Aston Driggers has been racing karts for over half a decade (Photo credit: Chris Driggers)

Oakmont junior Aston Driggers has been racing for most of his life. He started at age 4 with rc cars. Now, he races karts and is planning to compete in the STARS championship this year, which is a high-level national championship that races across the country. When he started driving on the road, some of the skills from the track helped make him a safer driver on the road.

Watching for others:

When on the road or track, predicting others’ actions helps a driver see situations happen ahead of time and thus gives time to react to them. 

Watch others around, and make judgment calls based on how they are driving. Look for moves that other drivers could make, and judge what decisions they are likely to make. 

A prime example is when someone is waiting on the side of the road at a stop sign, and someone else is traveling down the main road. The driver on the main road must judge if the driver on the side road will pull out or not based on the amount of traffic, conditions, and the closing speed, and take appropriate actions. 

This skill has also helped Driggers miss many crashes on track, as paying attention to others helps him predict what they will do next. Learning how to predict others’ movements helps to become a safer and more proactive driver. 

The safe speed for conditions

A driver is met with many different potential road conditions, and this affects the amount of grip for the car. This is extremely dependent on the weather and temperature. 

The most grip will be when it is hot in the summer. The least will be in the middle of winter, and especially when it is snowing or raining.  

Understanding the conditions and the grip available is important in determining what speed is safe for the situation. In poor conditions, the speed limit for a road could be inappropriate for the road conditions, and this raises the risk of an accident. 

This is also true on track, as the grip level is dependent on temperature, and thus the speed of the first few laps must be adjusted accordingly because of cold tires. If it is raining, then the cornering speed will be much slower because the limit of grip is much lower. 

Oversteer 

Oversteer occurs when the rear of the car wants to overtake the front. This is caused by the throttle being applied too aggressively, and the power of the engine overcomes the available grip from the tires. This causes the tires to spin faster than the movement of the ground, and this is what causes instability. 

To counter this rotation, steer in the same direction as the back of the car is rotating; if it is rotating to the left, then steer left. 

However, the main issue with this is to only give as much steering as needed to correct the rear. If there’s too much, and the tires regrip the road, then the car may ‘snap’ in the other direction, and this time more violently.  

Understeer

Understeer is when the car does not turn when in a corner. This is caused by the entry speed to the corner being too fast, and this causes the front tires to slide across the road, and the car to continue straight.

This can be counteracted by braking into the corner to continue reducing speed or braking earlier for the corner and taking less speed in. If this happens on a slippery road going into a corner, apply gentle brake pressure, like 10-20% of the pedal. 

This will continue to scrub off speed, but avoid the ABS system from interfering. This is because the ABS system is great for stopping in a straight line, but engaging it in a corner reduces the ability to turn. 

So what is the root cause of the aforementioned problems? Speed. Many of these problems can be avoided if a respect for speed is maintained. Speed is dangerous, and motorsport experience has taught him this from witnessing many crashes and being involved in some.

 So, consider how you drive, and remember that speed is dangerous.