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SMOOTHNESS
With most things in life, you’ll be far more successful if you play it smooth, and the same holds true for performance driving where quick, jerky braking, steering, or accelerating can easily lead to a spin out. Though a MINI’s incredibly intelligent braking system with CBC and EBD will do everything in its power t prevent such a dramatic event from happening.
1. Friction Management – A critical lesson in Mastering the Asphalt Arts is friction and traction control. Think about a piece of paper (playing the role of your tires) sitting on a table with a glass of water (the road) on it. Yank the paper quickly and it will slip and slide right out. But pull the paper slowly, then gradually faster and the glass should stay on top, moving along as you pull. In both cases, the elements involved were the exact same. But the variable was the acceleration of the forces. As you can see, smooth and steady provides better traction, which translates into control and speed.
2. Weight Transfer – The second part of the friction/traction lesson is understanding weight transfer. The amount of traction you have at each wheel depends on how hard each tire is being pressed down onto the track. When you accelerate the weight in your vehicle transfers from the front to the back (think of someone popping a wheelie) which, in turn, means the traction will increase on back tires and decrease on your front tires. Braking moves the weight (and therefore the friction) from back to front. And when you corner, the weight will move from the tires on the inside to the tires on the outside turn. Internalize all of this, and you’ll soon have a great sense of how each of your actions affect the vehicle in different ways.
3. Smooth. Not Slow – Keep in mind, smooth doesn’t mean slow. You will still need to brake, steer, and accelerate quickly, but practice doing them with grace and precision.
4. Stay in Control – Remember that a big part of being smooth is staying in control. Don’t overstep the limits of your own driving ability or the handling abilities of the car. A MINI can do a lot of things, but overcoming the laws of physics isn’t one of them. So stay in command and enjoy yourself.
Courtesy of MINI USA
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