I use the ankle roll technique as well.

For me, my good old Chuck Taylor's (Converse All-Star) work great.

They are so soft on the sole that you can feel the brake with your big toe and since they are canvas they allow total ankle flex without any resistance.

I am always interested in some new suggestions for driving shoes though.

 

Chucks are the best. I own like a bajillion pairs and they all feel the same when i use them to drive. the consistency between different shoes is good so you always will feel confident using heel/toe. Also, if you feel like you have to twist your ankle too much just to heel/toe, you might me sitting too close. try scooting back a little bit. I sit as far back as i can, so when i fully floor the clutch pedal my leg is almost fully extended.

 

I think my problem is that I have very small feet for a guy my size. I'm 6'3" 190 lbs and wear a 9.5-10 shoe.

 

Yeah, I bet those Puma driving shoes used by Ferrari, BMW Sauber, Renault, and Williams F1 are just designer shoes and were designed with no technical merit.

How does a small foot make a difference? I'm 2 sizes smaller than you and I can do it fine. Roll your ankles, kids.

 

I bought the Sparco Speedway last summer from the Go Fast Lab. Simply the best driving shoes I've ever used. But they start to suck when you get out of the car, no cushion for the heel so you will get tired if you use them outside of the car. So when I went to the track I always had two pairs of shoes.

But I have Puma shoes that are similar to the Future Cat in design but aren't driving shoes. They're closest in comparison to the Speedways but allows you to wear them outside of the car.

 

Can someone explain the "ankle roll" technique? It seems like no matter what I do I just dont have enough sole on the shoe to cover the brake (sufficiently) and give it gas. I don't want to sacrifice grip on the brake pedal.

 

You don't use the sole to hit the gas. You use the side of the shoe, and literally roll your foot to hit it with the side of your foot. This way, you maintain almost full contact w/ the brake pad, and just nip the throttle.

Here, I'll show you my shoes. Check out where the scuff marks are (and how they're only on the right foot and not the left). See how far up they are? You're using *that* part of the foot to hit the gas.

 

Even with my size 12 shoes, I can't use the ankle roll in the S2K, the pedals are simply too far apart and without being able to feel both pedals (hard to feel with the side of your foot I think), whats the point.

Learn to properly heel-toe, actually using the heel and toes/front of foot. Its very easy if you lift your right foot up a bit higher (ie your heel wouldn't be close to hitting the floor) so the brake is under the ball of your foot. Easy enough to swing the heel over then and blip the gas. Took me a few days to transition from one style to the other, but I can be much more aggressive on the brakes using heel-toe as opposed to right side-left side (ankle rolling).

And to get it back to what the OP was asking, when I feel like actually driving, I use Piloti G15's.

 

Somehow I doubt that that those nomex drivers' boots are in anyway comparable to the FutureCats or SpeedCats sold at the corner retail store.

 

This is what I do, get the balls of my feet high enough to really hit the brake and swing my heel over to hit the gas, but I'm still not great at it.

Isn't there a pedal set for the S that brings the pedal pads closer together?