I have thought the same. My auto racing experience is zero so I dont really know. Just seem as a good place to start.
I have also only lost traction in the rear. What trail breaking did for me was to cary some breaking into the turn entry. So not using the auto traditionally way.
Reducing that coasting time to almost zero should be possible as I see it.
Yep there’s still useful lessons there. Stuff like braking point, the racing line, carrying speed, and slow-in fast-out are all useful for any sort of racing.
Working on lines at the moment. And I developed a kind of obsession of the hairpin after the straight.
When I watch myself on video I am not doing the line I think I do. I want to have a later apex to open up the next hairpin more. To do that I need to turn later into the first hairpin. I have tried in multiple session to change, but it’s difficult. Also Its like if I think too much about making the line I have been advised to take, I carry less speed into the corner, than if I dont think much about lines.
But I just got an idea how I can make sure to change the line as I want without thinking too much. Thursday seems too far away.
Introducing the Eskate line.
In my pursuit for understanding Eskate short track racing I have lately focussed on the line around the track.
Whats the fastest way around?
Through varies sources I have been introduced to what they call the racing line. The line through a corner that should be faster than the geometrical optimal line.
The idea of the racing line is to “sacrifice” the entry a little by having a later entry, turning more on on less road, reaching the apex late and by that being in a position where you can accelerated sooner out of the corner.
That way you get the advantage of carrying higher speed into coming part og the track and if that’s a straight, you will win a lot of time there. Apparently doing this is one of the most important things if you want to win time.
The problem for me on my track is that working toward the perfect racing line makes me slower than if I take the line that intuitively feels the fastest. It have felt like something about the racing line just didn’t work as promised.
Then last week I stumbled upon a video where they talked about the “Karting Line”. A line better suited for karts, as Karts are more sensitive too hard breaking, turning and accelerating. Karts do better with keeping the momentum in a line that is closer to the geometrical line.
The Karting Line was a new term for me and its more in line with what intuitively feels fast on the track.
Today I asked one of the instructors how he saw the difference between karting and more powerfull race vehicles. He agreed that with a kart its more about keeping momentum through out the corners and going for a more constant speed, rather than the harder breaking, tighter turning and harder acceleration the racing line requires.
The karts are simply not optimal for doing the kind of riding the racing line requires.
This makes sense to me and it feels that it also applies to Eskate. We are not setup for properly gaining what breaking, turning and acceleration can give the more powerfull and more stable vehicles. We need smoothness. Smoothness by more constant speed and more forgiving turning. That gives us better grip and stability and ultimately better lap times.
Thats what I have experienced anyway. Maybe I a better rider could control a more abrupt riding style.
So what I will keep working regarding the line is entering the corner quite early so I turn over a longer distant making the turn more smooth. Still want to hit the apex, but will be hitting it earlier than with the raceline. Everything to be more smooth. I will callthis the “Eskate Line” 
The video shows the racing line at the bottom and the Eskate Line above. Still think it can be optimized. Just not toward the racing line.
In this video I was first introduced to the Karting line. From 4:52.
I’ve never heard of a racing line described as that. That’s usually the opposite of what you’d want to do in a car, as like you mentioned smooth is fast. In fact usually the motto I hear is slow in, fast out, as a smooth entry not only allows you to carry more speed, but is also less harsh on brakes, suspension, and tires.
Now there are cases where you do want to take a late apex, but those cases are more so you can get into a better position for the next turn, kind of like your double hairpin on the track. Since the optimal line on the first corner would take you too close to the inside edge of the second corner, running a late apex on the first corner, which while is slower than optimal, sets you up for a larger radius on the second corner, which allows you to carry more speed overall over the two corners. Also there’s times where you want to get on the throttle early, such as if there’s a long straight exiting the corner, because even a 1mph delta can create quite a large gap over a long distance.
The bottom line is there really isn’t a single perfect racing line, and it all depends on the specific track, conditions, and traffic. Taking the ideal line in a race almost never happens.
Really… try reading it again. Somehow I feel you havnt read it / understood it properly.
Most often when resources introduce the racing line they do it with a turn followed by a straight or relatively fast section after the turn as an example.
And they describe it exactly as doing a late entry with more turning on less distance before the apex. That gives us more lateral forces and makes us loose traction sooner.
