Fast & Furious Is Full Of It: 5 Racecar Driver Realities

If you watch an actual fast driver, the first thing you notice is they often look deceptively slow. They're not drifting sideways, they're not sliding around, and their tires aren't squealing. It's like they're taking a leisurely cruise to Grandma's house and the background happens to be scrolling by really fast. Screeching tires are a sign that the limits of a car have been exceeded in a way that's wasting / misdirecting energy. So the next time you watch an action movie, listen for that and realize that all of these cool characters have no idea what they're doing.

Then there's the gear shifting. If you shifted gears as frequently and as angrily as a movie character, I'd shudder to imagine the shape of your transmission. Having your hero grab the stick and slam it around is an easy way to show that he's angry and bent on vengeance, but in real life, you'd probably just crash, thanks to the amount of time you'd only have one hand on the wheel.

And while I hate to ruin this for you, there's a reason "drifting" (letting the rear tires slip all the way around corners) never caught on outside of Tokyo. It's a good skill to have, and it's certainly cool to watch, but it will slow you down more than driving through a swamp of molasses. Drifting is what you do to get a car that's gone out of control back into your hands. It's used to correct mistakes, but isn't something you'd ever want to do deliberately. Any cool shot of cars drifting around a corner is a bunch of racers fucking up together and desperately trying to fix it.

Pop culture doesn't always lie to you, though. Drafting -- the art of trailing behind another car to lower your air resistance -- is extremely important in certain kinds of races. That means Mario Kart is one of the most realistic teachers out there, although in real life, letting a monkey drive the car will get you disqualified from most races (and the ones that allow it really shouldn't).

If I had a dollar for every time someone joked that racing isn't a sport, I'd be able to buy an F1 car, shove doubters into it, and make them drive until they believed me (or until all the muscles in their arms seized up). First, there's the sheer physicality of it. Racers are on hot tracks, in hot cars, and in sweltering fireproof gear. You probably don't think of driving your car as a workout, because you've driven a car before and you didn't have to stop and guzzle Gatorade afterward. But if you race for just 90 minutes, you'll be spent.

The car you drove to work today has features like power steering which are designed specifically to give you a smooth ride with minimal effort. The roads you drove on were created with the same in mind. In a race, all of that is gone -- we're muscling cars around the track, fighting the laws of physics and a bunch of other drivers who may be crazier than we are. Our cars don't have things like power steering -- or at least, not like yours does -- because it prevents us from getting a good sense of the grip the tires have. We're constantly cranking the steering wheel, making quick adjustments while the wheel fights back.

So your arms get a workout, and so does your neck. Your head will always want to be tossed to one side thanks to the centrifugal force, and you can't let it if you want to see where you're going at 120 mph. At the end of a track day, I'm exhausted physically and mentally. In the documentary Senna, we watch a driver who has just won a race ask his father not to touch him because every part of his body aches. So it's a little more work than sitting down to play Forza.

After all, have you ever seen a fat race car driver? There's no such thing, even though we sit for a living. Drivers have strict diet and exercise regimens for a very simple reason: Weight is the number-one enemy of a racing team, and if a team is trying to save five pounds by spending $10,000 to make the suspension thinner, well, can't you go on a diet instead? Seats are also sculpted specifically for the driver, so too many cheat days at McDonald's and you won't even fit anymore.

And if you're thinking of making a living out of this, I've got bad news: You're not going to make it. Your physical abilities peak at around 23, and the best in the world start training in karts when they're five. Of course, I'm all about people taking it up as a hobby -- that's my job, after all. But before you start, realize ...

It's easy to assume that the big difference between race driving and regular old driving is that the former requires faster reaction times and less of a sense of self-preservation. What newcomers are always shocked to find out is that at certain speeds, physics start playing some very weird tricks on you. Regardless of how often you drive on the street, you will do literally everything wrong your first time on a track.

For example, let's say you're going into a corner too fast. Your first response would be to let off the gas and brake, right? That's a normal, natural reaction, and on a track will produce a spinout worse than if you had been nailed by a blue shell. What you should actually do is go a little faster. You still might not make it, but speeding up shifts the weight distribution of your car in a way that gives you that greatest chance of success.

