On the street, I enjoy shifting and steering the S2000, but I know I don't possess any special driving talent. What might be the driving differences between an average driver like myself and one with a true gift for driving a car like the S2000?

 

Ever car has its own limits. The best driver knows the cars limits and has skill at keeping the car at its limits without losing it.

 

Good drivers:
*Know the limit of the car
*Can sense/find the limit of almost any car pretty fast
*Can find the fastest race line on a road course (or I guess any turn for that mattter)
*Understand balance and use braking, turning, and accelleration together
*Can correct without overcorrecting
*Are comfortable with understeer, oversteer, and 4 wheel drifts (as they can induce/control/recover it)
*Understands how to handle different turns/roads: increasing/decreasing radius turns, hills, banked turns, off-camber turns, etc
*Recognizes changes/needs of a car: brake fade, tire fade, adverse road conditions (wet, dirty/rocky, different grip of asphalt/cement/dirt), etc
*Knows how and when to brake, heel-toe, match rev, shift, turn, trailbrake, etc.
*Knows when it is safe to drive fast. The street is generally not the place.

There's probably more, but FOR SURE I know that you can never be a good driver until you've driven your car on a road course several times. There's just no way to experience everything on the street.

 

you're a pretty good driver if you understand the 'physics' related to driving. practice makes you perfect.

 

10 years or so I went to Skip Barber's 2 day driving school where they broke down driving dynamics and ended w/ a mini auto cross course in Vipers. I had been driving for over 15 yrs at the time, and thought myself a better than average driver. It's humbling to be tested empirically.

There was a mixed group of men, woman, and teens w/ dads. there was one 17 yr old guy that just learned to drive a stick weeks before, and his times / performances in the various exercises were consistently in the top 10% of the class. I'm know driving includes far more than just skills - judgement, etc, but this kid was special - the closest I've seen up close of driving talent.

Yes, like anything, we can all probably improve our driving, especially w/ good instruction and opportunity. However, I do believe a few like anything else have that something extra.

 

Lets not forget mental preparation!

--"You think you have a limit, and then you go for this limit and you
touch this limit, and you think OK, this is the limit. As soon you
touch this limit, something happens to you; suddenly you can go a little
bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct
and your experience as well, you can fly very high."
-Ayrton Senna

Purple haze, if you dont have any experience in racing road courses or autocrossing whatsoever, go pickup Speed Secrets Professional Race Driving Techniques by Ross Bentley, it will tell you everything you need to know about the differences between a talented driver and a bad one, and will teach you what to do to become successful with your driving.

 

It's a god given fact that every driver thinks they are above average. It makes you wonder who can possibly make up the lower half. I respect the fact that you've done the driving school. I would love to take my whole family through that kind of experience. I only wish every driver's ed course required a day on the skid pad, etc. (especially here in MI where it can get nasty on the roads).

As for the original question, there's no doubt that some people posses that special sense to control objects - be they cars, horses, or whatever - and seem to do so naturally. For most of us, it means lessons and learning which pay wonderful dividends when we stick it out.

 

It's been a while (several years, at least) and I don't remember the details of the people involved but I seem to remember seeing a story somewhere about a small group in California that wanted to start something like this out there. They put high school students through something like what you're talking about and found that the kids were involved in significantly less accidents involving excess speed, wet roads, and just about any other adverse condition you can mention.

When they tried to get the program implemented state wide, they met with very strong resistance from the state legislature. It seems the powers that be were afraid that if the kids "knew" how to drive that way, that they "would" drive that way when in fact, the statistics showed exactly the opposite.

Gee, teach our children how to really handle the car when things go to he** in a hand basket as apposed to letting them figure it out in the heat of the moment. What a concept!. Naturally, the politicians were totally incapable of understanding this one.

Drive Safe,
Steve R.

 

"Talented" driver .....

I would say just like any given sport that each individual is limited to their own ability.

Meaning you can drive all your life but you will reach a threshold that you will never be able to overcome. Ie. reaction times.

It's simply a coordination drill. Some people are more coordinated than others therefore will beat you if you suck when comes down to a "drivers" race.

Practice will make you better but I would say EXPERIENCE in different situations which a driving school allows you to safely experience will give you an advantage.

 

I have to disagree. Most folks don't know what to practice, so they continue getting better at doing things in a less-than-optimal manner. I see this all too often in my area of expertise.

I agree with some of the others. I believe you have to be born with it. How many times have you heard an announcer say so-n-so has God-given talent? Usually, they follow that up with, "When he learns the game at this level..." or such.

But being talented does not automatically make you a skilled driver. Instruction(and a willing student) and experience are needed to hone skills. A willingness to push oneself and the ability to learn from mistakes(and the $$$, too ) have to be there as well. Every athlete, inventor, politician, parent, spouse has failed or made a mistake. You can't be afraid to error. Most folks have a hard time doing this in their S's. Even those that track their cars.