So in order to compensate for that we need less speed in that section of the turn. Hence my use of “sacrifice the entry”.
They then reach the exit of the turn more in line with the straight and can therefore accelerate earlier hitting the apex later. That makes the turn faster even though speed in the turn had to be less.
Watch the video I linked from 2.56. Thats how all the resources, I have seen, introduce the racing line.
Are there other ways to take turns. Yes of course. Your outlines / example show that just fine. It all depends on the specific turn or combination of turns. But every time when they talk about a series of turn, they talk about opening up the last turn as much as they can following what I described.
But it is of course not that black and white.
My point here is that we might want to differ our way around the track from the way more stable and powerfull vehicles does.
Yeah you described exactly why they do a late entry - because there’s a long straight or fast section after the turn. On the turn in your videos though that’s definitely not the case, as it feeds straight into a low speed hairpin.
That honestly sounds more like carrying too much speed for the corner than a problem with the line itself. By braking earlier perhaps you are actually following the actual line rather than overshooting and compensating with a harder turn. In an actual car it’s just as bad to cook the corner as it is on a board (especially since terminal understeer is something boards can’t get), so I don’t believe that part is as different as you think.
IDK I come from a simracing background, and while there’s definitely differences in driving a kart vs a GT car, the basics still hold true for any vehicle. Happy to theorycraft more though since it’s a fun exercise!
Very very interesting stuff here. Keep dropping seconds bro. I’ve never been very interested in racing, but I’d like to see how my short board ride style would compare to yours on a track.
I played a little with how I could film a whole lap, and ad a clock. Four cameras and a lot of editing afterwards. Next step is to optimise setup for livestream or on sight recording of program channel. It’s definitely doable but will set me back a significantly amount of money. But plan is to make a setup and cover racing events with live stream. Could be awesome.
But first I gotta work with what I got.
So clean. Nice lines. Loved watching the footage!
How do your legs feel after several laps? My legs get so fatigued after 4 laps of racing I can barely stay on and sometimes don’t haha. It would be so nice to get track sessions in like this to improve. Very jealous.
For reference I’m wearing number 1 and have a lot of work to do. I look like a flappy bird haha. By round 3 of the tri-series we’d got our lap times down to 32 secs (three of us clocked equal fastest lap times) so definitely improved from the 37secs i managed in the beginning.
First clip I’m on a 4wd direct drive with 115mm airless rubber. Second clip on 2wd belt drive with 160mm pneumatics.
Ended up getting my fastest times in round three on my 4wd but I know the tyres aren’t as grippy as pneumatics. The board is faster though. Next race I’ll have a completely different set up again that hopefully will be far more suited to this style of racing. It’s been several months since I’ve raced as it’s very new where I live but hopefully have races coming up soon 
So cool. Really like what you are doing down under with the ERL.
Who produced these clips? Would like to chat with the person.
And yeah… it is definitely a physical thing doing short tracks fast, 3-4 four fast laps and I need a break. Most often I am chasing lap time by having one fastlap. Checking the time and then doing the next laps as an preparation for the next fast lap. So one fast, then one slow.
Just DMd you his details mate.
And yeah the pressure I feel racing tenses me up more and I fatigue faster than when trying to go fast on warm up laps. I need to work on that too.
This thread seems like the right place.
Apologies, i haven’t read the whole thing yet, but i have a question that always pops into my brain. On my usual home outdoor route there’s a parking lot with two half circle concrete end caps - so essential an oval track ~15 car widths long x 1 car length wide.
I take it CW and then CCW trying to reallllly lean into those toeside and heelside turns to hit it tight and fast. I realized I’ve never considered where the best place to put your bodyweight is. In most motorsports you don’t have that option, but on a longboard you can cheat way up front or lean all the way back on the tail. Is one clearly better in a turn?
I tend to come in hot, 70:30 forward lean, at ~20mph, lean hard sideways heel or toe, and then feel out if the nose or tail feels better to maintain speed and try to hit that perfect exit.
Thoughts?
