Photograph by Chris Tropea
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This driving tip is going to center around what may sound like a bit of a hot take. But, please, try and save your outrage and emails until you’ve read the whole thing, because, in my humble opinion, this summary is unassailable in its logic and relevance.
A question I hear a lot from drivers of all skill levels is a pretty relevant one: Where should I position my hands on the steering wheel and when, if ever, should I reposition them?
Good question, right? Maybe even one you had, or one you feel like you already have the answer to.
Well, here’s my answer, and prepare yourself for the incoming hot take: The car does not care where your hands are on the wheel.
The car also does not care whether you shuffle steer every 10-degrees or whether you’re one of those rare, long-armed individuals who can smoothly rotate your hands 360-degrees with no trouble at all. It just doesn’t care about that stuff.
What the car actually cares about is the speed, smoothness and accuracy with which you move that wheel. It doesn’t care how you accomplish that; it just cares that that’s what is accomplished.
That said, there are ways to achieve that type of action that are, in general, more effective than others. Steering inputs are best initiated from an “index position” which is basically your neutral, straight-line rest position.
The 9:00 and 3:00 grip is going to be your most common index, and for good reason. It’s balanced, symmetrical, and places an equal amount of tension into both arms. Of course, so would a 10:00 and 2:00 index, or even an 8:00 and 4:00 rest position. The difference is with the 9:00/3:00 split, you have equal leverage available on the wheel in either rotational direction, so it’s a naturally good place to start from.
Next let’s talk about inputs, and specifically shuffle steering, which has a few different definitions depending on who is referring to it.
Most frequently, you’ll hear people referring to shuffle steering as the practice of never moving either of you hands past 90-degrees of wheel rotation. At the 90-degree point of the corner, you pass control of the wheel with your top hand to your other hand, which had slid up to meet the hand relinquishing control and take over the rest of the turn.
You may also hear shuffle steering refer to ANY practice of re-orienting your hands on the wheel, and lots of drivers will tend to have a certain angle they don’t like to exceed when crossing their hands over, so at some point they’ll recenter their hands on the wheel.
For example, I have wide shoulders and kind of stumpy arms, so I’m not super comfortable going past about 150-degrees of rotation. So, in a turn like the FIRM’s tight right-hand hairpin, which requires 180 degrees or more of rotation, I’ll initiate the turn by sliding my left hand to the top of the wheel, pulling down, then re-engaging my left hand at the bottom of the wheel when it hits 9:00 and making that my new index position. Exiting the corner is very much the opposite of entry.
That traditional “never past 90” shuffle steering was common in the early days of autocross with tighter courses and older cars with slower, heavier steering with lots of kickback. Today’s cars tend to have more heavily damped steering that rewards a lighter touch and allows for more fine muscle feel, so I tend to observe more people practicing my version of the shuffle, with a single pass between the hands.
To answer your next question, “which one is better?” I’ll refer you to my previous hot take. The car doesn’t care about the method, just the result.
The key is smoothness and not overtaxing the tires’ ability to grip the road or suddenly overloading them and causing them to gain slip angle too rapidly, which is just going to slow you down. That said, quiet hands make fast laps. The most reliable way to go fast is usually going to be the way that requires releasing and regripping the wheel the fewest times possible.
Check out the classic IMSA video we recently showcased featuring the GTO/GTU race from Long Beach in 1990. There’s lots of great in-car footage of Pete Halsmer in the GTO four-rotor Mazda RX-7 that shows his hands re-indexing on the wheel in lots of corners.
What he does frequently is resets his hands on the wheel so they’re at 9:00 and 3:00 during the most heavily loaded phase of the turn. There’s some sense here, especially if that’s a car that has a lot of steering kickback, which I imagine a late ‘80s IMSA GTO car certainly does. He’s putting his hands at the calmest, most leverage-efficient position during the most critical, highly loaded phase of cornering. So, yeah, I get it.
If you want an answer, though, for what I think you should be doing, I’d tell you this if I were in the right seat: Do what you’re the most comfortable with, but understand that as you go faster, certain techniques will lend themselves better to skill building.
I’d love to see a 9:00 and 3:00 index, smooth inputs with equal force being imparted by both hands, and turning with the hands and arms, not the shoulders. You’re also going to have to get comfortable with your own maximum turning angle and come up with a consistent strategy for when you exceed it.
If you don’t like turning past 150 degrees, but sometimes you do a single-hand reset and sometimes you do a multiple-hand shuffle in turns requiring you exceed that angle, you’re setting yourself up for failure half the time, and you’re never going to know which half.
And don’t forget to breathe, and don’t forget where your eyes should be. But those are topics for other columns. Work on your hands and we’ll get too those next.
"I have wide shoulders and kind of stumpy arms, so I’m not super comfortable going past about 150-degrees of rotation."
