Avoiding the Spin Cycle

Practice Matters
The maneuver requires commitment, practice, and skill, which is why you shouldn't try this on the highway, at least without first perfecting it on the track. When the driver of a front-wheel-drive racecar senses a spin is in the offing, he must instantly pound the gas pedal to the floor. Then he must hold it there until just before the car resumes its original heading. At the same time, the driver must make sure the front tires are pointed straight ahead; not easy to do if he counter-steered.


Hesitation, lack of dedication, or imprecision will make a bad situation much worse. Being late to the gas, lifting too early or, especially, failing to center the steering as the car returns to its original heading will result in a huge crash. If the front wheels aren't straight ahead before the driver lifts off the gas and front grip returns, the car will shoot off the road in whatever direction the front tires are pointed. Even on a race track with plenty of runoff room and tire fences, it will tear up the car badly. On the street, you'll either zoom off into the trees (in left-hand turns) or oncoming traffic (in right-hand turns). Either makes simply spinning out eminently preferable.


Oval track drivers in rear-drive cars also go to wide-open throttle when a spin is inevitable, but for an entirely different reason than those racing front-drivers. They're provoking a tighter spin than would otherwise naturally occur. It's much like a figure skater pulling her arms and legs toward her body to speed up a scratch spin. Their goal is to create a tight, energy-consuming pirouette that leads the car away from the outside wall. If they didn't gas it, the resulting more-open spin would likely wind up with the car sliding into the wall.


Another choice—locking the brakes—would send the car off on a tangent to the curve, a tangent that would soon intersect the concrete. Like the pilot of a front-driver, the stock-car driver needs to make certain his steering wheel is centered before he lifts off the gas. Otherwise, when the rear tires regain traction, the car will head off into whichever direction the fronts are pointed. One big downside of this technique: it produces a veritable fogbank of tire smoke. Often, the spinner recovers his car only to be pounded by another driver blinded by the smoke. Or a secondary crash is created by the total lack of visibility.