most of my foot on brake and then rolling my foot slightly to get to throttle. Hard to explain really. I'll go and have a play and try and take some mental notes and maybe add something later!

[Tonsko]

Cool man. Maybe I need to adjust my driving position to enable my foot to reach the accelerator; it just seems a lot trickier as the loud pedal is about an inch lower than the brake.

[Mook]

Because the 6 speed box gives you a range of 1,000 rpm between gears, you shouldn't need to do this - if you're between 4,000 and 6,000 rpm - you're right in the power band

[R32Ash]

I heel-and-toe in the R quite regularly; I find the pedals to be pretty well set up for it, myself.

My own technique involves the use of the side of my foot to 'blip' the throttle rather than the heel, but I'm another ex G60 man (Rallye SE before the R32) and to be honest I found h&t much more difficult in that, so I'd imagine it's your technique that's not suiting the R perhaps? .

Keep at it - I'm sure it's just a matter of getting used to the layout.

[Gti_Fly]

the pedals aren't situated in a good way thats for sure. you can use your ball on the brake, and right side (toes) of the foot to control the throttle, as this means less stressful angle on your ankle/leg

BUT - be warned, the R32 pedals are god damnned slippery as they are mostly metal - so PLEASE don't slip your foot and crash!!

Be warned!

[Mook]

[ QUOTE ]

you can use your ball on the brake

[/ QUOTE ]

Feckin weird way to drive

[BrakeSnake]

Well, i use the heel toe all the time on my mk V, and it works perfectly... really easy to do as well with the flat pedal design once you get the hang of it, especially nice with the downshift blips from the milltek!

[Ian_G]

Works with the DSG as well, gives an almost instantaneous transfer from brake to throttle (obviously you don't need to blip for downchanges).

Very easy to do although I use my heel on the brake and toe on the throttle. Not too convinced on this using your ball on the brake technique.

[ChrisBuer]

Let’s see if I can give some input here. Not to go into too much detail but I’ve been doing quite a bit of advanced driving + track driving and limit handling for a number of years now. I have an assessment drive for one of the top driving clubs in the country in the next couple of weeks so hopefully I’m qualified to give some feedback.

Firstly, this post is entitled fast cornering, however heal and toe is part of the method in cornering more quickly.

The methods for road and track are very different, but I’ll not going into detail on that now. Sufficed to say that on the road in general, you drive to the limit point of the corner and “blend with the bend”. That is to match speed with vision so that you can always stop in the distance you can see to be clear. The reason being is that you could hammer around a corner to find a horse, or a car broken down, etc.

Anyway, back on the original question. On the track I use heal and toe a lot for a number of reasons.

1. It allows me to brake later and blend my gear change and braking together

2. It smoothes out the gear change by matching engine revs to engine speed

3. In more powerful cars (like Porsche GT3’s) it is easily to lock the rear wheels if you don’t blend the revs with the engine speed. This method is called shift locking and is used by drifters to get the rear end of the car to step out.

When I heal and toe, I use the ball of my foot on the brake and use the side of my foot to roll over onto the throttle. You can either blip the throttle as you release the clutch, or you can use what they call a sustained revs technique where you hold the revs as you blend the clutch back in. Both methods work well and it depends on which method you feel most comfortable with.

One final thing I would say is that don’t get confused with the word “Heal and Toe” meaning that you need to use your heal and toe. Years ago, pedals were set further apart meaning that to perform this move, you’re heal would have to be placed on the throttle and you toe on the brake. Nowadays, you can use the method I’ve mentioned above by using the ball of your right foot on the brake and the side of your right foot (near your little toe) to roll over and blip the throttle.

I notice also that you say that your accelerator is a lot lower than your brake pedal? Well heal and toe is only really effective when you’re braking fairly hard, so that the brake gets depressed down to the level of the accelerator.

I’m happy to discuss how you attack a corner on the track. To be quick you need to know where to go slowly. More often than not, the slower you do something, the quicker you are. There are many methods to set the car up which include;

- Hinting to the steering (i.e. waking up the tyres and setting the car before turning in)

- Applying a small amount of throttle on the bend to manage the weight transfer of the car

- Left foot braking – great for controlling understeer and managing the weight shift of the car

- Trail braking – basically braking in the bend to shift the weight onto the front wheels affording more grip and allowing the rear end to go light, then catching the rear on the apex.

Sorry, I’ve gone off on a bit of a tangent but hope this helps!

Chris.

[ChrisBuer]

..oh and this is how it's done properly (plus a little bit of left foot braking )

[Tonsko]

Cheers guys - your point about the brake pedal being lower while braking is a good one! One thing I am a bit wary about is my foot slipping off the brake while applying throttle and losing braking entirely and ploughing into the nearest object The point about driving to line of sight on a public road is a good one too, one that I had forgotten about.

Cheers for your input

[AGK512]

Not togo into too much detail Great post

[ QUOTE ]

One final thing I would say is that don’t get confused with the word “Heal and Toe” meaning that you need to use your heal and toe. Years ago, pedals were set further apart meaning that to perform this move, you’re heal would have to be placed on the throttle and you toe on the brake.

[/ QUOTE ]

In those days though the accelerator pedal was in the middle and the brake on the right .... some days I swear BMW hasn't swaped 'em yet