DwD 0737: Proper ABS Usage on Track
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Since this is not the only fans version.
This one involves listener question.
Oh, well, you got it.
That is one of our favorite things.
I'm so happy and grateful that we have listeners and I'd love to hear what they have to say and ask us.
All right.
So I'm going to, I try to keep everybody because nobody gives permission to use their name.
So I have to come up with a name.
Let's see.
Codename, Khan.
Gotcha.
Codename, Khan.
Sounds like it might be an alleged Honda Challenge racer.
I don't know.
No, no, no, no.
It just came to me.
Anyway.
Long time listener, many time caller, Codename, Khan asked us, and I think I may know why he asked,
with an ABS system, how do we recommend it be used on track?
Do we threshold break just off the ABS?
Do we ride the ABS?
Is it a mix of the two?
Is it, you know, one size fits all?
Does it blend on, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
What do you think?
Did he ride any time?
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
No, I just got tired of reading it.
Yeah.
I think I've raced for so long in cars without ABS.
Most of my career has been without it.
So I feel like I have a pretty good sense of being able to break pretty close to the threshold
without locking the tire, because we would always end up like a flat spot in the tires
and working our way back from that.
We were trying to learn.
Yeah, flat spots.
They suck and they're expensive.
They do.
So, you know, in learning a new brake compound or something like that, that would kind of
inevitably be what we did if we found something that was good and grippy.
And so, it's hard.
I don't have a ton of experience with ABS, my own self, but I've raced a few BMWs that
have had it.
And in my experience, I know I'm getting everything out of the brakes when I brake,
and I feel it kind of tickling my foot.
Like I feel it kind of kind of piggyback off my foot.
I think ultimately, I mean, I've heard racers, I think I heard an interview with Randy
Popes years and years ago when he was speaking on like an IMSA broadcast or
something like that.
And, you know, he was addressing that question of like, you know, some people
say that it's a shortcut or cheating to rely on ABS, but he was saying, hey,
if your car's got it, and you know, it's good, it's a good factory system.
He said you can get an ABS and just stand on it, you know?
So, I think it depends on your approach, your comfort level with braking
and braking at extremes.
Like I said, I always feel like I've done my full job in braking.
If I waited the right amount of time, jumped on it hard enough and I feel
the little bit of feedback from the ABS.
I don't necessarily consciously roll, you know, roll a little bit of pressure
back to get out of the ABS.
I don't usually feel like it.
I feel like it's giving me a little treat.
Like, oh, you know what I mean?
I feel like I won a little award for getting everything out of the brakes,
but I also don't necessarily rely on it, but I think you can.
I think you can be somebody who just dives on the brakes at the right time
and you feel the ABS come on to stay on it until you're ready to,
you know, until the end of braking and you start to release the brakes
and turn in.
You sent me a very interesting video from, I believe it was Horsepower Academy.
I'd never seen that channel before, but it's an Australian channel
which also seems like it has a fair amount of resources.
I think it might be New Zealand.
They might get mad at us.
Oh, gosh, sorry.
One of those countries down that way.
But these guys are racing, I think, pretty hopped up.
So they are the 86s and it's going to have a fair amount of resources
and a pretty big channel in the following.
But this person got Bosch to donate them a $10,000,
you know, if you're Australian or a New Zealand dollar system
that was a motorsports, you know, tuned ABS system,
which I wasn't even aware that that was an option,
but this sounds like something that you can really dial into your grip level
and everything that your car has.
And the way he was talking was it really greatly reduced his braking distance.
Like I think he was saying like 17% or something like that, which is huge.
13% is ridiculous.
And that versus a standard ABS, not, you know, no ABS.
Yeah, so he kind of described how your stock ABS is really designed to help normal drivers
and a few panic stops that they may have in your life
and just kind of keep the wheel rolling.
That when this design for stopping with a race car driver's level of skill and grip
was an even better, more effective system.
Unfortunately, he's stopping distance, not noise, not anything else.
Yeah, right. Yeah.
Yeah, so it was a concern with some of these automotive manufacturers
to worry about like noise, vibration and harshness specifically.
