Yeah I don't shuffle steer either... It was drilled into my head when I first started racing that you don't do that...

At the DE events near where I live they teach the side step technique. Hope my limited knowledge of proper race techniques helped someone.

What's funny about that is that there's a guy that teaches stunt driving school and he teaches you to shuffle steer. I think it was in an issue of Sport Compact Car a couple years ago. His argument was that if you try to keep your hands at three and nine, you can't go anywhere in real life situations where you'd need to do tricky things with the car.

He actually teaches you to keep your hands near the bottom around seven and five. :)

There's the difference.... stunt drivers, while being good at what they do, they don't have to have the finely tuned skills of a race car driver. They are putting cars in unrealistic situations and trying to keep the car under control and get it to do what they want. If you ask any race car driver, they do not shuffle steer. I read on another forum that this is because if you do, you can forget where your hands are on the wheel and therefore it can cause problems for you. With your hands at 9 and 3 and not shuffle steering, you always know where your hands are on the wheel and you have a consistent reference point for your steering input.

I think it's about finding a system that works for you. 3 to 9 position works on the track because you don't generally need more than 150 degrees of steering lock, but on the road you may come across tighter bends. FWIW, in Britain the Institute of Advanced Motoring mainly teaches shuffling, which they take from the police high performance driving course.

having your hands at 9 and 3 also let's you know what your suspension is doing before the car reacts. An early warning system of sorts.
A guy in the insurance business told me that 60% of accidents would be avoided if the driver had another mere second of reaction time.
This where looking ahead (and not just immediately in front of you) also helps.
From the track to the road.


one bad shifting habit admission:
sometimes to keep the car from coming to a dead stop (and waste gas with the stop and go) I'll accelerate from 1-3 mph by downshifting to 2nd gear.
I never downshift to 1st ever.
The proper thing is to stop the car with the e-brake,
take it out of gear, release the e-brake and then accelerate into first gear.
I get lazy.

What is shuffle steering? I'm not familiar with the term -

Shuffle steering is when you shuffle, or move by some other means, your hands around the steering wheel as you turn it. It causes you not to have a consistent hand position on the wheel. While it isn't necessarily a ba dthing to do on the street, many people think its terrible to do on the track or during any kind of spirited driving. As I stated before, it causes you not to have that constant reference point as to where straight is. Also as someone else says, this position allows the car to give you the best amount of feedback that it can. If you do any kind of performance driving, you will learn to listen to what a car is telling you and adjust accordingly. If your hands are in a constant place, the signals your car is sending to you will normally mean the same thing. If your hands are moving around the wheel as you turn, the signal that you get at one point may mean something different than the same signal at a differnt point around the wheel.

Actually, in the article the owner of the school was describing his school as one that teaches practical driving skills for road safety, not just stunt driving. :) I would agree that what he had to teach was not good for racing, but for street purposes and general control of a car, his techniques, while slightly counter to accepted ideas, were pretty compelling.

I agree - for normal street driving the advantages of having two hands on the wheel in a position where you can maneuver them outweighs the "feel" of 9 and 3. Think about it this way - we're porsche drivers but how much feel do you get through the wheel of a Chevy Malibu? :eek:

But for performance driving I agree that shuffling is bad. Track driving and street driving are not the same, though some of us drive like it is :D

"...agree with everything you said except for positioning of the driver.

I was at an autocross and was having significant trouble keeping the car stable during downshifts. I was rev matching very well, I was holding the shifter correctly... I couldn't figure out what the problem was. I had someone ride with me and they said the problem was I was sitting too far away from the wheel and pedals. The guy who rode with me, a very experienced road racer and autocrosser, said that the optimum position for the driver is the one where you can press the clutch pedal completely in with your RIGHT foot. I adjusted my seat accordingly and have found driving on the street as well as the track much easier. By moving my seat that one position forward, it put everything where Porsche designed it to be. The shifter was more accessible and easier to operate as were all 3 of the pedals. "

Wombat, I tried what you said and although it took a bit to get used to I like it alot, although still maintaining good torso distance.

On another note, regarding rev matching, I've lately been using the technique where I match revs (blip) on a downshift on the way out of the higher gear and it works superbly.

To clarify:

Previously:

Brake
Clutch-in
Shift 4-N (or whatever)
Blip gas
Shift N-3
Clutch-out / gas

Currently:

Brake
Clutch-in
Shift 4-3 / Blip gas while performing full shift, somewhere between 4-N
Clutch-out / gas

Another case of no-duh to some of y'all, but it was new to me. And I feel quite Schumacher when doing it.
__________________
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The more you do it... the more you'll like it...

I'm envious. My downshifting still needs work. My work-around is to, while standing on the brake, downshift at the closest point I can guess to minimize shaft loading. This does not provide max engine braking, but doesn't tear up the car either. I'm done with braking at turn in, in the right gear, and ready to get on the gas.
Fortunately, the Boxster has all kinds of brakes and loves to stop fast without relying on the heavy downshifting. Side note - my old Triumphs had lousy brakes, downshifting was a way of life, as was broken transmissions and diffs.
One of these days I'll get the heel/toe right... :(

I'm trying to learn some better shifting habits...

I usually downshift this way..
Brake
Clutch-in
blip gas
shift 4-3 / sometimes still on gas if shifting 5 - 3
clutch out

Is this improper downshifting? I'm sure it's better to blip only when the gear is in neutral, but I feel like I might as well double-clutch if I'm waiting that long to rev-match.

comments appreciated!

Just read this whole nice old thread...
I still can't believe people here (US) can get a driver's licence without passing the parallel parking and the incline start tests. To pass my driver's exam in Europe (among many other tests) in a very small car I had to stop on a very steep incline with three bulky inspectors on board. Going back even a tiny bit before driving off fails you on the test. And you HAVE to pass the test on a manual car regardless of whether you own an automatic or a manual.

There is no way with a manual shifter that you can avoid going back on a steep incline without the help of a hand brake. Theoretically it may be possible but it would be a very hectic endeavor and a very nasty lurch forward for sure. I have always used the hand brake and I have never rolled back. It takes a while to master the three moving parts (two feet + hand) but it's the proper technique and it's definitely worth practicing and learning.

I still can't believe they let you use brakes in Europe. Why when I took my test we had to use our FEET to stop the car - we didn't have no fancy "brakes". Parallel parking involved getting out and pushing the car sideways into the spot (I failed this the first couple of times when I rolled the car instead of sliding it).

It's funny, I've managed to not go backwards on inclines for 25 years without the use of a handbrake or without riding the clutch. Of course, maybe it's different in Europe.

Hi,

Each State here in the US has a different Drivers Test. In my state - Minnesota, we had to both parallel park and start on an incline, Illinois too when I took their test in the '80's...

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

denverpete:
"I still can't believe they let you use brakes in Europe. Why when I took my test we had to use our FEET to stop the car - we didn't have no fancy "brakes". Parallel parking involved getting out and pushing the car sideways into the spot (I failed this the first couple of times when I rolled the car instead of sliding it).

It's funny, I've managed to not go backwards on inclines for 25 years without the use of a handbrake or without riding the clutch. Of course, maybe it's different in Europe."

Forget geography. From what little I know of physics, I fail to discern the force that would match the gravity's downward pull during the (very brief) time it takes your right foot to move from the brake to the gas pedal. I'm assuming you only have two feet and you're not using either of them to stop your car -- like they taught you during the Driver's Test.