Driving a car on a real race track (to us, meaning, having to turn both left and right) may just be one of the most fun things we can ever do; if done well. We would like to offer a few suggestions before you attend your first event or even if you have had the good fortune to “play” before. These suggestions may indeed improve how quickly you learn and just how well you drive. Take heed, they come from years and years of racing and driving instruction experience.

Who is managing the event?

It is extremely important to research who is managing the event and how well it is being managed. Driving on a race track is dangerous! If the event is not well managed, disciplined and organized; stay home! Open track days can be cheap, but you can end up with exactly what you paid for or far worse- a damaged car.

Do they have qualified Instructors?

Make certain that the organization has qualified instructors and that you will receive one-on-one instruction or coaching prior to signing up for an event. You may say to yourself, “why, I am a good driver”? Perhaps, but reality is, until you have been on a real race track with real driving instruction, you are probably not the driver you thought you might be. A talented driving instructor will help you learn “why’ things are done a certain way in relationship to high performance driving. Anyone can stand on the gas and go fast, learning how to “dance” with a 3,000 lb. partner is a different story and a really good instructor will help you do exactly that.

Get your ego out of the way.

Leave your ego at home and be willing to listen, really listen. If you had never skied before, you wouldn’t take the lift to the top of the mountain, step into your bindings and take off on the hardest run, would you? Start off slow, listen to your instructor and work on the basics. The biggest problem with most driving students is that once they get onto a race track, they “think” that they have to go as fast as they can. Trust us; unless you are some kind of driving prodigy, you are not going to impress your instructor or anyone else. Of more importance, you will not learn much. Remember; practice makes perfect. You can either practice to be perfectly bad or perfectly good. Either way, you’ll either be really good at being good, or perfect at being really bad.

The basics: seating, hand position and visual skills.

How you sit in the car, where and how your hands are positioned on the steering wheel and what visual information you are gathering are the most important tools that a driver can acquire.

Try this: put your arms straight out in front of you- go on; do it.:) Now, try to turn your imaginary steering wheel all the way to the right and then all the way to the left. Feel that binding in your shoulders? Now, bring your arm in towards you until you have a nice bend in your elbows and try it again. Not only can you move more freely, you can also turn the steering wheel a greater distance and you are more relaxed. Proper seating position also allows for a slight bend in the knees, providing better pedal feel. The seat-back itself, should be more up-right, not laid back. Proper seating position will help your entire body “feel” what the car is doing; it is important. Remember we are “learning to dance” with a very large partner and balance is key.

Hand position is also critical. Your hands should always be at the 3:00 and 9:00 positions, ALWAYS! Why? With your hands at 3 and 9 you will always know what straight is, hum, pretty good information. In addition to your hands being positioned properly it is also extremely important that they be “light” on the wheel. The steering wheel never did anything to you, quit KILLING it! It has been our experience that most new drivers tend to have a death grip on the wheel; they want to choke the ever loving life out of it. Relax! If your hands are gripping the wheel hard, not only are your hands tense, so are your forearms, shoulders and neck; you also quit breathing. Again….Relax!
The most critical point here is that if your hands are killing the steering wheel, you are also not getting any feed-back from the wheel….. Relax, breath, feel!

Visual skills are the most important factor of learning how to drive well and fast. Can one drive without the use of an arm or perhaps even both legs? Sure. Can one however, drive blind? No you say- most people do it everyday!

Learning to get your eyes up is the most important part of driving and in particular on a race track. It is imperative to learn this skill; it is what will make you smooth and ultimately fast; and smooth= fast! A good friend of ours, Tommy Kendal, once told us “look where you want to go and the car will follow you there, I promise” This is a skill that should be practiced every day, and not just on a race track.

Your eyes, tell your brain (computer), how much steering input your hands need to put into the car, to get to the desired location. We must learn to look through a corner, not at the corner. If we are looking down, rather than out, we have already gone past the point that we were looking; too late.

Remember when we were taught how to ride a bicycle? Our parents pushed us down the driveway or street yelling “pedal, pedal, pedal- look out for the tree, look out for the tree!” what did we hit? THE BLOODY TREE! Our cars go where we look.

Getting our eyes up and taking in the “big picture” provides a plethora of benefits and is ultimately the most critical skill needed to go fast on the track. The further ahead you look, the less anxious you become. The less anxious you are the more relaxed you are and the faster you will go, because now, you have bought a commodity that cannot be purchased, called-time. Don’t attack the race track, let the track come to you. The only way this can be accomplished is to get your eyes up and learn to look further ahead than you ever thought.

When taught properly and done well, high performance driving on a race track (the only appropriate place to drive quickly) will become relaxed and fluid. Everything will slow down and you will feel as though a movie has gone into slow motion, but, you will be driving warp speed fast. An old racing adage tells us “you have to slow down in order to go fast”.

A really good driving instructor will explain all if this to you and if you are serious about really learning how to drive well, find a group that has them available to you. Oh, pay the extra money, it’s worth it!

O.C.C.E