Customer Reviews

Going Faster! Mastering the Art of Race Driving

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I race in AutoX and roadracing, and recently became an instructor in a racing license course. I bought and read several books about the subject of auto racing. The 'Drive Faster' book is absolutely excellent and definitely the most thorough read available on how to drive a racecar. It has the background, the theoretic part, the science part, the diagrams and is full of useful and detailed pictures. It's nicely laid out and written in a no-nonsense language. Every chapter is finished with a good conclusions part. As a bonus, there are separate pieces of useful and funny 'war story' experiences of several successful drivers, related to the subject of the chapter.

Drive Faster covers the subject of race driving from the ground up. I would say it's a big mistake not to buy this book if you race cars. I've gone back to read and re-read chapters in this book and everytime I start to think and find something to apply on the track. Best and funniest result was finding 0.5 sec in an AutoX by saying loud to myself "feeding, feeding" like Danny Sullivan suggests in one of his war stories... Best money/performance spent on the car so far. If this sounds like a commercial, so be it. The bottom line is that, unless you're Michael Schumacher, it makes an enourmous amount of sense to spend $100 on a couple on books to unlock driver performance rather than buying that nice anodized alloy performance item to gain laptime... Top marks!

I couldn't "swallow" this book at once, it took me three sessions during a couple of months to figure out that amongst the good books on motor sports this one serves the role of a guidebook, of a manual of a beginning competition driver, best of all.

What do I mean by "good books"? Competition Driving by Alain Prost, The Technique of Motor Racing by Piero Taruffi, Driving in Competition by Alan Johnson, Sports Car and Competition Driving by Paul Frere, to name a few. All of them are wise and not overcomplicated, and have no buzz about the success stories of champions, the buzz which is useless for the reader interested in driving techniques.

I've found out that the definition of oversteer and understeer here is the most complete and most correct amongst the books that I've listed, yet without the formulas that may frighten somebody. It took the author 17 pages full of illustrations to explain these modes of car behaviour. This is the first big advantage of this book.

Another major advantage of this book is the serious attention of the author to the role of hardware, which is sometimes overlooked by the other writers, who claim that hardware is important, but do not write in-depth chapters about it. The book has may illustrations and explanations how the center of gravity, wheel base, and the suspension elements like springs, shock absorbers and the roll bars affect longitudal and lateral load transfer speed and motion, which occurs during acceleration, braking and cornering; how various adjustment affect the weight applied to each of the wheels, and how this affects car behaviour. He is the only author to mention the effect of download on coefficient of friction of the wheel, and why the total friction of the wheels is at its highest level when the download on each wheel is the same, i.e. the car is balanced. The other writers in this case did only mention that to keep the car balanced is important without a sound explanation.

The book has an appendix with the listing of racing resources, it has a good bibliography and a useful glossary and an index.

I highly recommend this book, although sometimes I had a feeling that more humour and liveliness would have made it even better. Please also consider buying "Skip Barber - Going Faster" DVD in addition to this book.

The term Ruthian, in honor of Babe Ruth, is a metaphor frequently used in sports to describe an accomplishment that doesn't merely break a record but so far exceeds anything that occurred previously that it deserves this ultimate superlative. On the subject of learning how to drive a race car, Carl Lopez' book, "Going Faster" is Ruthian. A road-racing fan for many years, I had always wanted to take up amateur, SCCA racing but had difficulty developing a budget for it. Now that I can afford it, I wanted to find a way to make up for lost time in learning driving techniques. Although a lot of progressive, in-car experience is a necessity, Going Faster prepares you for learning by its incredible detail and brilliant illustrations, presented in down to earth fashion, used to describe virtually every aspect of the interaction of vehicle dynamics, race course variation, and proper driver reaction. If you have a library of other books on the subject, donate them to a thrift store and buy this book. Even if you never race, reading a book that covers a subject brilliantly is a pleasure.

For most people performance is something you read on the tach. If you are among those few people who think that a Fiat 500 at 99,995% of its potential is going faster than a McLaren F1 at 98% of its potential, then you cannot miss this book, unless you've already won a world championship... maybe.

Pros:
1) it assumes you initially know nothing. And for most of us, even car fanatics, it is damn true. Actually 99.99999% of people don't know the difference between oversteer and understeer! the explanation given by most websites and magazines is absolutely incomplete and useless for a pilot. Did you know that a car whose rear is visibly leaning outside the trajectory is *NOT* necessarily oversteering? (actually it can be understeering!)
2) this books covers every possible aspect of racing, including insights in the world of racing, psychological aspects, preparation for the race, chassis setup, the role of hardware, limiting the damage in case of accidents and spins etc.
3) it's far from the useless belief that car control is a skill you're born with. It's a brutal demystification of the reality of racing
4) it's full of anecdotes and pearls of wisdom from the Skip Barber Racing School Instructors, which makes it more complete and more enjoyable to read. It's recommended even for the general motorsport enthusiast, and at the same time for the professional pilots, I didn't think this was possible...
5) it comes from multiple inputs. Far from the inevitably distorted theories of individuals, this book is very objective about where lap time comes from. If you talk to individual pilots, they tend to emphasize the importance of the aspect of racing which is most challenging for THEM, instead of emphasizing the objective importance of, say, higher corner exit speed vs. shorter braking distance. I heard more than one real pilot stressing the primary importance of perfect threshold braking... read this book and you will find out that for a good percentage of corners you DON'T use threshold braking (in order to speed up the turn-in phase) unlike everyone thinks, and anyway optimized braking zones are the least important thing for lap time. It goes to the extent of showing the output of data acquisition monitors of professional racers and apprentices, to point out the mistakes and to QUANTIFY them. I don't think other books do this. Every line of text made me discover new things.
6) other qualities that I cannot think about right now :-)

