Mind Your Manners

by Nick St. Laurent

Who got us into this mess? I mean offensively defensive driving. Gilles Villeneuve was a master at defensive driving, any kind of driving, actually. But he was completely fair. Ayrton Senna seemed to push it too far at times, and Michael Schumacher has stepped over the line several times, most notably in crucial championship deciding situations against Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve. It's really nothing new. Jack Brabham was notorious for keeping pursuers at a respectable distance with regular salvos of pebbles and rocks and chunks of pavement. Black Jack was apparently a hard racer, and could make the track seem pretty narrow, complaints from other drivers were met with nothing more than a smile, the one that said "your're wasting your breath, mate."

Someone asked me about the rules of the road in protecting positions and in overtaking. I've always thought one defensive move was fair enough, two moves on one stretch of road and you're an ass. It's really is a question of timing and physics. Two objects can't simultaneously occupy the same space.

If you are ahead by more than a car length, so that you can move right or left without forcing the other driver to take evasive action to avoid contact, then the road is yours. Position your car wherever you'd like and make your one defensive move if need be, but don't zig zag down the straight blocking his path. You may zig, but don't zag. If your pursuer catches you by surprise and is already partially along side, then you've only one weapon left, your brakes. So now it's a straight up braking contest, and hopefully you know how deep you can take it into the corner before you work that threshhold braking magic. Who wins? The car leading at the turn-in point owns the corner, and it is the obligation of the other driver to recognize this fact and avoid contact.

"I was beside you and I thought you saw me…" just doesn't cut it. If you're not clearly in front, then yield the corner. A couple years ago I went out to Phoenix for their January double national. I had qualified within a few hundredth of pole and was looking forward to a good result. It all came to nothing because a couple laps into the race a hole opened up on the inside and I went for it. At that point we were in top gear just squeezing the brakes while turning in to a decreasing radius second gear corner. The other driver decided to turn in a little early. Had our wheels touched, one of us would have been launched. I did the right thing and put my car into a spin, and then had to wait for the entire Formula Ford field as well as the Formula Continental field (it was a poorly executed split start) to go by before continuing. After the race, the driver came over and asked if I had spun to avoid taking him out, then he thanked me and bought me a beer.

Be sensible, the fight to be first to the checkered flag is every bit as much fun as putting the car on the limit, but racing is a sport - not war - and your level of sportsmanship should reflect that we're all out there to have a good time. I have been on the receiving end of at least three skirmishes where competitors made errors in judging overtaking moves, and consequently punted me off when reality fell short of ambition. Believe me, it is small peanuts to have the offending driver pull over on the cool down lap to apologize while your car is hanging from the tow truck's hook.

Copyright Nick St. Laurent; all rights reserved.