Q: “I have been pondering EoB (End-of-Braking) after attending your Improve Your Braking & Corner Entry webinar. You said we should focus on the EoB, rather than BoB (Begin-of-Braking), just like we are driving on the street and trying to stop before the traffic light. I’m still not sure if I understand that completely. On the street, when we brake for the traffic light, we probably use 20% to 50% of the braking power of the car. There is a lot of room for us to modulate the braking, harder or lighter, during the entire process to get us to stop perfectly at the white line. On track, we are probably using 95% to 100% of the braking power right from BoB. There is not much room to adjust the braking distance if we brake too late so we can still come down to the optimal speed at EoB. The question still in my mind is how we can focus on EoB and still consistently hit the brake at the right BoB point that leads to the optimal speed at EoB. Could you share some more insight? Thanks a lot! The webinars were all very inspiring. Please keep them going!”
A: You bring up a good point about how we rarely brake as hard when driving on the road as we do when driving on the track. But still, we judge when to begin braking by where we’re going to finish or end our braking – the EoB.
When you’re looking for your EoB, where is your vision focused? Yup, in the corner up ahead, rather than on just in front of the car at the BoB point. That’s a good thing. And also, where is your mind focused? Again, way ahead of where you are now. So, just by visually and mentally focusing on the EoB, you’ll be faster and smoother.
Your point of having the ability to modulate the brake pressure on the road also applies to track driving – if you focus on the EoB and make the initial application of the pedal strong enough. Having a habit of braking hard (you can still do this smoothly) with the initial application is crucial. If you do that, you will have gotten a majority of your braking done in the early part of the brake zone, and that will allow you to modulate the pedal pressure in the last couple of car’s lengths of the brake zone. And this is where some of the “magic” comes in that the real fast drivers have. Because they’ve gotten most of their braking done early enough, they use that last little bit of the zone to manage and fine-tune corner entry speed, as well as car balance. If they realize they haven’t slowed enough, they keep the pressure on the pedal a little longer; if they notice they’re over-slowing, the ease up a little; if they need to rotate the car more, they hang on the pedal and trail brake a bit more; if they want the car to rotate less, they ease off the pedal more quickly.
You can see that by using the EoB as a visual and mental focus area, it allows you to manage your corner entry speed and balance better. You’ll be faster, smoother, and more consistent this way.