How to maximize your cooldown lap–and not screw up others’ flyers | Articles

Great piece, JG.  Thanks for writing it up so I didn’t have to — Tim suggested it to me too.  🙂

I take great pride in my ability to GTF out-of-the-way of other drivers on a heater.  As you say, dynamic situational awareness is key, as well as clear communication..  I love it when I get a post-session comment from another driver thanking me for not balking them.

Two things to add: emergency flashers are used in some series to indicate “I’m on a cool-down”.

And for a great example of how to do all of this effectively, watch F1 qually.

Oh and a fun anecdote: One time I caused a momentary yellow by a confused flagger who saw me move way off-line and slow way down to accommodate an on-coming driver’s pass on a short straight section. Flag came back in when he passed and I moved on.

And for a great example of how to do all of this effectively, watch F1 qually.
Just ignore anything Lance Stroll does.

J.G. Pasterjak said:

MOST North American clubs follow the rule of “flash on the side you want to be passed on,” but some clubs–and pretty much the entire rest of the world–use “flash the direction you will go to or stay on.” Make sure you clarify. 

I’m on record as being more of a fan of one of those methods than the other, but that’s a matter for a different column[…]

This got me curious.  Personally, it seems much more logical for me to indicate where I intend to be.  For example, if I’m driving on a straight, on the left side because that is the normal racing line, and a faster car approaches behind, I will use the left turn signal.  That indicates that I have seen him approaching, I will stay left, and he can move off the normal line to overtake safely.

I suppose some sort of culture will ultimately have to congeal as to what the proper methods are for running your cool-down lap, but ultimately this is really what the driver’s meetings are (at least in part) for.

The expected behavior for this particular race (point by rules, what’s allowed, where passing is allowed, etc) should always be covered and well established in the driver’s meeting.

I’d also like to encourage organizers to be empowered to stick to their guns in driver’s meetings.  I’ve been to so many where they go over the on track rules and point bys and then after they’re done someone pipes up and says something like “what about using our turn signals for passing?”. And then the organizers say “ok, sure, you can do that”. And then someone else pipes up and says “Well why can’t I use interpretive dance like I normally do?” and then they have to say ok to that as well.

It’s ok for you to say “no turn signals, no interpretive dance. We’re doing point bys today.”  Or turn signals only.  Or interpretive dance only. Or whatever.  But organizers, it’s ok for you to say “this is how I said we’re going to do it, and this is how you’re going to do it.” I will fully support whatever you decide.

Andy Hollis said:

Great piece, JG.  Thanks for writing it up so I didn’t have to — Tim suggested it to me too.  🙂

I love that we’re getting lobbied for content now

In reply to JG Pasterjak :

I originally had the idea after catching people during Targa at various tracks, so Andy was the first thought for an article since I knew he wrote for GRM.  When I saw you there at CMP it made sense to go straight to the source.  Color me satisfied as well.  I really hope this article helps. 

I think most people (and even myself sometimes) don’t finish the cool down lap quickly enough and it’s a bigger push to get back to speed for the corners so you don’t impede someone else’s lap.  The worst ones are when you’re doing 70% and the track isn’t conducive to looking further back so you get caught in a twisty section and have to trust the driver behind is going to read the body language to know you’re getting offline and braking for a reason.  Mentioning it at the drivers meeting would go a long way as there are only so many people I can talk to in grid.

Two other points:

1) if you go off line to cool-down, be prepared to have tires covered in goobers, clag, OPR, marbles or duck feathers.  You’re going to have to get those off during the next out lap.

2) If your car is somehow off-pace due to a malfunction, please treat the rest of the lap like a cool-down and stay out of the way.  

In reply to Andy Hollis :

The offline stuff has long been a concern of mine as the weekend goes into the second day.  My solution is the last few corners of the cool down to make sure I do some hard squiggles (preferably not on line, but also not still in the clag off line) and try to get it off as best I can.  The tires are already heat soaked so it’s not like you’re hurting them much, and it helps scrub speed so you use less brake.  Pending traffic of course.  If I still have FOD on the tire after that I try to do a scrub or two on the outlap with minimal energy going into the tire (low speed, crank the wheel, come right back on center after).  If I really REALLY care I’ll get the car in the air and scrape it off before the next session.

This is interesting.  I am so out of the loop on this.  When I was racing two things happened. The first was the don’t be a dick ruel. Kind of self explanatory. Things were settled between competitors in the pit. The second thing was at many tracks I went to there were roads and parking lots that many cars would come off track and go to cool down their car. I don’t remember there being much in the way of on track cooldown laps. 
 

Times have changed.  

Thank you for this.

My post from earlier this year about situational awareness and my aggression level was percipated by someone cruising back to the pits at 50% and not pointing us by.

This should be required reading.