It was interesting, though, that the guy set out to kind of deliver like,
you know, I've heard he can take two seconds off your lap time
and he goes, all right, we're going to see how much time he can take off
and then once it got down to it, you know, they blew a motor and testing
and they never quite had the equal track conditions.
I mean, there were never enough constants for him to say this versus this
and here's how much time it took off my lap, which also would be relative
because, you know, it's a track we would have known anyway.
But it was interesting.
He said, you know, he said having the Taylor made ABS system could really
knock a lot of distance out of braking zones, which I thought was pretty cool.
And I don't know how legal that is in various series that we would interact with.
I mean, I guess it wouldn't matter in a place, you know,
you can sneak it in the lemons or, you know, lucky dog or AER wouldn't care
if you have that on your car.
Great life gives a penalty for ABS,
but I don't think they have a bigger penalty for motorsports. Great.
So, oh, yeah, yeah, you know, if that's if that's the case,
I think you're really, you can really, you know, be that much of a.
I was going to say performance at our, it seems like it could be.
It should be.
Yeah.
But yeah, if it's just whether your car has it or whether that's the
super hot shit with that, that might be a pretty good leg up in some
competition ways.
Like I'd rather, I would rather do that.
I'd rather spend the money on that than spend the money on power.
Yeah.
You know, if I had something that could help me because I mean,
the more power you get, the less reliability you get.
It seems like something that could be even something that would make
you safer and faster.
There it is.
I was waiting for that word.
I'm never going to, I'm never going to have 10 K to throw it
through an ABS system, probably in my life, but I thought it was pretty
cool.
It was a pretty cool exercise that guy went through and he seemed as
methodical as he could be while also still being kind of a hair brain
racer.
Like we all are.
You know what I mean?
Do what you can.
What you got.
He is both of those to the extreme.
He's a pretty good guy.
I've been trying to get him on the podcast every time I do.
He's always like crazy busy.
So it's hard to remember that his off season is our on season
and his on season is our off season.
Yeah.
Equator thing.
Um, so, so my answer differs a little bit, not, not from yours.
It's mostly aligned.
Well, I give it, I'm mostly not giving an answer also.
Yeah.
Go ahead.
Well, I mean, there's always the racer who says, you know, the
ABS is slightly allowing a little bit and then less and then
a little bit and then less and I can get there close and then
hold it.
And, but there's a ton of skill involved in that.
And, and I watch, you know, high level racing, like way, way
better than we are.
And those guys still lock up.
Yeah.
F1 drivers lock up.
Yeah.
Everybody does.
So do I think the highest level race driver can break
better than ABS potentially maybe, but not always.
And not every single time.
Yeah.
They got another video made a great point.
It's like, yeah, you may be able to be such a highly tuned foot
that, you know, you can, you can break it to full limit of
adhesion without getting into the ABS.
But he goes, but you're going to have that, that moment of
inattention, that moment of, of, you know, not full
focus.
Yeah.
Traffic inattention.
Just tired.
Yeah.
You're going to, you might be able to nail it once in a
while or, or even fairly consistently, but yeah, you
can't do it as reliably as a system.
Yeah.
What happens when you roll across a little bit of, you
know, I know it's hard to imagine at the level that
we're at, but imagine a car in front of us left a little
bit of fluid that you don't see the ABS system.
No problem.
It's like, it's got what you got.
And that's all you got.
Whereas our foot doesn't know that until most likely
it's too late.
Yeah.
You mentioned the savings for tires.
That's huge.
Yeah.
For sure.
You know, I mean, you don't have to get the motorsports
grade.
There's a BMW, um, ABS system from their cars that
everybody's seen as we putting in everything and
it's all been worked out.
So I think it's MK 60.
That might not be the right acronym, but I've got
the documentation.
If I'm smart, I'll put it on the show notes.
But so you can put that in just about any car and
then you just have to have the right sensors and,
you know, integrate it.
And sometimes that's harder or easier in some cars
than others.
Yeah.
So the big one besides consistency, besides saving
money on the tires is the safety factor.
When you need to get on the brakes to avoid
someone or something of significance, I don't know
many drivers who are good enough to do exactly
threshold breaking in a panic slash fear slash
survival instinct event.
