Driving a race car on track little resembles the daily commute, right? Not exactly.
After getting some autocrosses and track time under my belt, I’ve picked up a few habits that have boosted my confidence when I’m driving on the street and have made me a safer driver overall. Perhaps they can help you, too–and maybe inspire you to go from spectator to participant.
Yes, I know it’s hard to see the road ahead of you when there’s another commuter in the way, but just follow me for a second.
In the same way that I visually hunt for that next apex, I now find myself searching for any information about the cars and the road ahead.
I can’t always get the clearest picture of what’s going on up there, but I can often glean a few important details just by taking a few quick moments to look ahead. Primarily, I look for brake lights and turn signals, but I also try to gauge how closely everyone is following each other and who’s doing what.
I’m now using the mirrors to fully map out the traffic surrounding me, especially on the highway.
A recent example: I’m on the highway in the middle lane behind a semitruck. There’s a decent-sized gap in the traffic in the left lane, so I move over to the left lane to overtake the truck. As I accelerate alongside the truck, I check my mirrors, and that’s when I spot a Nissan Altima barreling up at least 10 mph over the speed limit, bobbing and weaving in and out of traffic. (Shocker, I know.)
[“You have to drive like everyone out there is trying to kill you.”]
The Altima quickly approaches the rear of the semi and then whips right, presumably to overtake the semi. Lo and behold, just as I get in a position to safely reenter the middle lane ahead of the semi, the Altima reappears and lunges into the middle lane, likely without looking.
If I hadn’t been aware of the Nissan, we very well could have attempted to merge into the middle lane at the same time.
You want to make it clear you’re heading into the pits, so why wouldn’t you make it equally obvious that you’re slowing down to make a turn?
When I’m getting ready to make a turn, I put on my turn signal first, then start to brake. That way, there’s less of a chance other drivers make an incorrect guess at what my next move is going to be. I know, this seems so basic, but time on track has reinforced the need to communicate that next move.
Track conditions frequently change, and so do the roads we drive on.
Rain is the most obvious–and most notable–variable that can impact any vehicle’s handling. If I keep tabs of how much road I need, say, for a four-way intersection in the dry, I now know how much of a buffer I’ll need to add when it starts to rain.
Also, as with race tracks, debris can easily find its way onto the driving line. But since there usually aren’t any marshals on hand to quickly clean up the mess out on I-4, I add “small, non-car-shaped items” to the list of things I scan for on the road ahead of me: separated tire treads, dropped construction equipment and the like.
I can still recall the incident.
I had just recently started autocrossing and was driving home from work in my Sentra SE-R. I was passing the Brookhaven MARTA station.
Someone ran a stop sight and then stopped partway through the intersection–and right in front of me!
I didn’t have a stop sign.
I let off the gas a bit to put some weight on the nose and just steered around them like it was an offset gate. No brakes, no panic. Not even sure if I lost much speed.
And a related story.
I had spent the day teaching at a Street Survival school where they note, as Colin said, the road is always changing.
How much could the road change on a nice, sunny day?
On my way home–the same road that I took that morning–I came around a bend to find a tree laying in the road.
Welp, the road had certainly changed.
I don't know about a habit, but I noticed I react things without thinking about it or panicking. Slide in the snow? Correct and go. Something falls off the truck in front of you? I know who is where and how to move the car. I certainly attribute autox and track days to being able to avoid incidents on multiple occasions.
Yeah honestly driving on the road can be scarier than driving on track, because even though you aren't at the limit, the level of variables is just do high. At least on track you know that everyone is trying to go to the same place and there's limited access to the patch of pavement you;re on. On the road, anything can happen at any time from any angle, so your awareness level almost needs to be more varied. There's some excellent advice here on how to take skills you;re already using on track and easily adapt them to a more common, but occasionally scarier, venue.
Driving on a 2 lane highway at night in Northern California, doing a touch over 65, I came around a curve to find 2 deer standing in the middle of the road. Since I was looking as far ahead as I could around the corner I had enough warning to pick the best gap between them and slalom through and past. Without my autocross and track experience there would have been at least one dead Bambi.
I'd say that my track experience has helped me avoid dozens of accidents over the years, and directly led to me surviving what could have been a fatal accident 20+ years ago. Looking far ahead and having situational awareness limits the amount of dangerous interactions that I'm exposed to. Being able to put the car exactly where I want without having to think about it has gotten me out of the situations that I couldn't avoid. Basically I try to avoid surprises, and have a plan for the times I can't avoid them.
The near fatal accident happened when a gravel truck crossed the double yellow directly in front of me to make a left turn on a levee road (there was no intersection, he was driving off the road.) The road had a slight left curve to it. His cab was headed off the road, with the trailer crossing my lane. The wheels of the trailer were still in the opposing lane. I was able to brake as hard as possible (from 65 down to I'm guessing around 35 at impact) while turning in and aiming for a wheel on the trailer. Hitting the wheel still destroyed my car, but I walked away. Had I locked them up and hit the frame of the trailer, I could have used a short coffin.
In reply to JG Pasterjak :
Post Covid driving on the road is frightening; I'm thinking about getting an Abramhams Tank for a daily driver.
Not that folks weren't crazy before.
I was once talking a coworker home in my Showroom Stock Miata and had a close call.
We were on I-15 North and a guy cut across into my lane going all of 20mph. I took to the dirt shoulder at 65 mph and simply steered the car back on to the road. It wasn't the first time I'd ever had the car sideways in the dirt at that speed.
My coworker was utterly stunned and impressed at the same time. To me it was no big deal .
The closest I've come to using racetrack skills on the road was when I was driving my sister and both of our fiancées from NYC to Boston in our dad's X3. We were on the tight and winding Taconic Parkway fully loaded up in a corner when the outside rear tire blew. The car slewed sideways and partly onto the grass at highway speed. I kept my foot in it, countersteered, brought the rear back in line, and soon came to a safe and controlled stop.
Without some experience going "four wheels off" (more experience than I care to admit) I don't think I would have kept my cool. I don't think a rollover was outside the realm of possibility honestly.
I tell my non-car friends all the time that I may not be a good racer (they don't need to know the difference between club racing, autocross, etc) but the habits I've picked up have come in handy. For all the reasons listed.
The steering reflexes and looking ahead alone have saved me numerous accidents. I tried to impart onto the GF's kiddo when she started driving to ALWAYS LOOK AHEAD. (See that guy looking into his mirror repeatedly? He's getting ready to cut you off to go around that other guy.)
In reply to LanEvo :
That's something I'd personally like more experience with: how to respond to a sudden loss of traction.
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