Oh, and you'll gain an appreciation for how incredibly forgiving your car is during your commute. Maybe your eyes will wander for a few seconds to glance at a billboard or something, and you still catch yourself with plenty of time to avoid those schoolchildren in the crosswalk. Well, that same lapse of concentration would be disastrous on a track, and to the schoolchildren inexplicably trying to cross it. You always want to be looking where you want to go. Always. And when you're going this fast, "Where you want to go" is quite a ways ahead on the track -- my mind's always a few turns ahead. New drivers take the track as it comes, which means they're waiting until the last moment to do anything. That's fine when you're trying not to miss the turnoff into Safeway. On a track, you're going to hit the wall.

Oh, and keep both hands on the wheel. It sounds obvious, but many new drivers keep one hand on the gear shift. You want to treat your stick like it's been sitting in the sun all day. Touch it just long enough to make a good, clean shift, and then get back to the same ten-and-two position you learned in driver's ed.

And speaking of student drivers ...

I could beat that Porsche in a race with a rusted SUV. I'm not trying to brag; I simply have the experience. Your car is a tool, and the biggest thing you'll do wrong is not know how to use it. You may have been on the street with it a thousand times, but that's like going on a thousand first dates. Taking it on the track is a hardcore tantric sex marathon, followed by five hours of intimate conversation that will revitalize your flagging relationship.

One gentleman showed up to his lesson with a heavily modified Lamborghini. He wasn't looking for an instructor so much as a hype man -- all he wanted me to do was tell him that he was perfect in every way. I'll try to be polite and say only that he was doing more things wrong than right. Nothing bad happened, but it was a constant reminder that I was merely along for a 170 mph ride. At that speed, if anything bad happens, it's going to be quick and catastrophic. When you're seeing someone make the same mistakes as your other students, but at twice the speed, well ... no matter who you are, you're going to find God for a few moments.

Still, I want to reassure you that accidents are rare, and it's the advanced students who tend to suffer them. They're the ones pushing themselves. And that's good for you, because if you crash on the track, your insurance agent will probably react with the same disdain as when you tried to claim your Pogs as priceless family heirlooms. This is why my students happen to attend a "driver's safety course" instead of a "race school" -- a change in terminology can make all the difference to an insurance company. I still wouldn't look forward to having that conversation with them, though.

Still, if you can avoid an accident, you might find your insurance rates improving off the track ...

While you'd think the guy zooming by you in a school zone spends his weekends racing, I've found that people who go to the track stop taking risks on the streets. I did some irresponsible street racing in my youth, but that wouldn't be fun anymore. You're too aware that it's not a question of if you'll hurt someone, but when. The track is safe and controlled, and it just feels better. So if you have a friend who takes your life into their hands every time you get into their car, take them to the track for your own sake.

And even if you couldn't possibly care less about racing, you can learn techniques that will make you a safer street driver. No one truly understands what their car is capable of until they take it on the track. And that's bad news if you wind up in a situation on the streets where you have to test those limits.

For example, given the choice between taking a corner at more than 0.5g (that is, having more than half your weight pushed to the side) or slamming into a tree, most drivers will take the tree with the assumption that trying to turn that hard would send the car spinning out of control and into some even worse fate. On the track, you learn otherwise. I've lost count of the number of students I've taken into corners, asked for more steering, and after being told it was impossible, casually reached over and turned for them. With practice, you'll find yourself capable of making turns you never dreamed of. God forbid you ever need it, but if a kid runs in front of your car or giant robots start rampaging through the streets, you'll be prepared.

Or let's say you swerve to avoid a collision and find yourself starting to spin out. You're taught to counter-steer, and that's accurate, but what you're not taught is to also add a little more gas. It's the same as the lesson earlier about going around turns: That acceleration shifts weight to the back of your car and straightens you out. But you have to recognize that you're in a spin quickly -- once your car has gone horizontal, you have to brake and ride it out. If that sounds complicated, it is ... unless you've done it a few times. That's the point.

So the best thing you can do to prevent accidents is learn to keep your head about you when the unexpected happens. People don't react the right away to skids and swerves because they don't have a lot of experience doing either, so they panic. Go out on a track and make those mistakes in a controlled environment. Learn what it feels like when your car gets a bit out of control. Learn what it takes to get it under control again. It's the most fun you'll have learning how to not die.

Jack instructs for Edge Addicts and is the co-founder of Petrol Lounge, a premium car storage and concierge service for people whose collections have outgrown their garage. Mark has a story collection and a website.

For more insider perspectives, check out 4 Horrifying Things I Learned Drunk At Work As A Stunt Man and 5 Reasons Doing Movie Stunts Is Harder Than You Think.

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