Team-BHP (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/)

-   Street Experiences (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/street-experiences/)

-   -   My sister's got Rally Car driver genes! (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/street-experiences/19989-my-sisters-got-rally-car-driver-genes-4.html)

Thanks..I needed it.
Well..I got my wife to make the changes,and now she doesn't use her left foot for braking.
:Cheering: Thank God for small mercies.

Of course, it does. The reason you use the same leg is so that
you have to remove your leg from the accelerator in order to brake.
Otherwise, you may brake while pressing the acc & it won't be
effective.
It doesn't matter if the car is auto or stick, acc & brake both have to
be same foot.

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha .. Superavi .. that was absolutely hilarious. A big thumbs up to your cool sis. I think some people are missing the point of his post. His title clearly shows he's trying to highlight the lighter side of what happened. Drive on sis .. drive on .....

LFB is sometimes useful on the track as well while racing road cars, which have less rigidity than a purpose built race car (read single seaters). While braking hard, the car undergoes load transfer (variation in the load distributed between the front and rear tires) hence result in undesired/unrequired reduction of speed/control into a corner. Ideally the front and the rear tires should have equal load, which will result in better traction.

If you have watched Best Motoring videos (a Japanese video magazine) where they test road cars almost exclusively on tracks (apart from touges sometimes); you will see these drivers tapping the brake with the left foot before actually braking and downshifting into a corner. This manoeuver seems to prepare the car for the upcoming hard braking and downshifting and hence makes the load transfer more neutral (without excess load on either front or the rear tires).

You almost make it sound as though these Jap racing cars have thinking module inside, and they get ready for hard braking if you tap the brake with your (left) foot.

I never mentioned that they exclusively test Japanase cars; they also get some German, Italian and even American cars on the track. All the road testers are Japanese though. It seems to work with all cars whether Jap or not. The inherent ability of a road car to dive under braking is due to the excessive load transfer to the front wheels. The car's load transfer becomes less of a dramatic affair as a result of some well timed brake taps with the left foot before the car undergoes hard braking and downshifting. Thats all I wanted to convey.

Hope it is clear this time around. Comments/Edits are welcome. :)

Need to try it out one of these days. What we had heard was, and it applies to power brakes, that before braking if you slightly press the brake pedal and release it couple of times, the pressure builds up and the brakes become more effective since there is a perceptible lag between braking and pressing the brake pedal..

To test this, one needs a race track; where there is a long straight and speeds at upto 140-160 clicks ending in a corner which warrants hard braking and simultaneous multiple downshifts. It is only in such a scenario that one would feel the perceptible effects of load transfer and LFB leading to a much more neutral approach while entering a corner. Normal road driving and LFB would lead to nothing but a sudden deacceleration (since the speeds are nowhere close to speeds on track straights) and a risk of being rear-ended by the traffic behind. :)

Also what type of brakes are you exactly referring to when you say "power brakes"?

Guys, Today while i was driving my swift, i was trying braking with left foot(Rally istyle :) ). It was fun to try out this new thing. Had made sure that there wasnt much of traffic on road because in case the braking went wrong then it would have been a mess.

What I observed about braking with left foot is that it helps in cornering, when you want to keep up the speed. But in straight lanes, it wasnt that of a difference.

Was lucky enough couple of times not to have any vehicle behind me, as i braked really hard when trying to stop the car.

Anyone who has tried this please share your experience.

Left foot braking helps while cornering , its main purpose is have the right foot active for immediate throttle response after exiting the corner.

Just be careful while trying this out,make sure you try these in empty roads with no traffic...since the left foot isn't used for braking,initially u might tend to press it a little bit harder....!

i have actually set up my brake and accelerator pedal quite close ,so i can do heel-toe ...! i have also tried left foot braking ,but i don't see a day to day use,its only useful while rallyin.

tried braking using the left foot. would have been thrown out of the car if I hadnt been wearing seatbelts - gotta thank my car's stiff clutch for making my left foot behave like that !