Understeer, Oversteer, Car Control and Other Racing Jargon by Drivin' Ivan

Some of you, who like me are obsessed with fast cars, might be familiar with many of the common terms discussed when speaking about driving a car around a track as fast as possible.  I’m going to try to help those of you who aren’t as familiar with these terms understand what the rest of us are talking about.

The fastest way around a corner is to do your braking before entering the turn, and then accelerating through the turn while clipping the apex and exiting with as much speed as possible getting you to the next turn as quickly as possible.  There are many different techniques for making this happen.  Let’s start with understeer and over steer.

If you enter a turn with too much speed and you are turning the steering wheel but still heading straight, than you are experiencing understeer.   Hopefully instead of hitting the guardrail or sliding off the track into some other obstacle, you can correct the problem.

What to do when experiencing understeer depends on what sort of car you are driving.  If you happen to be in a front engined, front wheel drive car then you will want to lift off of the throttle (accelerator) and continue turning which should get the back end to slide around and help you turn a bit more.  This technique works the same in a rear engined, rear wheel drive car as well. 

This is why you hear stories of Porsche 911 drivers going for a spin if they enter a turn to fast.  They of course lift off of the throttle and in turn ignite the sort of pendulum / hammer effect that takes them for a spin. 

If faced with heavy understeer in a front engined rear wheel drive car such as a Corvette, you should point the wheels where you would like to go, and step on the throttle.  If you have enough power, the rear wheels will slide the car around helping you to power steer your way around the turn. 

If you are oversteering through a turn, then you are about to spin, and you must correct it by steering into the skid (turning the way the back end is sliding) and or lifting off of the throttle in a rear wheel drive front engine car.  In the front engine front drive car or rear engine rear wheel drive car you might try steering and accelerating towards where you’d like the car to be going.

It sounds simple but in any panic situation in a car, the best way to avoid an accident is to simply look up the road away from the obstacle.  Don’t look at the tree that you think you might hit, look up the road away from the tree!

Ideally when you are accelerating through a turn you will not have to do much correcting of under or oversteer in a balanced car.   This is why many sports cars are designed with a mid-engine layout. 

50 / 50 weight distribution helps to make a car that is neutral and predictable while quickly navigating turns.  Also many front engine cars like the Ferrari 612 and 599 are now designed with the engine pushed as far towards the middle as possible thus creating better weight distribution to aid handling. 

Double clutching and heel and toeing are shifting techniques used by racing drivers to aid in smooth down shifting and clutch and engine preservation.   Double clutching is a technique used in manual transmission cars, motorcycles, and trucks.  Newer manual transmission cars have synchronized gears and therefore double clutching is not necessary.

To double clutch and down shift you apply the clutch while shifting out of a gear.  Next you press the gas while in neutral to increase the engine revs and then clutch again, and down shift to the lower gear matching the revs to minimize undue stress on the transmission and engine.

To double clutch and up shift you follow the same technique, but without pressing the gas.  While in neutral you let the engine revolutions decrease and then smoothly clutch in and shift up to the next gear smoothly. 

Heel and towing is a throttle blipping technique used by racing drivers to match revs while downshifting.  Clutchless F1 style shifting cars like the Lamborghini Gallardo actually perform this technique for you in a fraction of a second.  They are much faster than the best drivers and therefore we are seeing more and more automatic, or semi-automatic transmissions in high end sports cars. 

Hopefully these techniques will help you to become a better driver.  A good way to safely practice these techniques and experience under and oversteer for yourself is at your local track day.   Sign up at a track near you and you will be able to hone your skills and familiarize yourself with your cars handling characteristics.  It’s really incredibly fun and you’ll be glad you did it!