SlowTeg

As Robrob said, karting is also a great tool for practicing driving/countersteering. Since the brakes are in the rear, trail braking is much more "interesting" with karts, and you have to countersteer quite a bit (the brakes are much more of an on/off switch sometimes as well).

CKit

And I didn't take the "slide" part literally. A perfect four wheel minor drift is great.

But usually in this situation there's a big angular input made early and the driver will notice there's tire noise and slide, but the car is already rotating past the limit of grip and if a big momentum-y input that got it out of shape there's no amount of counter steering that's going to save it if you're already out of grip (see pro-racers spin video in the rain for exaggerated example).

Root cause analysis is the biggest thing here. Some pre-spins are not salvageable, even with quick hands if the initial error was too egregious.

Post vids and we can stop speculating and give more specific advice.

boyguan

I'll try to post a vid tonight

Dead Serious

I run r888 on stock ap2v1 and love the connected feeling I have with the surface. R888 helped me get some confidence when I was asking questions like yours. I guess that doesn't sound so helpful with its lack of facts, data, or technique but im probably not qualified to give technique advise. Anyway, when I upgraded to the R888 i feel like it accelerated my learning of car control because the performance was consistent from the beginning of the session to the end. This is my +1 for a more track oriented tire vs high performance summer.

gptoyz

I'm a fan of learning at lower safer limits. When my friend wanted to get faster at driving her AP2, I started by demodding her car, putting her back to stock tire size and taking variables out of the equations. Less options means you have to drive the car and deal with it. I think the oem sized 215/245 RS3 is a great combination. I probably wouldn't recommend a non 140 tire as for an UHP tire, i.e. hankook v12 evo when it gets greasy that's it, it just can't sustain the abuse. The RS3 is a great tire because you can abuse it repeatedly (when it starts to slide) then bring it back to shape (tire cools down) and you can go at it again and again.

I've never been a fan of autocross as a means of improving driver skill, there are just too many variables that constantly change (track grip/condition, tire temp, brake temp, course gets mangled) and it's ridiculously abusive on the vehicle.

Oh if you have a definitively fast friend that you trust, let them drive your car to set a bench mark for you.

Ride along with more advanced drivers

Datalog/videolog via harry's lap timer or similar so that you can review and study.

Gokart, shifter kart or na Miata - those are all such rudimentary 4 wheel racers that you have to learn weight transfer for rotation, threshold braking, trail breaking, etc.

SlowTeg

This doesn't make any sense to me. Auto-x is the perfect example of learning the car at lower limits. Track conditions change as well on a road course. Also, I never understood the logic of people that said auto-x is as hard on cars as a road course. How is an auto-x harder on your car than a road course? Auto-xing the tires may barely get upto temp, brakes don't get hot, oil temp stays low, coolant temps aren't stressed. Yes there are a lot of quick transitions and jostling the car around but overall ~1-2min hard run is nothing compared to ~25 mins beating on your car.

IntegraR0064

Exactly. Also very little shifting is much easier on your transmission. Not to mention the obvious of "going off" - a cone mark vs anywhere from a little to a lot of damage.

AutoX conditions are much more consistent, since you come back and everything cools down again especially if spraying your tires.

robrob

As an instructor I noticed novices with autocross experience usually got up to speed much quicker on the track. I have only autocrossed one time but it was an exercise in car control.

boyguan

Auto x is good at learning car control but it eats up tires more than track. The surface conditions are much harsher.

I still spin when I auto x but I think its cause I just want to practice sliding versus getting a good lap time

IntegraR0064

That completely depends on your local site. We have some that are as smooth as any track, and some more like what you're describing.