This is me. Add to that, in the Abomination I am as big as the driver's side of the car. With the seat back as far as the roll bar would allow, there wasn't room to move without elbows hitting something. I learned shuffle steering with that car and it stuck. Even with all the room the Mustang has, I still tend to shuffle steer on the tighter turns.
I think 9-3 is just a good starting point. In martial arts we used 3 stages- shu-ha-ri. Basically learning the establishing rules. Then when you have mastered the dogmatic approach, starting to experiment with variation. Then transcendence where you establish your own style that works for you. I see the cross over of the idea in a lot of stuff like this.
I think we start 9-3 to establish a habit of always griping the wheel the same way. Students will come in with all sorts of positions and lose track of where they are on the wheel. It establishes that good foundation. Next you mention variations on positioning in corners. Like you said, 150 degrees rotation works for you. Where you decide to change your position, etc. The last would be making your own thing, which probably would show up more between disciplines. Like my autocross handwork is very different than my track handwork. Or Pete Halsmer has is own style like you mentioned.
So I think learning 9-3 is important, but its just a stage in a journey that you'll eventually adapt as your own or perhaps come up with something completely new.
In reply to theruleslawyer :
I really like this approach, even for non-driving things.
On a less serious note, this read like something on a motivational poster or a t-shirt 
So I think learning 9-3 is important, but its just a stage in a journey that you'll eventually adapt as your own or perhaps come up with something completely new.
As an EVOC instructor, the lesson plans mandated shuffle steering. For street speeds, and tighter turns where lots of steering lock is needed, shuffle steering is a good technique that allows the driver to maintain control of the wheel. On track, I'm strictly 9-3, except for those rare tight and slow corners that require too much steering lock... then a quick shuffle to get through the corner and back to 9-3. I do think it's more difficult to use shuffle steering with a manual transmission or paddles that rotate with the wheel. As noted above, shuffle steering may be useful in a very tight cockpit.
In reply to theruleslawyer :
Yeah this sums it up nicely. Everyone is free to do their own thing but there's a reason the most common thing is the most common thing. Everyone can build their own house, but use the materials that have been perfected by years of development and regulation.
theruleslawyer said:I think 9-3 is just a good starting point. In martial arts we used 3 stages- shu-ha-ri. Basically learning the establishing rules. Then when you have mastered the dogmatic approach, starting to experiment with variation. Then transcendence where you establish your own style that works for you. I see the cross over of the idea in a lot of stuff like this.
I think we start 9-3 to establish a habit of always griping the wheel the same way. Students will come in with all sorts of positions and lose track of where they are on the wheel. It establishes that good foundation. Next you mention variations on positioning in corners. Like you said, 150 degrees rotation works for you. Where you decide to change your position, etc. The last would be making your own thing, which probably would show up more between disciplines. Like my autocross handwork is very different than my track handwork. Or Pete Halsmer has is own style like you mentioned.
So I think learning 9-3 is important, but its just a stage in a journey that you'll eventually adapt as your own or perhaps come up with something completely new.
By far the most important thing is for your hands to remain 180* apart. 9-3 is ideal and teaching that is the best way to establish the habit. But beyond that as long as you can keep track of where you are and keep 180* separation, the specific positioning doesn't really matter. One of the more common things I see when doing autocross instructing is that people will start with decent hand position and slowly shift through the run and end up with both hands at the top of the wheel by the end of the run.
Shouldn't matter as long as your brain can sense where straight ahead is, taking your hands off the wheel supposedly resets this.
The center stripe on some racing wheels helps with this.
When instructing folks in modern cars I discourage shuffle steering unless the person has some physical limitations (stumpy arms would be one)
It's not that it's necessarily bad; it's more of a case of new drivers who do this seem to make abrupt inputs.
As for me I shuffle steer when hustling a car down a gravel road but I try not to on road courses. I have to shuffle steer slightly in left hand corners due to an injury.
Should we also discuss how you unwind the wheel? Learned from our old friend Marc D. many moons ago: Instead of letting the wheel slip through your fingers, actually unwind the wheel so you’re always in control.
I remember 25 years ago I attended Skip Barber Racing School at Laguna Seca and they taught shuffle steering. They had us practice in a very difficult situation: A Dodge Ram pickup with bald rear tires and brake pulled on wet tarmac. The instructors could catch it, but I couldn't move my hands fast enough every time. I don't think anyone other than the instructors could manage it to do it fast and smooth enough in that situation. Very frustrating!
Nowadays racks are so much faster, it seems unneeded in most cases, except in the tightest autocross turns. And even still, I rode with a nationals level driver who crossed his arms over rather than shuffle steer, and he beat me by over a second. I'm no longer a believer except in certain situations.
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