One of the most dangerous examples of this is when another car spins or leaves the track and rejoins unsafely. A great example can be found here, a Youtube clip from one of our Sim61 Writers. Fast forward to 1:14 to see how not to rejoin the racetrack.
Why Is It So Dangerous?
Motorsport is a high-speed, high-commitment and high-risk sport. When you’re driving at 110%, your concentration is focused purely on racing. Quite often, circuits will have blind corners or your vision will be obscured by another car. In some cases, it is therefore impossible to react to non-moving or slow-moving vehicles - on or off the circuit.
In the event of a spin or coming together with another car, more likely than not you will have left the track, either via the grass or on a tarmac runoff area. Your speed, therefore, will have dropped significantly, so rejoining the race track is incredibly unsafe due to the speed differential between other cars and yourself.
Much of this risk can be reduced through sensible and considered methods. After all, rejoining the circuit dangerously doesn’t just risk your own safety, but also the safety of innocent drivers on the circuit.
How to Crash Effectively/Safely
Believe it or not, there is a way you can spin and/or crash that is safer and more effective than others. There are three common scenarios when crashing; here’s how you can prevent making a bad situation worse:
A Spin (either driver error or forced into one)
Firstly, when a spin starts, there isn’t much you can do to save it. However, spins can be preempted and quite often can be low-speed incidents. When you’re going into a spin, the first thing you need to do is quickly note your surroundings. Where are the other cars? Is there any circuit furniture nearby (marshal posts, tyre walls, barriers, etc)? You can now make a solid attempt at avoiding those things by keeping hold of the steering wheel and adjusting your path. Also make a conscious effort to end the spin with the car facing in the correct direction, as this makes rejoining the circuit quicker and easier.
Locking the brakes while spinning may also prevent the spin from getting worse. It’ll flat-spot your tyres but save your car from more potential damage. In front-wheel-drive cars, it may be possible to prevent a spin altogether by flooring the throttle (shifting down will help with this) while countersteering. This will help straighten the car out.
Running Wide
When you are pushing the car for a fast lap, you may find yourself overdriving and running wide. You can usually get away with it on an asphalt run-off area, but on grass and gravel it is much more difficult. In the event of running wide onto grass or gravel, you need to have a neutral grip on the steering wheel. This is to stop the car from over-rotating. The grip levels are significantly reduced on anything other than asphalt, so smaller inputs to the steering wheel have a larger effect.
When you run onto grass or gravel it is also important to lift off the pedals until you feel the grip come back to you. Staying flat on the throttle or stamping on the brakes makes it more likely you’ll lose control of the car.
Crashing
Every racing driver has crashed at some point, so understanding how to make motorsport as safe as possible is incredibly important. In most cases, crashes will cause some damage to your car, but it’s crucial that if it still has drive you move to an appropriately safe location. This will enable you to move off the racing line and out of harm’s way as quickly as possible. Even if the car is missing a wheel, you should make every effort to keep the car moving. However, if you are only able to crawl at a snail’s pace, then do so off-track when and where possible.
How to Re-join Effectively and Safely
In all circumstances, when you have left the race circuit the aim is always to rejoin the track as safely and quickly as possible.
When rejoining the track, you first need to look out for oncoming traffic - you do not want to be rejoining in front of fast-moving cars. The next step is to regain some momentum to help match the pace of traffic. For example, if you are on an asphalt run-off area use as much of it as possible to regain speed before rejoining. If on grass or gravel, this will likely not be possible.
The next step is to return to the race track on a section off the racing line. This is the most important step. Use a part of the race track that is least likely to have fast-moving traffic - this could be on the far edges of the circuit if needed. Another thing to consider is that the car needs to be facing the direction of the traffic. Do not re-join at a right angle for example, as you’ll be unsighted and expose a larger area of your car to danger. The final step is to speed up as quickly as possible and filter back into the traffic where appropriate.
Patience is a necessary skill to have when rejoining the circuit. Find an appropriate space on the track and filter back in when you are up to speed.
Written by the teams at trophi.ai and Driver 61.
This is an empty sticky block that can be used to prompt users to sign up