Track time is expensive. That is to say, the owners of race tracks will request your first born to roll your tires across their asphalt. And that is their right.
But that means you either don’t get to practice as often as you’d like or you practice on the public highways and byways.
I like the path of least resistance on this topic and so did a number of my auto tuning friends. We would get together for a series of roads games late at night when the roads were clear and test newly installed or modified parts as well as practice certain things you really don’t want to do in traffic.
Shifting down more than one gear is not a natural manuever. When you first learn to drive a manual transmission, you learn 1-2-3-4-5 and 5-4-3-2-1. 5 to 3 is throws up big, flashing red lights in the brain for some folks, others not so much. But either way, you need to learn to overcome the feeling that doing this is somehow wrong.
On the other hand, passing other vehicles is a natural feeling for most folks. You are moving faster than the car in front of you; you either need to slow down or go around. But close tolerances, less than a couple feet, if not under a foot, can bring the big red lights flashing in your brain as it takes a split second to remind you of everything that could go wrong. You need to learn that as long as you are doing everything correctly and the guy you’re passing doesn’t wig out in some way, things will go exactly as planned.
But who do you practice on? You certainly don’t want to be doing this in traffic, and even AJ Foyt couldn’t pass himself.
Well, you gather up your friends and conduct, as I liked to call it, passing practice sessions. I’ve heard it called ‘Leapfrogging’ and from the guys with ‘No Torque’ cars, in days past, RX-7’s, and currently the S2000’s, ‘Shifting Practice’ (because 5 to 3 is a dream for them, they are usually digging for 5 to 2). I learned this from watching groups of sportbike riders. They travel in packs anyway, so it is probably easier for them to get a group together, and some of the wannabes really need to see if they’ve got the nuts for riding and this is a perfect exercise for that.
How it goes is this: You and as many people as you trust to invite (at least 3 or 4, but we had groups as large as 12 at times) set a cruising speed, usually 80-90mph. You are bumper to bumper, literally, if you can see the bumper of the guy in front of you over your hood, you’re too far back. Once up to cruising speed, you set up in your top gear and roll for a bit. When he’s ready, the guy at the back of the pack steers around the car in front of him, downshifts and takes off, passing the rest of the group, taking his place at the front of the pack. A perfect pass would be if he keeps the back end of his car within 3ft of the car in front of him as he settles back down to the cruising speed.
As soon as possible after he is locked into the front spot, the guy who was in front of him and is now at the back of the pack does the same thing. And so on, and so on until you run out of gas or road, or whatever.
If you care to add danger to the mix, don’t do you research on the traffic constables. Make sure you tell the slowest guy in the pack (the buffalo) beforehand.
Do not try this at home. Also, not for the faint of heart.
This will help you become fearless of wierd shift combos and close vehicle tolerances (you can have a nice car or you can have a race car, you cannot have both), which will help you remember where your four corners are at all times.
And, as in all things driving, there is a certain type of tunage you will need to make the moment complete.
For me, it would be a song like this one:
Jamiroquai – Travelling Without Moving
The bassline is perfect, the lyrics I could care less about and, for all his harping on about the enviroment, lead singer Jay Kay owns way too many sports cars to not be a full-on hypocrite.
The opening seconds of this tune feature the sound of his 1996 Lamboghini Diablo SE30 Jota. In purple, if I remember correctly. Listen for the gated shifter. Try not to drool.