Heel Toe!

Drivers use the "heel and toe" method to smoothly combine braking and downshifting as they approach a corner. Good drivers know that blipping the throttle between gears in a downshift to speed up the engine to match the tire speed keeps the wheels from locking and stops the back end from getting loose. Heel-and-toeing simply combines blipping the throttle with braking.

Now here are the steps to get you going (try at your own risk):

 The downshift begins with a full throttle       acceleration towards a corner.

Lift the right foot from the gas pedal and press the brake pedal.

Just before the braking is done, the left foot depresses the clutch pedal.

The right hand begins the downshift while right foot is still applying, but easing up on the brake pressure as the car approaches the turn-in, then the foot rotates so the heel is above the corner of the gas pedal.

As the shift passes through neutral, the right heel gives a quick push of the gas pedal to rev the engine quickly

                   

The left foot releases the clutch, the right foot rotates off the gas. Done correctly the RPMs generated by the throttle blip above matches the RPMs needed. The right foot completes the braking with a smooth release. 

The right foot moves over to the gas pedal to assume the normal position at first only to maintain the pressure needed to sustain the vehicle speed through the first part of the corner. Then pressure is gradually applied to accelerate out of the turn.

                                               Heel Toe Driving Technique by Driftingstreet@Youtube

On the street when you approach a corner, you were probably taught to complete your braking before the corner, coast through the turn, then as you straighten out from the turn downshift, and start accelerating again. This works on the street, but it is entirely too slow a process for the race track.

For racing, the time spent transitioning from braking to accelerating must be absolutely minimized. You're racing! You don't want to be wasting a bunch of time coasting while you're switching between pedals (even if it is only 1/2 of a second).  

We have assumed the use of a street car, and a street transmission with synchros. If you're using a true race transmission without synchros, then you need to modify the above shifting with a double-clutch procedure. To do this, the clutch is pressed in, the shifter moved to neutral, and the clutch released. Then the accelerator is blipped, while the shifter is in neutral (again with the heel, while the ball of the foot continues to brake), the clutch pressed back in, the shifter placed in the lower gear, and the clutch released. This is required for maximum longevity of the transmission.