I want the ABS there.
Yeah.
And then the other thing that I have is especially
with our team, we bring a lot of new drivers in
and we have a lot of different levels of skill.
ABS kind of lowers the level of skill to a point
and allows my newer drivers to be a little safer
than if they don't have ABS or a little cheaper
because I still have round tires and not polygons.
Do you think many new drivers are really breaking
hard enough to get down to the ABS?
No, but when they panic, they do.
Yeah.
And they'll just stomp on the brake like when the car
goes to spin.
And then now you're spinning with a stationary
tire, flat spotting it, making the spin worse.
Right.
So I think if you give me building one ABS in a car
or not, I want it even if I'm good.
And do I think it's better to have ABS?
Obviously, I think I pretty much said that.
Now, having that been said, I don't threshold
brake at every time I hit the brake pedal.
So ABS is not going to be used 100%.
So every braking event is not an ABS if a braking event.
Sometimes it's a brush or a brake.
Sometimes it's a medium modulate to brake.
Sometimes there's lots of different things,
trail braking, whatever.
But when it's a threshold brake, I think,
even though I'm fairly good at this stuff
and you're better than I am, I think the ABS
is going to beat us lap after lap after lap after lap.
So if you can put it in your car or it's in your car, use it.
Yeah.
I mean, ultimately, it comes down to, I mean, it's a system.
It's a switch.
If you're on or off, I mean, I am not a system.
I'm not a switch.
I'd like to be a robot in the car,
a perfectly functioning robot.
I think if you got out there more like as much as you
wish you could, you'd be much better at it.
But I still think even then I think it would still be better.
Oh, yeah, for sure.
I mean, whether I'm well-practiced or not,
I'm still not going to be as good as a system.
It's so funny.
My kids keep asking me, like, is the air conditioning a robot?
Is so-and-so a robot?
And I'm pretty much like anything that's a switch
or a machine that's doing something for you, that's a robot.
It doesn't have to be the robot made from the jets
as to count as a robot.
So if I got a little robot, if I got a little robot,
he could stop better than I can.
Put that robot in the car and let it stop for you.
I think I'm not sure it's white at your son's age yet,
but if he's in the robots, the Transformer movies
will be amazing to him.
He's all over the Transformers.
He has like a million Transformers.
You can't step across his room without getting stabbed
and put by like 30 Transformers.
They're better than Legos, but not a lot better.
He's way smarter about doing other little moves
and like, check out this guy's person mode.
I'm like, I don't see how you did that.
You're dead on that.
And that's probably why he's asking about robots all the time
because he wants robots all around him.
Okay.
Well, if you watch Transformers 1, you can have him
watch the robots and you can watch Megan Fox.
It'll be fine.
Yeah, it sounds good.
All right.
I think we'd be the ABS into the ground.
Yeah.
I'd like to hear what some listeners have to say
about that, but I don't think it's a,
I definitely don't think it's like a cheat code
or anything but a positive if you have it in your car.
We just, we, we raised to me out of it.
It was like a kind of stripped down options, you know,
as a street car and didn't have it forever.
And then we had our, our E30 person who had it before us.
Ian had yet a joint doubt,
you want the ABS out of it for some reason
and we just never put one back.
So our old E30 didn't have it, you know,
and in both cars we definitely faced more expense
with flat spotted tires with drivers of levels,
different varying levels of skill and experience
and in me too.
I'm not perfect.
It's not like I'm never flat spotted a tire either, you know,
but the ABS would have served as well
in either of those vehicles too.
Did, did, did, did the breaking news, breaking news,
breaking news, listener feedback, listener feedback.
Somebody listened to one of our episodes.
Always good to know.
Yeah.
We were, we were doing the episode with Wacom Motorsports
talking about how silly it was that they did their
motor swap when that's not why they're slow.
And the motor swap is not going to help them with reliability.
And one of our listeners will go with code name Mario.
Okay.
Called in and said, I should have recorded it.
It was actually a phone.
