Good driving has no “off season”. Every time you’re behind the wheel, pride yourself on applying advanced driving skills and techniques. Snowy, rainy, or dry roads all reward “Better Driving…”. Here are the top three things you can practice now that will make you “…Faster!” later, when it counts:

1) Vision. Force your eyes to look “1000 yards” ahead. If a curve prevents that then look as far as a laser could point. This helps “open up” your peripheral vision, giving your better input for making your next move, such as selecting the best line through the turn ahead (usually the largest radius). It also gives you a more stable horizon reference to track weather you need small corrections to remain on that path. Everyone thinks that of-course they are “looking ahead”, however experience re-enforces that this skill needs constant practice to avoid reverting back to normal human nature that makes us look too close. Honestly quiz yourself and you will likely catch yourself focused only 3-10 feet ahead when walking and only 3-10 car lengths ahead when driving. If you find yourself making frequent small steering corrections on a straight road, or constantly changing the steering wheel angle throughout a corner, then your driving skill ranks as “merely human” and not really “advanced”. With practice of the vision skill, your self-evaluation should affirm how frozen your steering wheel angle remains throughout the corner. Turn, hold, straighten (after the initial turn sets the steering wheel angle, it should be held fixed throughout the corner until the exit). Your observations should also confirm how shockingly minuscule any steering adjustments need to be on a straight when you are truly looking 1000 feet ahead. An uncanny sense of calm and smoothness will be apparent in your driving style as you look to the horizon since traffic surprises and minor steering corrections have been spotted early with plenty of reaction time. Beware, this advance vision and only minimal-movements now needed, will stop confusing your poor car’s suspension and will extract a new level of stealthy speed!

2) Car Placement. Seek out lane marker grooves, or other pavement features such as small potholes or dips, to feel exactly where your tires are. Make a point of doing this in every vehicle you drive as often as possible in order to build an extensive calibration library in your brain. This helps you place any car exactly where you want it and is especially helpful for test drives or the annual “Hoffman Cup” run-off event! Do this at various speeds, on straights and curves, and with different dynamic input rates to further expand your 3D-calibration map. Since pavement grooves usually are on just one side of the road, search out opportunities to test precise placement of both sides of the car. My favorite is to create a big gap to traffic on a rainy day so I can easily see my wet tire tracks in the mirrors, then flick from the center of my lane, to the double yellow line, to the white line and back, to get instant placement feedback. Then I repeat until I’m consistently within one inch on each side. Poor drivers can only seem to locate their tires within a half lane (yes I actually followed one small car for several miles on the highway last weekend driving with its right-side tires over the lane-line and when I was finally able to pass, the driver didn’t even seem to be otherwise distracted!). Normal drivers usually seem to be accurate to about 2-3 feet and one side is vastly different than the other. Good drivers can place their tires within 6-12 inches, still favoring one side over another. Advanced drivers are able to consistently place either side tires repeatedly within 1-2 inches. Disclaimer: be thoughtful and adult when you practice wiggling your car on the road to avoid spooking others, getting pulled over, or spinning! Also avoid focusing so much in the mirror that you overlook your forward progress and crash into something! Re-read the previous paragraph and use your 1000 yard open-vision skills to simultaneously watch what’s ahead and behind!  

3) Steering. Take a 90-degree turn and note how much the steering wheel has to rotate (probably 180-270 degrees). If your hands started at “9 and 3” (or “10 and 2”) and you never let go, you’d need to be Gumby to achieve this large rotation. To solve this dilemma some drivers “palm” the wheel (some truckers may even use an old “suicide knob”). “Merely human” drivers probably learned the hand-over-hand method from their high-school driving teacher. Unfortunately, both of those methods leave your hands ill-prepared to make the quick wheel corrections vital for car control at the limit of traction and for accident avoidance. Country songs are written for these people as they pray for divine intervention to save them instead of skill. Advanced drivers (and drivers taught in England) learn “shuffle steering”, where your left hand stays between “8 and 12” and right hand between “12 and 4”. Each hand maintains constant contact with the wheel, ideally positioned at all times to make quick turn-ins, sensitive steering angle adjustments, or to shuffle (pass-off) the turning wheel to the other hand before shuffling back to its ideal position. Using the Gumby approach loses feel and reaction time (due to the poor strength when your arms are in pretzel mode) resulting in slow reaction and usually then over-correcting, tail wagging, or spinning. On a track where you typically don’t have to turn the wheel more than 90-100 degrees, keep your Gumby grip if you think you will lose wheel orientation by shuffling, however my experience is that drivers claiming such are simply not proficient at shuffle steering and go slower because of it when confronted with a tighter turn. Practiced in everyday driving, shuffle steering then becomes automatic and your default reflex. Steering input and corrections become zen-like and result in better control at the limit and thus allow better speed. Flailing arms, sunny day windshield wiper activation, or spins, are often a sign of not having this skill.

Practice these top 3 skills now on the street, then really master them at the six different AutoX events. AutoX-University classes focus on one or two different driving skills at each AutoX event and are carefully paired with a new course designed to optimize those skills. Attend all six events to quickly refine your skill set. Helpful CVR driving instructors can coach you through all levels of these skills, including super-advanced refinement. CVR AutoX events are renowned for being well-run and fun and for their welcoming camaraderie. See our web-page for more info and join us for “Better Driving…Faster!

CVR AutoX Series 2020 Schedule:

16 May  AutoX 1 – Hartford   

13 June AutoX 2 – Hartford   

19 July AutoX 3 – Hartford   

15 August AutoX 4 – Hartford   

12 September AutoX 5 – Lime Rock Park B-Paddock   

26 September AutoX 6 & Hoffman Cup – Hartford