Making it somewhat street legal | learning to drive stick shift

[@gergelyczuczy5972]

It was really cool seeing how your daughter is enjoying learning stickshift. I also couldn't image this is such an exotic experience for some, but she's doing really great. You have a lot more control over the car, your driving style, and the handling of various situations. Just wait till she learns about you can use the engine as break by shifting back, time the green lights this way, and just flying by them without stopping. And selecting gears based on the required torque for taking over or climbing slopes. Or not limiting speed downhill. So, how long do we have to wait for her first drifting videos? :)

[@Turbo_Snail]

She got a lot to learn. I forget that I have 30 years experience and things just happen without thinking. I’m trying to let her get as much seat time as possible. I think we’ll try to start with drifting in 2 weeks. She’ll learn the same way I started. On some wet grass. It’s so easy to do it and stuff goes sideways doing 15mph. Then gravel and then parking lots ;). I’m about as excited as she is. I just got a GoPro as well so hopefully we’ll get some decent footage.

[@gergelyczuczy5972]

@@Turbo_Snail When I got my Mazda3, I took it out to an empty parking lot at the first winter's first snow. Back then my now-wife didn't have a lot of driving experience, just the license, and her legwork wasn't quite on top. I taught her clutchworks by starting the car in the 2nd gear smoothly. It's a diesel with 380Nm of torque, which wasn't always enough for her to get it right :) And I while I "check the car" I've almost drifted into a pellet of leftover stones, at horribly low speeds. Apart from having some fun, we've learnt some about car handling, the limitations of the car, which can contribute to safe driving on the roads. I think this is also an important aspect, while having such fun activities.

[@Turbo_Snail]

Oh I know exactly what you talking about. I loved driving in the snow. Today, tire technology and car technology is so much better. Isabell knows how to drive. She had a permit for 6 months. She drives all of our other cars including my tuned daily driver. However, take away ABS, traction control, automatic trans and some really shitty tires (currently) and she has her hands full. We’re doing some hard Accel/brake sessions today to get her to think fast. Girls tend to think before they do. Boys do before they think. When doing any performance driving, it’s gotta be instinctively. And that only comes throw repetition. I think she just needs a lot of seat time. The problem, the Miata is tiny and frequently overlooked especially by larger SUVs. Maybe that’s a great pitch meeting to my wife for why I need a sports car ;)

[@gergelyczuczy5972]

@@Turbo_Snail Right :) I think the only thing you might have forgotten about, and it's really essential, is rear wheel drives. Driving front wheel driven cars are a lot easier, due to how physics work out when the body is "pulled". AWD/4WD is the most stable thing ever, you can do really dangerous stunts on serpentines with an AWD, barely noticing how much the car is being stabilized by the mechanics over there. Now you try that with a rear drive, and you are serious trouble, just because you forgot your parachutes at home. Where I live I think we have like 3-4 miatas in the close area, and those folk sometimes are taking them out during winter season, it's a hilly area, where you can get black ice. Going uphill in just partially suboptimal conditions can have some serious side effects. I remember once getting here before the snowtrucks, and I had trouble climbing a 17degree slope in the fresh snow, and it was just about 5-10cm, so not even much. Regarding the tires, I think you are a relative worry-less father until she's asking for slick tires on it ;) Other thing, that I think is very important, some time ago I got one of these promo tickets for a technical driving course, it was just for an afternoon. We got there after a fresh snowfall, slippery track wettened on purpose. We've been driving a friend's celica, automatic, 6 year old mirror-slick winter tires. At some of the exercises, i could hold the car better than some rich folk with their "d-compensational" cars. However, at the end there was a flat simulation, the car basically flew away like a vicutory flag. The only thing stopped the car from landing in the safety ditch was the snow piled up next to it. I've learned a LOT during those very few hours, and since then I never ever save on good tires. I think such technical driving courses should be mandatory for a driving licence. It's for everyone's safety on the roads.

[@Turbo_Snail]

Agreed on the tires. We’re actually getting really nice tires for the front. And we have an endless supply of old shitty tires for the rear. Don’t get me wrong. As much as we love the car. It’s not a daily or one she’s a lowers to take to school. She’s still on a permit. It’s a fun car mostly for the track. It’ll be trailered eventually. We’ll take it out to meets and cruises once in a while on a good set of tires. She was also supposed to be at the teen drivers challenge on may 28 but we couldn’t get the car ready for it. She’ll be doing it when it starts to get cooler. It’s a whole day event and we have no A/C as of now (still working on trying to get it connected).