RE: ABS

["Brian Shorey" <bshorey@domain.elided>]

> I understand that a good driver can help his/herself a LOT by gently
braking
> and controlling the vehicle ("balancing" it) but seriously, there are a
lot
> of OTHER maniacs on the road, and the variables in any panic situation may
> not all be up to you. Wouldn't you like to know that there's a safety net?
>
> Maybe the best situation would be a car with a switch, for turning ABS on
> and off for performance driving.

there's a common misconception amongst 'performance' drivers that they can
do better than abs.

i recall watching a program on espn a few years ago in which they had taken
three cart drivers - one rookie, one middle of the road in experience, and
emerson fittipaldi (as the experienced one).  they were demonstrating how
computer modeling worked, and were trying to get each driver to perform at
what the computer had figured the optimal lap to be.  the car was an
off-the-shelf eclipse, or something like that.

turns out that at one section of the track the rookie beat everybody by
slamming on the brakes, at which point the abs took over.  they had
fittipaldi try slamming on his brakes at that same point, which took quite a
bit of coaxing for him to do, as it was not intuitive for him, and he ended
up knocking off time through that section of course as well.

so, if emerson fittipaldi can't perform as well as the abs brakes in a
mid-90's eclipse, i'm not sure that there are a lot of drivers who can.  the
only reason to turn off abs, imo, is for certain road conditions in which it
may pose more of a problem than a solution.  but for pure performance
driving i'd suggest that most people who think they can do better than abs
are probably fooling themselves.

of course, this all assumes the abs system is functioning properly... ;)

fwiw,

bs

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