Driving

Driver Position

• "Dead" Pedal
• Right foot/leg braced against the transmission tunnel
• Hips pushed back into the seat
• Seatbelt ON
  • Only exception is when making a water crossing (roll down all windows as well)

Steering

• "Thumbs out"
• If airbags hands at 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock
• If not airbags, hands at 10 and 2 or 9 and 3
• Shuffle steering
  1. Hands move from resting position to the top of the steering wheel in a "pushing" motion.
  2. Hands then move back from top of steering wheel back down to resting position in a "pulling" motion.
  3. Repeat
• Bump steer
  • When the terrain or wheel pushes against the steering, turning the wheel.
  • More prominent in solid-front axles than IFS.
  • Resist the bump steer.
  • Keep thumbs outside the steering wheel.

Technique

Left Foot Braking/Brake Throttle Modulation

• Using your left foot to add back-pressure to the drivetrain, equalizing torque bias, and reducing throttle lag.
  • In an automatic, place your left foot covering the brake pedal. Leave your right foot on the throttle.
  • Before getting to an obstacle, apply enough brake pressure to engage the brakes, but not so much that the engine bogs down or is unable to sustain forward momentum.
    • This may require increasing the throttle to maintain momentum.
  • Feather the brake with your left foot to adjust your forward velocity and momentum while keeping tension in the drivetrain.
  • This takes a lot of practice to develop a good feel for it and will be different in each vehicle.
  • Once you have a good feel for controlling your momentum with the brake, add in the throttle foot.
  • The goal is to keep the engine RPM's stable while making forward progress.
• Can act as a "variable locker" to provide enough resistance on a wheel that is losing or has lost traction to equalize the torque bias and provide enough torque to the wheel that has grip to propel the vehicle forward.
  • If the wheel that has lost traction is a rear wheel, adding hand brake may be the better option than foot brake due to front/rear brake bias (discussed below).

Hand/Parking/Emergency Brake

• Adjusting the front/rear brake bias
  • Brake bias is anywhere from 60-80% biased to the front. This means that when using the foot brake, 60-80% of the braking force goes to the front wheels and only 20-40% to the rear.
  • On-highway driving this serves to stop the vehicle faster as the weight transfer puts most of the vehicle weight onto the front wheels.
  • When using left foot braking/brake throttle modulation, can be used to adjust the back-pressure in the drive train.
  • Off-highway when backing down a slope, this bias can cause the vehicle to be unstable and lurch or lose traction as a large percentage of the weight of the vehicle is now on the rear wheels, reducing the effective stopping power.
    • The most common symptom of this is the front wheels lock up when braking while backing.
  • Adding a couple of clicks to the handbrake (also called emergency or e-brake) and engaging the rear brakes partway can shift the bias from the front to the rear. When backing down, aim to bias around 60% to the rear. This will provide better braking control.
• Starting from a dead stop on a slope
  • In a manual transmission, pulling up on the hand brake can provide enough braking force that the vehicle no longer rolls backward while transitioning from the foot brake to the throttle. This can act as a "third foot". If there is a floor-activated parking brake, this technique isn't effective.
  • In an automatic transmission, this can also help allow the torque converter to build up enough pressure to move the vehicle forward without spinning tires.

Philosophy

• Driving by the rear wheels
  • Front wheels can turn, rear wheels can't
  • Rear wheels track inside the front wheels in a turn, this is known as "wheel cheat".
  • Visualizing where the rear wheels go provides a better sense of the overall position of the vehicle through an obstacle
• Reading the terrain
  • Look 10' out, then 50', then 100', repeat
• GOAL: Get Out and Look
  • If you can't remember where your vehicle is, lose your line, stop the vehicle for any length of time, etc
  • Your vision is much better outside the vehicle than inside
  • Make sure to look under your vehicle and do a full 360. There is a tendency to only look forward.
  • This includes after getting out of the vehicle for lunch or to take pictures. If enough time has passed for you to forget your line, what was under your vehicle, etc, do a full 360 again. This will help prevent mistakes.