Q: “What’s the preferred method of braking in a lightly-modified car (i.e., track brake pads and 200 tread wear tires)? Should an advanced driver engage full ABS or try to utilize threshold braking? I sense that my utilization of threshold braking is leaving too much stopping power on the table.”
A: That depends so much on the car. If you’re driving, let’s say, a Porsche GT3, or something like that, just stand on the pedal and let the ABS do its thing. If you’re driving a car with ABS that is not as refined as that, you might be better off staying (mostly) just inside the activation of the ABS. In those cars, the ABS is not as effective, so it could lengthen your stopping/slowing distance. But I qualified that by saying “mostly” because if you do get into the ABS just a bit, it’s not a terrible thing. In most modern cars, if you get slightly into the ABS, it’s better than not applying enough pressure.
Without knowing the ABS that your car has, I’d start by testing it. Make your initial application of the brakes hard – activate the ABS – then hold there until you get to around the turn-in point, and gradually release them. How did that feel? Could you now shorten up your brake zone because you over-slowed the car (the hard initial application and holding the pedal down slowed the car more than usual)? Okay, then you learned something.
If you felt that that ABS caused the brake zone to lengthen – you didn’t slow as quickly as you usually do with threshold braking – then you learned something, too.
Again, the great thing about having ABS is that you can’t do too much wrong! That worst case scenario is that you might lengthen your brake zone, meaning that you enter the corner a bit faster than usual. You can’t lock up the brakes, so go for it – test the ABS and learn.
In my experience, many drivers do not apply hard enough braking when they first get on them. The initial application is not hard enough. If you have ABS, just pound the brake pedal as hard as you can, knowing that nothing bad is going to happen. You might learn that you can brake much later because you weren’t applying enough initial pressure. I know you’ve been told to drive smoothly, but the initial application of the brakes is not one of the places where you have to be super-smooth. Get on the brakes!
Having said all that, when approaching faster corners where you don’t need to brake a lot, try braking lighter. Yes, don’t brake as hard as you can. The goal here is to maintain a balanced platform to maximize corner entry grip and speed. But that’s topic for another day…
There is certainly value in developing non-ABS threshold braking skills (in ABS-equipped vehicle) vs. cramming pedal to floor. As intermediate driver my ABS failed on track and I didn’t have skills to keep a lockup in a hairpin out of the armco 🙁
I agree with Jon’s comment above having experienced the same thing myself, but in truth one needs to know that the ABS has failed in order to apply some other braking technique to the situation.
Another point to consider, and it’s one that I discovered through experimentation with disengagement of the ABS, is that on some cars the brake bias might be adversely affected without ABS. I found that my rear bias was significantly higher without the ABS active; the car came with Electronic Brake Force Distribution which is integrated into the ABS module. My suspicion is that the mechanical bias was largely rearward and the EBD system altered it based on wheel lockup and the pitch sensor. I just don’t think your foot can do that kind of processing, assuming everything is working correctly.
In most street cars turned track car, 95+% of the time (depending on amount of practice), you should be able to out-brake ABS. I leave mine on for that 5% chance I’m not doing it right and I need it. Seeing how few times it comes on is a challenge to me as it is a direct feedback on how i am doing in that part of a corner. I spend a bunch of time early on actually in ABS and then i try to balance it out by just as aggressively braking, but doing it smoother and more finesseful (yah I know not a word but its the only one that I cant think of right now that comes close to applying) until ABS is no longer activating. Then the rest of the day targeting no more ABS intervention.
At that point you should be able to turn it off … but it could surprise you .. If your goal is to turn it off and leave it off then start your day like that. No point in programming your mind to rely on something you don’t intend to be there when you need it.