I’ll share things that work for me but not sure if it’s the best technique. I’m by no means an expert but I’ve raced in several events now in my local competitions and am doing well locally. I think last time I looked I was 7th in Global T Race times too but there’s still not a huge amount of competitors in that so hard to know if that’s good or not 
As traction is what I’m trying to achieve I’ll put all my weight over the rear when braking, especially when needing to be very heavy on brakes. I stay as low as is comfortable but I personally don’t crouch all the way down as i find it harder to shift my weight properly transitioning bewteen tight corners.
When I accelerate out of a bend I try keep as much weight as I can on the rear as well to avoid the rear losing grip and sliding out. This is tricky as naturally most people keep weight on front when accelerating so they don’t fall off the back. I’ve found if i shift my weight forward through a bend when accelerating I’ll lose the rear end much easier.
I hold remote in my right hand and am goofy stance so can rail grab on heelside turns but I seem to lose time in doing so. My toeside I cant rail grab cause of remote but I can put my left hand down on the ground. I’m yet to master the puck down toeside turn and am currently faster without but I’ve invested very little time in the technique to date.
As I understand it weight distribution is a way to control tire grip. Basically the more weight you have over a tire the more grip. On short tracks I have never lost grip on the front tires. Thats not completely true.
One season I had front wheel Brive and lost traction when accelerating. But not like in understear where the front wheels slide out) only experienced overstear where the back loose grip and slide out. With that in mind I should try and have more weight on the rear.
This is however against what intuitive feels easiest to do. Intuitively I have more weight on the front tires. So I am working on getting better to out weight in the rear. I have not been good enough yet to really feel a difference yet see it on lap times.
Thats the grip side of things. Then I believe there would be an ideal way to distribute weight when doing tight turns that is dictated by how we best control the board aside from grip. I dont know if those two sides of it works against each other if they do, ho should we blend them together. We still have lots to learn.
I noticed a peculiar thing about tire wear. Even though I have only experienced overstear (loosing rear grip) on short track it is definitely the front wheels that wear out the fastest. They really take a lot of lateral force and according to the wear a lot more than the rear.
But that could be because I have much more weight on the front so the rear tires loose grip before they get the really heavy lateral force. Again still much to learn 
That’s interesting. My rears definitely take more of a hammering than my front tyres.
This video tals about weight distribution in car racing and how they use braking and the like to get weight on tires. We have the benefit of being able to shift around as we like, but some good points can be taken from this.
Finally…
Went for this season’s first winter track session. The previous two seasons have been frustrating as I havn’t been able to match that golden best lap time from 2020.
I have been tweaking and adjusting the setup and practiced on the track again and again. But just havn’t been able to find the lap times from that one session in 2020.
But today it only took me 15 min. and I was under the 2020 lap time four times. I went from 32:32 in 2020 to 31:97 today and I even had a skip with the rear wheels in one of the hairpins.
Setup is the same that I struggled with last year:
My version of a track deck
3-links
4wd
6354 motors
12s4p 40T cells battery
Bichop Racing Wheels 140mm.
Bindings
I was focussing on two things in the session. First the eskate line that I wrote about in a few posts up, which mainly is cutting distance focusing on travel least mesters. Second going to the limit.
As I drove around the track I was wondering why I all of a sudden was this much better compared to previous years. I am pretty sure it’s because of T-Race. I created T-Race last year and was doing sessions consistently through all spring last year.
With this standardized track I could compare myself to all the other racers out there. I saw that there were people out there who was faster than me. So I saw that it was possible to go faster, and that forced me to push harder. If They can I can! I also immediately felt that racing the T-Race track would make me better. Both as a racer and overall riding my boards.
On my winter track I could accelerate sooner and break later. Also had a better feeling of how much I could push the grip.
There are no doubt on my mind that it have been T-Race that have pushed my limits in a way “just” practicing on the track couldn’t.
The cool thing about my winter track is that it serves as a place where I can monitor how any changes done to the setup or racing style affects my lap times. I now have a bag log of data from the track dating back to 2018.
Also the increased ramp down time @Schtekarsten suggested works pretty well. Make the transition from throttle to breaking much better.
on which ESC? thought you were on mamba xlx? I guess not now that you’re 12s. … so must be a vesc of some sort.
When commuting I used to think… hmm. best not to use this and get used to it. 'cause when that vesc fault comes you will be less able to handle the sudden jolt. 
half seriously.
