Steerage

[Will Owen <nashwill@domain.elided>]

Howdy -

Years ago I read that the difference between under-
and oversteer could be defined thus: if one end of the
car is sliding and the passenger is terrified, that's
oversteer; if it's the driver who's scared, that's
understeer. The point was that a sliding rear end was
amenable to control, whereas a sliding front - the
once-dreaded "front-end skid" - was not. Of course,
all of this dates from the days of cart springs and 3"
wide bias-ply tires...

My own exploration of oversteer in a FWD car was
conducted at the wheel of my first Mini, where I
quickly learned that a momentary easing of the
throttle in mid-turn would let the rear end take a
nice set and help the cornering process quite a bit.
This procedure became hilarious when I put my Pirelli
Inverno snow tires on the rear wheels and made a quick
run down a twisty mountain gravel road - it was the
fabled Porsche "wischen" technique revised for Mini
freaks. Power into the curve, snap the throttle off
and the back end pops out, then catch it with the
power again. A similar technique worked with another
doggedly understeering car, a Volvo 544.

I was a bit puzzled to read accounts by people who had
been frightened or intimidated by similar phenomena,
but then realized that cars used to slide around a lot
more easily than they do now, and as we were used to
it we drove in such a way as to accommodate it. Which
is why, on my first trip home with my Mini after
having fitted its first-ever set of radial tires, I
took a curve on our road at my usual speed and damn
near put the car into the INSIDE ditch, as I had
unthinkingly set the wheel to compensate for the
accustomed degree of understeer.

Will Owen
Pasadena, CA
Yahoo! Sports - live college hoops coverage
http://sports.yahoo.com/

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