I hope everyone is surviving the heat. Summertime is a break in the track schedule here in Arizona due to the heat, so I thought I’d back up and discuss some aspects of driving that pertain as much to daily driving as they do to the track. Ideally I should have started with these, but decided to save them for the “off-season” when you can practice them around town.
Let’s begin with seat position. Because we operate the pedals much more frequently on the track than the streets, you will likely find it more comfortable sliding the seat a bit forward. While this might give you some leg cramps driving cross-country on the highway, you should be close enough to be able to completely depress the pedals without completely extending your leg. This allows quicker and more dependable operation than if you must use your tiptoes to depress the clutch. Obviously, too close is not good either, as you must also be able to take pressure off the pedals without having your knees squished under the steering column. I personally find it helpful to have the seat bottom cushion higher in front than at the back of the seat, as this comfortably positions me closer to the wheel and also helps keep me from sliding forward in the seat. Optimally, you should have the seat bottom as low as comfortable, as this lowers your center of gravity and improves your “seat of the pants” feel for the road.

After adjusting the distance from the pedals and the height of the seat bottom, next is the seat back. Sitting straighter up is preferred, as it not only improves your visibility, it improves your ability to react and steer. The best way to adjust the seat back is to drape your bent wrists over the top of the steering wheel and raise the seat back until you can do this with your back firmly against the seat back. With your hands at 3:00 and 9:00 on the steering wheel, you should be able to turn 180 degrees to the right or left without lifting your back from the seat.

Next is the steering wheel. As noted above, your hands should be at 3:00 and 9:00, NOT 2:00 and 10:00 as many of us were taught in Driver’s Ed so long ago. This allows optimal use of the arm and shoulder muscles to both pull down with one hand and push up with the other to steer the car, even against significant resistance. A convenient way to hold the wheel is to rest your thumbs on the spokes of the steering wheel if your car has the usual “T” shaped hub. For most high speed road courses, it is recommend you keep you hands planted in this position, even if it means crossing over to the 180 degree position on the wheel. The reason for this is you will naturally return your hands (and the wheel) to the straight position in a spin, whereas if you’ve shifted positions this may not be possible for you to quickly determine. Many dedicated race cars (like the GT3 RS) actually have a yellow stripe at the 12:00 position to help orient this. Also, do not reach inside the wheel with your hands; keep your hands outside the wheel at all times. Grip the wheel lightly with your entire hand to develop the most sensitivity to vibrations and feedback from the wheel. If you hold on with a death grip, you will miss most of this feedback.
For lower speed twistier applications, like CAC or autocross, it is necessary to turn the wheel even further beyond 180 degrees, so this requires a different technique, called shuffle steering. In shuffle steering, as you turn the wheel, one hand grips the wheel while the other slide to the first. The second hand then grips and continues to turn the wheel farther as the first one release and slides away from the other hand just to grip farther down the wheel and continue to turn it more, and the cycle keeps repeating until the desired deflection of the wheel has been reached. In this way, both hands are on the wheel at all times, unlike the usual “hand over hand” motion most of us use while negotiating turns in a parking lot. Try this when parking your car, that’s the best time to become accustomed to it.

Ok, now the mirrors. I’m going to suggest you become accustomed to something very different than we’re all used to. John Dowling, chief driving instructor for the Arizona Region PCA and NASA taught me this one. Your car has only one rear view mirror, that’s the one inside the car on the windshield. Use that one to see behind you. Obvious, right? Here’s where the change comes in. The two mirrors on the sides of the car are side view mirrors, so adjust them to see the sides, not the rear. Lean your head to the left so it nearly touches your driver’s window, and move the left mirror out until you can just barely see your rear fender in it. Now lean your head so you touch an imaginary plane dividing the left and right halves of the interior, and adjust your right side mirror out until you can just see your right rear fender. When you first start driving with your mirrors in this position, it will be a little unnerving seeing all the motion in the corners of your eyes, since the mirrors will show the scenery moving along both sides instead of the relatively little movement you’ve become accustomed to from the mirrors seeing the lane behind you. The advantage becomes apparent when you’re in the center lane of a 6-lane road and cars overtake and pass you from either side. Without moving your head or glancing at your “blind spot,” you will see cars from the left and right lane initially in your rear view mirror, then they will appear in the appropriate side mirror before leaving the rear view, then you will see them out of your peripheral vision through your side windows before they disappear from the side mirrors! There is no “blind spot” to look at if adjusted properly. I’ve been doing this since mid May, and I have become a believer.

Finally, let’s discuss braking. On the track, we brake forward, whereas on the streets, most people brake backward. What does that mean? Beginning with your street experience, braking backward means beginning with a gently application of the brakes, and gradually modulating more and more pressure until we get the desired stopping force. On the track, we want to begin with a smooth application of full brakes when we initiate braking, then ease off quickly but smoothly when we’ve slowed the car to the desired speed. This technique has several advantages. To begin with, it brings the speed down more rapidly, with the advantage on the track that you spend less time and distance braking, leaving more for acceleration, higher speed and faster lap times. On the road, the advantage is leaving more time and space to deal with unexpected occurrences. Second, while the same amount of energy is ultimately dissipated in slowing the vehicle, the discs absorb and transfer less heat because their mass provides a thermal “inertia” as it were. Heating them up more slowly but for a longer interval does succeed in transferring more heat, increasing fade, and so forth.

If you haven’t already done so, I strongly recommend checking out the Street Practice Guide. This page offers other suggestions on how to practice high performance driving techniques during your daily driving, without breaking any laws..

Happy motoring!
Greg