Bondurant's School of High Performance Driving - The Art Of Control

Classroom time is minimal, and after the first day we rarely saw it. After a brief introduction to the concept of the skid cars, we were behind the wheels. The hydraulics lift and unload the front or rear of the car to simulate extreme understeer and oversteer, respectively. Here the Caddy is in full understeer and pushing toward the outside of the skidpad. The correct reaction is to lift off the throttle to transfer weight to the front and lightly apply brakes if necessary to increase traction. The key is to avoid adding steering until traction returns to avoid a snap.

Conversely, with the rear lifted, the car gets tail happy and into full oversteer when rounding the skidpad. Note instructor Tim pointing to illustrate that the driver's eye line should always remain on the exit point as he steers into the skid and adds a small amount of throttle to transfer weight to the rear. Control is part of the lesson, but just as important is the concept that you always need to look where you want the car to go-a critical lesson for following the racing line on track.

This illustration shows basically what's happening to the contact patch during oversteer. The opposite is true for understeer. It's actually a little more complicated in real situations without the hydraulic outriggers, since weight transfer will be uneven, but all the same principles apply.