Cons:

1) for the most technically oriented, of course this book won't answer all the questions (it isn't an encyclopedy). For instance, many of you will want to know more about tire technology in order to exploit their potential better (which is a crucial skill). To satisfy any further curiosity, you should read technical books (indicated in this book, anyway). This one focuses on driving, but it does not overlook car technology which influences driving techniques and concepts. You simply may want a deeper "engineering" insight. Impossible to include everything...
2) it stresses the importance of the hand-eye coordination, but non soon enough. I would have put it in the first chapter. It is the source of so many mistakes, people tend to look at the car instead of looking forward. You must look at where you want to go, not at your car.
3) it doesn't replace a stage on track, nor days of practice. An instructor will do what this book can't. The problem is that an instructor (and a lot of practice) is needed to do what *ANY* book cannot do.

Bottom line: this book is absolutely a must read, it's the ideal first step to enter a new performance dimension.

Going Faster approaches race driving from a very technical perspective. The book investigates racing lines, techniques, and some preparation subjects by paying attention to the underlying physics. The writing is crisp and clean without coming off as childish. Peppered with quotes from real drivers, this book is very approachable and readable.

The result is a wonderful book that you can read from cover to cover, or flip open to review something that's giving you trouble.

What's lacking? There's nearly no treatment of the driver himself. There's no way to learn what to think about before the race, how to mentally prepare yourself. Or how to achieve consistent results, or deal with mistakes. For that, you'll want a Ross Bentley book.

I read "Going Faster" from cover to cover before participating in a 3 day Skip Barber Racing School program at Laguna Seca Raceway (Monterey, CA). This book is not only one of the most informative accounts on the techniques of both fast driving and competition racing, but is an enjoyable read as well. The content has it all, from basic car control, to much more complex technical information regarding car setup, and physics of a race car. I found this book to be both informative AND inspiring, which speaks volumes in itself. Regardless of whether you are an armchair racer, gamer, autocrosser, club racer, or pro, this book offers something for everyone. I have also read many of the other standards on auto racing (Bob Bondurant's guide to high performance racing, and Carrol Smith's "Drive to Win"), and "Going Faster" offers the best of both worlds. If I had to choose one "Bible of Racing," this would most certainly be it! Worth Every Penny!

I've been hot lapping on road courses for about 6 yrs now, but I was still able to get a lot out of this book. They say Skip Barber's classes are among the best, so that's why I took a chance on this book. Money well spent! This book would be great for a beginner, but also has finer points that would benefit drivers of all levels. The photos were very clear and helped support the text well. Racing is really like anything, you need to understand the fundamentals. If you're going to go out on a course, or even just want to control your car better around city streets, this book can take you to the next level.

"Going Faster" is surely one of the best books ever written about the fundamentals of driving. While focusing on handling a car at speed on a track, each of these lessons applies to general handling in all situations. Situational awareness, looking ahead, picking the best line through a corner, understanding the car's grip and why smooth inputs matter so much. Everything is here.

If you have ever manhandled a car through an autocross course and wondered why you could not compare to many others on supposedly lesser equipment, this book helps explain why. Or if you are simply wanting to improve your general driving skills and want to appreciate a vehicle dynamics, grip and basic skills, then this is also a great resource. I am convinced that having read this book as part of my preparations prior to my first track experience helped to keep the day safe and enjoyable. As a result, I learned far more than would otherwise have been the case. Buy it. You will not regret the education.

As a long time SCCA/PCA/Skip Barber racer(25 years at Lime Rock) and Chief Driving Instructor for the local chapter of the BMW Car club, I can highly recommend this book. I will use it often to review concepts and keep me "on course" . This will be the new classic in the industry for high speed driving/racing. Amazing detail and diagrams not found in any other book on the subject.

I picked up this fantastic book after a Skip Barber 2-day driving school at Lime Rock, CT. A perfect compliment to that course it expanded on the topics the instructors could only touch upon- and the numerous pictures, diagrams and graphs really help the reader understand the theoretical concepts. Nothing is better than seat time, but I have no doubt that I am a more capable and knowledgeable driver after reading, and rereading this book.