Gentlemen, Your Brakes

By Roger Kahn

To anyone who has grown up male in the United States, driving an automobile transcends the rather rudimentary coordination one needs to stay in lane on highways. For reasons that swell Freudian literature, driving becomes a symbolic, even a sexual act. (Praised be the soft enchantress who likes the way we shift.)

Marxist sociologists suggest that we see ourselves in the cars we choose. Young, assertive, loud, one is a Triumph or a Porsche. As we become more burdened, we evolve into Ford station wagons. Last seen of all that ends this strange eventful history, a man becomes a settled sedan: perhaps a Seville. Perhaps a used 1967 Chevy.

Not wanting to give too much away, I own a sedate efficient diesel sedan and retain an interest in a sports car that speaks in the hollow thunder of youth. Until recently I guided each with macho faith and precious little knowledge. After three hours of instruction, concentrated mostly on parking, I obtained a license years ago. Without further instruction, I simply drove. Most of us simply drive. We study tennis, dancing, golf. We simply drive.

"We have seen studies on highway deaths," says Jacques Couture, an athletic, bearded Quebecois of 37, who presides at the Jim Russell International Racing Drivers School, near Mont Tremblant. "Speed is only the No. 3 factor. Equipment failure is second. According to these studies, the deadliest killer is driver error."

Along with ten others, I had enrolled in Couture's "high performance" program. You begin by wondering how much anyone can absorb in three days. You conclude with fatigue, a sense of achievement and at length a kind of horror. For years you have been driving out of control without realizing it.

Driving, Couture suggests, should ultimately become a system of controlled reflexes. Developing the reflexes is "not a matter of guts, but of brains. Ideally you sit behind the wheel like a computer." Safety is the first priority. The finest racers preach, "First finish. Then finish first."--We walked the track, Couture explaining, always explaining, how to attack each bend, each kink. Then he drove us to the cars: Formula Fords, long-nosed fiber-glass machines that weigh about 950 lbs. and are powered by a standard Pinto engine. Formula Fords are stripped for speed: no windscreen, no headlights, no speedometer (a tachometer is your guide).

You climb into a cockpit, strap in and start the car. You shift upward, first, second, third, fourth and then down. Gas. Clutch. Shift. Now gas, clutch, gas again. Downshift. You are learning how to double-clutch. You are learning to control a car. You cease to hear the swallows. Your universe becomes an asphalt strip. It will be afternoon before Couture regards you as competent to corner in a Formula Ford.

Each turn on track or highway has its own geometry. It has a theoretical maximum speed. Without being on a track or without a diagram in front of you, it may be hard to visualize, but there is a specific technique for attacking, say, a 90DEG right turn. Approach down the extreme left. Brake and downshift from fourth to third. Brake and downshift third to second. Steady throttle. Now turn at an angle that touches the inside shoulder at the very center--the apex--of the corner. Accelerate out. Unwind the wheel. Breathe.

For cornering drills, Couture picked a monster called Namerow, an expanding-radius hairpin. What you seek is the so-called line of constant radius. You do your braking and downshifting before you enter Namerow. You do not accelerate until you are leaving it. As you follow the line of constant radius, steering is your total concentration. Every great professional driver employs this approach.

If there is a single secret to competent driving, it is balance. Turning, shifting, braking, accelerating change the balance of the car. At best, rough movements make the ride uncomfortable. At worst, they throw the car into a skid. I skidded at Le Circuit on a day that began dry and darkened into rain squalls. A wet track is a humbling track. The low-slung Formula Fords grip dry road, suggesting supersecurity. A spinout in the rain--I was too damn stubborn to slow down--is all the more memorable.

If there is a single mental key, it is concentration. Our minds are always drifting as we drive. Just before I skidded on Le Circuit, I suddenly forgot the turn I was approaching, and indeed where I was. I wondered how the Laurentian swallows survived the rainstorm.

You cannot transfer all the lessons of a track to a highway. You cannot convert yourself from an amateur to a professional in three days. But at Le Circuit, you make a beginning. In his final lecture, Couture quoted a racing axiom: "When the flag drops, the bullshit stops."' The truth of the road is that most of us are barely competent drivers. When we die on the highways, our incompetence kills us.

"Are you afraid on the highway?" I asked Jacques Couture, a poised and spirited man.

"Only when I really think about all the other drivers," he said. "Then the experience of the highway at 55 is more terrifying than Le Circuit at 110.''

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.