heel to toe

i don't drive a wrx, so i'm not sure of the pedal setup, but here's how i learned heal-toe braking. i started in situations where i didn't need extreme breaking, just to learn the motion. when entering a turn i just moved my foot half way between the brake and gas. as i applied the brake is rotated my foot to punch the gas during the down shifts. the motion was similar to when you twist your ankle.

picture:

gas and break pedal: my foot is the f's with the toes facing forward just like if i was driving normal

| | ----- --- | | | | | fffffff | --fffffff | fffffff-- fffffff fffffff

then after i leared how my engine reacts and how i have to punch the gas during downshifts, i switched to real heal toe braking.

this way, the brake is modulated with your heel and you punch the gas by bending your toes (ankle) down. it's a little harded because we all learn to drive by modulating our brake with out ankle, and in heel toe braking you need to modulate the brake with your bigger, less responsive leg muscles. again, learn this in situations where you really don't need to be braking or you may be in for a big surprise. it's real easy to lock the wheels when braking with your heel.

hth mike.

Yeah ... it's not so much 'heel and toe' but rather 'twist your ankle' !

jw milwaukee

Hi,

There are actually several techniques I've seen used. The one that works best for me is actually not a "true" heel and toe maneuver, but uses the side of the foot on the brake pedal, while using the other side on the gas. The foot is kind of "rolled" over toward the gas while maintaining pressure (via the leg) on the brake.

Rick

I'm not familiar with this heel to toe maneouver. Is this the one where the driver practising it has his brake light on constantly, so everyone following has to guess whether he's actually braking or just resting his foot?

No, that's just bad two foot drivers in automatics.

I found it more useful to learn how to use my left foot to brake since I never seemed to be in a situation where I needed to use the clutch at the same time as gas and brakes... your mileage may vary however...

That's a technique that can be used in a front-wheel drive car to create an oversteer effect - the rear wheels lock-up and slide to the outside. I mentioned this to a co-worker (who normally drove a Firebird) while he was driving a front-wheel drive car for the first time. He immediately tried it and we went into a 180-degree spin.

Regards, Tip

'Heel-toe' is a technique used by race car drivers to improve down shiftng. Since serious race cars don't have synchros in the tranny, the engine RPMs must be raised to match the tranny gears' speed. The technique is to depress the clutch and brake and modulate the accelerator simultaneously with the right foot. In rally cars the hand brake is used to initiate oversteer. Serious rally cars have a special hand brake lever where up activates one back wheel, while down activates the other one.