He said that he decided to stop a project
to replace the engine in one of his cars
with a Hayabusa because he realized
that the amount of time and energy it was going to take
to save maybe a second or two per lap.
Let's just say the juice wasn't worth the squeeze.
Oh, yeah.
And so we saved him like a lot of time.
I'm not sure we saved him any money,
but we saved him a lot of time.
What was he going to put a booster into?
I believe it was a Miata.
I mean, what was alleged he going to put a booster into?
I would say his code name Miata is what I believe it was.
Man, I don't know.
I'd need something super light.
Even think about putting a booster motor in it.
I guess my Miata is light enough.
I'd need drugs to be able to do it because I know how hard it is
and we're not ready yet.
I think I used to read this British ultra track day magazine.
I'm talking about almost 20 years ago,
but it was like a special magazine.
I don't know why I'm writing a bar as a note playing it,
but I think I remember somebody had it like that.
What was that?
You said a bed and breakfast or what?
Bards and noble.
Oh, I remember those way back in the day.
They used to sell, what did they sell?
Things made out of paper.
Paper, like piles of paper though.
It was amazing.
But this magazine, I believe it had some nut job,
but it had me pull me set up with two boosts
and some kind of like tiny Renault hatch or something like that.
Just insane.
Amazing and terrible all at once.
Exactly.
I don't need a dime to me, but it was cool to look at.
Yeah, I mean, I am not taking anything away
from the mechanical wonders out there.
I am strongly supportive.
If that's your itch to scratch, go for it, man or lady.
Have a good time.
I'm not good at it.
I'm not terribly interested in it.
I'm at the, I'm at the end of the range where it's like the car
is a tool for me to use on track.
And if it looks nice, all the better, but just don't break.
But, you know, there's all, there's the legendary Balto.
Do you know about Balto?
Yeah, I do.
God, I tell you, just kill me before I'm going to think about
the snowmobile motor.
Me on it.
Sorry.
I said a bad word.
I've heard it before.
Usually it ends with a consonant.
No, a vowel.
Yeah, it's a vowel.
It ends with a vowel when I hear it.
But anyway.
All right.
So codename area.
Thanks for the feedback.
Codename con.
Hope that was what you needed.
Hope you use all your, all the ABS you can get.
That's right.
Everybody needs abs.
Yep, that's true.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you.
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About this episode
The discussion dives into how to best use ABS on the track, weighing threshold braking against relying on ABS intervention. The hosts share personal experiences, noting ABS can reduce tire wear, improve safety, and offer consistent braking performance, especially for less experienced drivers. They highlight a motorsports-tuned ABS system that significantly cuts braking distances, suggesting ABS can be a performance advantage rather than a crutch. The episode also touches on the balance between driver skill and technology, emphasizing ABS as a helpful tool rather than a cheat. Listener questions and feedback add depth to the conversation.
Original notes
DwD 0737: Proper ABS Usage on Track
We love listener questions and this week we were asked what our thoughts were on ABS usage on track. Do we just hammer the brake and let the system figure it out or try to stay just below engagement, etc. Ben had some great thoughts and Bill was there too.
Did we miss something? Please let us know at [email protected]
A link to the episode is: https://tinyurl.com/ABSonTrack
We hope you enjoy this episode!
If you would like to help grow our podcast and high-performance driving and racing:
You can subscribe to our podcast on the podcast provider of your choice, including the Apple podcast app, Google music, Amazon, YouTube, etc.
Also, if you could give our podcast a (5-star?) rating, that we would appreciate very much. Even better, a podcast review would help us to grow the passion and sport of high performance driving and we would appreciate it.
Best regards,
Vicki, Jennifer, Ben, Alan, Jeremy, and Bill
Hosts of the Garage Heroes in Training Podcast and Garage Heroes in Training racing team drivers
We hope you enjoy this episode!
If you would like to help grow our podcast and high-performance driving and racing:
You can subscribe to our podcast on the podcast provider of your choice, including the Apple podcast app, Google music, Amazon, YouTube, etc.
Also, if you could give our podcast a (5-star?) rating, that we would appreciate very much. Even better, a podcast review would help us to grow the passion and sport of high performance driving and we would appreciate it.
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