Scandinavian Pendulum - Sports Driving Dictionary - Sports Cars

Scandinavian Pendulum - Sports Driving Dictionary - Sports Cars

The pendulum is one of the most fun maneuvers in sports driving and is mostly used in rallying.

Il Scandinavian pendulum it is a technique that allows you to tackle a "side" corner by reducing understeer and reducing speed at the same time.

Il pendulum Scandinavian (Scandinavian flick, in English) is a technique that became famous in the early 60s thanks to Finnish and Swedish rally racers. This is because Scandinavia is characterized by poor traction surfaces (snow, mud, gravel) and the pendulum is particularly suitable for this type of terrain.

Its name "pendulum" comes from the movement of a car, which drag it with the back in the opposite direction of the curveto then unbalance the vehicle and make it rotate in the direction of the curve with more inertia. In practice, the trim of the car breaks down to cause rotation of the rear axle and therefore poorer corner entry.

Pendulum technology

Let's try example... As you get closer to the curve the driver turns decisively to the opposite side (so that the load is loaded from the right side of the vehicle), then turns to the side of the turnby releasing the accelerator or even “touching” the brakes.

This causes serious load transfer which literally turns the car on the desired curve.

At this moment, closer to the exit from the curve, the pilot returns to the accelerator and (if necessary) counteracts steering. fix the trajectory. It takes some practice to master this technique: the lower the grip, the slower and easier the provocation will be.

The swingarm is very useful when you want to avoid understeer in poor traction conditions, position the vehicle straight ahead of the ramp, and accelerate mid-corner by traction.

What is this for

Il pendulum very Useful Whenever you want avoid understeer in poor traction conditions, for park the car already "straight" to the exit and apply speed in the middle of a turn using the tire grip.

Thinking that with handbrake you can get almost the same result, this is an error.

The handbrake is good when used in tight and slow turns, but using it in fast or short turns would be counterproductive as it would destabilize the car too much.

Il Scandinavian pendulumon the other hand, it allows the rider to control the load transfer more gently and precisely, overcoming a series of lateral turns due to the rear end vibrations.

It also allows you to unbalance the vehicle with greater naturalness and precision so that you can feel it spinning around its axis at the desired angle.