5 Ways to Improve Your Driving Without Leaving the House
Tracking your car a lot? Wallet looking a little empty lately? Before you spend another dollar on car parts, take a moment to try these 5 things that will make you faster without ever leaving the house.
Visualization
If you’re like most enthusiasts who track or race their car you are more than likely familiar with the big costs involved in participating. Tires, brake pads and other consumables can add up fast and before you know it you’re out of money. If only there was some way to get faster without leaving the house or spending money…
I’ve spoken about this before in previous articles and wanted to touch on it again in this one. Fully suiting up in your living room might have you looking a bit ridiculous, but the value is definitely there. Top level drivers use this in all forms of motor racing and sport use this technique. You may not be able to hit the race track or autocross this weekend, but you can definitely sit in a quiet place and imagine a lap or working on a corner that is giving you trouble.
Simulators
A full blown simulator is out of the reach of most amateur drivers or weekend warriors. What isn’t out of reach for most of us is a good steering wheel, pedal set and games like Assetto Corsa. Console games are getting more and more realistic and if you’re not taking advantage of them you are losing out. These are great for training the eyes in where to look, the hands to react quickly to a slide and concentrating on cutting consistent laps.
Exercise
Your mind and body have to be in top shape to extract the maximum performance from any machine. Higher G loads in karts and formula cars demand a strong baseline from which to work off. The less you have to exert yourself physically the more your mind can focus on the driving. Getting brain fade in a car can be down right dangerous. You don’t even need a gym membership for this one. Plyometrics are great for speed and strength training while running regularly will yield big returns in a race car.
Study everything
Study onboard of the best drivers in the world. It is said that a smart man learns from his own mistakes and a wise man learns from the mistakes of others. When you can’t get to the track go online and binge watch videos of class winners who are racing at the same places you do. If you have video of yourself pull the two up side by side and compare the line you are taking to theirs. It’s a cheap and inexpensive way to see where you might gain a few tenths. If you have any kind of data from different times you were at a track, pull them up and compare which one was faster and why.
Read!!!
Reading is one of the best things anyone can do in their spare time to get better at driving. There are thousands of books about suspension setup, driving technique, and technical manuals. Buy as many as you can afford and start taking notes. As you get more experienced you will often reread a previously understood concept and be able to apply it directly to your driving. There is a lot of misinformation in the automotive industry that can be cleared up with a proper old-fashioned paper back.