Car Control-How is it taught?

[Brian Minkin]

Tod,

Great video.  Thanks for posting.

I will never be the driver you are as racing is not part of my driving career but I do appreciate and have used instinctive car control skill.

I remember about a year ago running at Sebring and taking another RTR instructor out with me who was teaching me the track. It was raining sort of a fine mist and the track did not seem wet enough to switch to rains so I was running Hoosiers.  The car seemed fine and about half way through the session out of the blue the car starts to rotate the rear. The next moment the other instructor riding with me says "great save" and we continued to lap Sebring until the session ended.  When we got back I reflected on that moment and could not say what I had done to save it. That night I looked at video and I see that my hands snapped the wheel in the direction of the slide and the throttle modulated slightly. It just came from the subconscious part of my brain the instant the car started to slide. 

I have also experienced a front sway breaking in the middle of a session and the total handling of the car instantly changing. Back end stepping out and dancing under hard braking. Very challenging to keep the car going forward but again feeling what the car is doing and having a subconscious response kept the car on the track.

Driving from the subconscious is something that develops with lot of seat time and experience.  Going back to the original focus of this thread I do agree that some sort of car control clinic would benefit all our students since this is where subconscious driving begins to be programmed in the brain. Once my but and brain started to work together I became much more relaxed and was able to focus on becoming faster and breaking bad habits.

Even with students with some natural talent (I have none of that) I still need to keep them safe as an instructor because the mistakes they make are often bigger then that talent will save. Anything we can do to get our students in touch with the seat of their pants will make them better and safer high speed drivers.