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do all professionals heal toe?

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Not the guys with automatic transmissions.

The main goal of heel/toe is to make gear changes as smooth as possible. You also want the cars' speed controlled by the gas pedal and brake rather than the transmission. If the car whoas up when downshifting and you don't have your foot on the brake, you would benefit with heel / toe. It's just a blip on the throttle to better rpm match the change in gears. How much of a blip depends on the engine (the weight of the flywheel) and something you learn with experience.

Heel / toe can be difficult on some cars unless you have a size 14 shoe. Car makers intentionally space the gas and brake pedals apart so idiots don't mistake one for the other. The brake pedal arm can be bent closer to the gas pedal or, remove the stock pedals and install larger ones so your foot and reach both at the same time.
 

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Posted by Blind (Member # 3052) on :
 
funny enough...I do wear a sz 14 and picked it up really fast.

wearing flip flops and driving a manual foxbody on the street however, often leads to extra brake being applied than I wanted when I clutch while slowing to a stop...the clutch and brake are really close together!
 

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Posted by harley56 (Member # 6731) on :
 
When racing it's a must. If you don't you stand the chance of wheel hop and spinning out. Do not take heel and toe literally, as what is often done is...."The driver uses the right side of his foot to blip the gas and the left side of the same foot to push the brake. Done correctly, your foot pivots quickly on its ball, giving a rapid blip to the throttle with the right side while the left provides steady pressure on the brake."
 

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Posted by SydeWaySix (Member # 3596) on :
 
Definitely a must when on a race track. Wheel hop is horrible when slowing down from high speeds to close to dead stop and you are bound to lose control of the car without using heel-to when heavy braking.
 

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Posted by Mach916 (Member # 8264) on :
 
when im braking i down shift a gear and ease into the gear when i feel it matches the speed of the car. so far i can do it smooth and feels fine to me, but i dont know any better. i was just looking up to see if other people do the same. i have a s2000 and ive read that some track record holders dont heel toe.
 

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Posted by harley56 (Member # 6731) on :
 
What you're doing works great. However, if you drove with someone that showed you they were doing heel and toe you would see heel and toe results in signicantly quicker lap times.
 

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Posted by SteveL (Member # 1241) on :
 
In general, it's better to have the car in gear virtually all the time except for the very short periods when you're changing gears. You want the ability to immediately accelerate out of a turn or out of a situation. You can only do that if the car is in gear.

If you watch in-car videos, you'll see most drivers perform really fast gear changes (up or down) because they want the gas pedal and the brake pedal to be available now.

It's worth trying to learn heel / toe but don't start out with winding the engine out to 7K and shifting. It can be done at any speed and any rpm.
 

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