Braking and Accelerating

On the street, braking and accelerating are done at relatively low levels compared to the vehicle's capability. The tire's traction limits are rarely maxed out. Sure, you can romp on the gas and spin the tires at a light, or slam on the brakes and slide the car a little, but its very easy to bring the car back under control.

In the rain, or especially the snow, you know you have to be much gentler and smoother with the brakes and with the accelerator. If you lose control on a wet or snowy surface, it can be much harder to regain control. There is much less traction to work with.

Braking and accelerating when racing on a road race course, even when dry, is treated something like driving on a wet surface--gently and smoothly. Braking and accelerating are used in conjunction with the corners--you brake going into them and accelerate coming out of them. Because the objective is to have the car moving as fast as possible through the corner, the tires will be utilizing most of the available traction (done right they should be using 100% of the available traction). The driver must be very smooth with the use of the brakes going into the corner and the accelerator coming out of the corner. A sharp change in braking or power at these points will upset the car's traction balance just as quickly as if you were driving on ice. Working within the last 1% of traction means there is no reserve to call upon to gain control of the car back. Even the pros very rarely recover a car that has lost control. It's not because they don't know how, it's because there's no traction left to work with.It is imperative to learn how to be consistently smooth in braking and accelerating on a road course.

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