Is there a good website out there that teaches you how to be safe in a RWD car? Like how to control spinouts and hydroplaining etc. I think it would be very useful if anyone found one and posted it on here for the inexperienced drivers of RWD cars.

 

This is some very useful info on proper driving techniques: http://www.turnfast.com/tech_driving/driving.shtml

 

Take a rwd car and practice after it rains or whiles its raining in an empty parking lot.

You'll know when you give it too much power on bad surfaces... and hopefully learn how the car reacts to your imput and what you need to do.

 

find a wide, smooth gravel road, with minimal traffic. Usually something you'd see in a new industrial park. Or my persoanl favorote, narrow bald cheap tires. The narrow, bald tires will lose traction very easily, at low speeds, which will allow you to discover how your car behaves at the limit and beyond. When you stick beter tires on it, you will be better prepared, and will find the limit is now much higher, but the behavior isn't much different.

 

Driving like a normal person, not Mario Andretti is a start and not exceeding the speed limit is good too.

 

My advice.

- Join the SCCA and enter a beginner autocross event (they will provide an instructor)
- Run in autocross events for a few years.
- Enter a beginner DE
- Run in DE's for a few years
- Get your competition license
- Race

 

Reading about it is no substitute for experience. Try one of those indoor go cart places for a very safe, very inexpensive way to try to drive RWD at the limit.

Andrew

 

that's great, but how does he learn to handle situations such as black ice on a freeway, oil on the road after a rain, hydroplaning, gravel, or any of the myriad other factors that can cause an unexpected loss of traction?

The idea that driving carefully means you will never have an accident is ludicrous. When you gain experience handling a car in situations you would not normally encounter, you greatly increase your chances of surviving some of the scenarios I mentioned above without a scratch. If you never exceed the speed limit, you are effectively driving at your limit on the freeway. I personally would prefer to be driving well below my limit in freeway traffic. Speeding doesn't cause accidents. Falling asleep or being inattentive causes them. Learning how to handle situations that can cause trouble will make one a better driver. Practicing controlling a slide in a controlled and safe environment is far better than crossing your fingers and hoping.

You can't learn to drive by reading a book or web page. As others have said, karting or autocross is good, but IMHO, they don't tend to allow for much experimentation. An autocross can help with knowing how fast is too fast for a corner, but relatively useless for knowing what to do about it IRL when traction conditions don't match what you expected, or didn't have a choice. When a car pulls into your lane, forcing you onto the shoulder at 70 mph, you might want to know how your car behaves on gravel at that speed, and it would certainly be helpful to know how to keep from spinning out or rocketing into the median/oncoming traffic as you get back onto the pavement. You aren't going to learn that in an autocross.