My Newbie Tips

[JeffR]

There are a lot of links to newbie tips here:

GPLEA (http://gplea.racesimcentral.com/)

but I have some from my own experienece as a current newbie:

Regarding car setups, increasing rear toe-in reduces the tendency of a car to spin. Allision Hine uses as little as .075 on her expert setups, but for newbies, .125 to .250 will be easier to drive. You can slowly reduce rear toe in as you get used to GPL.

Properly setup, GPL cars will scrub off speed in corners by just lifting the throttle, no braking required. This really became apparent to me while working on my 107% at Zandvoort. I used to brake until last possible moment, then turn in with moderate throttle. Now I get off the brake a bit sooner, with a bit more speed, and coast into a corner, applying the throttle as needed to maintain the proper line.

If you have trouble at some tracks keeping the front tires hot enough (a newbie problem), move the brake balance forwards to like 59% or 60%, and occasionally lockup the fronts while braking (in a straight line) to keep them toasty. At the start of a practice, or training, you can slowly drive the car into a wall, then spin the rear tires (use the clutch) for about 15 seconds or so to warm them up, then back up and take off, locking the fronts a few times to warm them up as well.

[DC_Tox]

Thanks Jeff! -^

You're a bit rude with your car to warm it up...:D I bet my wife wouldn't like to be treated the same way for the purpose ^_^

[WCvXd]

Locking up the brakes is not a good thing. It is really tricky to maintain control of the car while the brakes are locked, and its even more tricky to unlock them when you want to. Generally, if you lock the brakes, your car will just go straight, it wont allow you to turn in...bad bad bad. ;) So when you do lock them and you still want to be able to turn in, you can just lift off the brake to unlock, but lifting too much will just shoot you into the wall or run off or whatever is on the other side of the asphalt.

If you are just starting out, learn how to NOT lock up the brakes NOW!!! Because it is hard to change your braking habits once you start to get into your own style...trust me on this one, I still battle with locking up my brakes, and now it does nothing more but hurt me by overheating my tires.

[D_Man]

I agree with 100%. It is hard to learn not to lock-up the wheels and harder to unlearn if you are doing it for a while. I've added an extra spring to my brake lever to make it harder to lock up the wheels because it is a major problem of mine :( Even with a 52% brake balance :")