Dry braking

Before anti-lock braking became standard in every passenger car, ‘cadence braking’ was the technique used to simultaneously steer and stop. It involves pumping the brake pedal and is essentially the manual version of what ABS does for you in a modern car. Classic car guys still regard the old-school way as a valuable skill, but all most of us need to be capable of is pressing the brake pedal hard. You don’t need to be strong or skilled to carry out an emergency stop, though it does pay to try it out in controlled conditions before you’re faced with a real panic braking scenario. The pulsing pedal feel and the graunching noise of the system can be disconcerting, but only the first couple of times. Renato carried out dry-surface emergency stops more than 50 times over the course of the Tyre Test, the discipline conducted over the same dusty coarse-chip section of Sydney Dragway, from 80km/h. Sending the control tyres out at regular intervals gave us a gauge on whether the track conditions were changing with tarmac temperature or dust level. The measure of performance is stopping distance in metres, though we also record peak and average G with the Performance Box. Car and driver handled the test without complaint, and the results put a number on the benefit of a great set of tyres when you need to pull up in a hurry – 3.24 metres.