My wife says it's wrong to acelerate entering a corner.

She hates it when I do. She says her father raced cars and would never take a corner like that because it's unsafe. Is she right?

I also draft on the highway. But hell everybody does that.

So I want to know, what is the correct way of nagotating a corner?

Have I been taking corners wrong all these years in sims..

Don't feel bad...I haven't seen a Minnesotan yet that could drive worth a hoot!

Cheers!

Never make the assumption that anything you learn in a racing sim applies to driving a passenger car on public roads.

Your primary focus when driving on public roads should be safety, because there are too many people out there already that don't give a damn about it themselves.

Just take the right line through the corner, that's first and foremost. Don't be limited by that paint in the middle of the road either, that's a horrible line and usually the slowest way through.

That's the "problem". At this point due to habits formed in sims, I'm not even sure what is the "correct" way to drive around a corner. Safety is my main concern. Is it best to coast around a corner, or to use the power to pull you through the corner? To me it feels proper to power through within the limits of traction and body sway. (within the limits of a minivan of course) but for my wife being the passenger it feels unnatural and she considers it unsafe. But for me it feels unsafe relying on momentum to take you through the corner.

Oh no. I do that also. (another "Bad" habit, I guess)

That is another topic of debate with my wife. She says it's not my line. But then she also thinks I'm hugging the line when I'm not.

Quiet you.

Hey what's happening in WI. Went through there on the way to MI over Thanksgiving. Not one Highway Patrol seen. In years past I would always see them leaning out the side of their car along the side to the road holding a radar gun or flying up behind me on the road then going around me, but this year not a one. WI must have caught there limit this year and took Thanksgiving off.

A couple of good things driving in sims has helped me with:

* Multiplayer racing has taught me to leave lots of room from the car in front, don't assume they brake at the same point as you and don't trust that they will do what you expect, human drivers are unpredictable and many of them drive like crap and brake too early or too late especially in bad weather conditions
* My preferred oversteer simracing style and rally sims have taught me how to countersteer when losing traction, this has been good in the couple of times the car lost traction in snow and rain, I didn't panic but just countersteered went with the loss of traction until it caught
* I also have learned heel-toe right foot braking in sims, using my G25 pedals, I haven't actually tried this in a real car yet but hope to use it in real life at a racing school class someday.

Other than that I would echo the other advice, using simracing skills on the real road like "drafting" or proper "apex lines" that cross over the double yellow is a real bad idea when it's not a closed track or a sim, the damage will be real when your luck runs out and someone else does something you don't expect.

For a sample of idiots trying to drive on the road like a sim see:

In almost all cases, if you're at or below the posted speed limit this shouldn't even be a problem.

The perspective of the passenger is more correct than your own. As the driver you know what you're doing as you do it, you're holding onto the wheel and you're prepared for the movements of the car. Your job as a driver (besides "don't wreck") should be to make the ride as smooth and comfortable for your passengers as you can.

If the passengers say it doesn't feel right then you need to back off. A minivan isn't a performance machine - concepts like "drafting" and "apex" shouldn't even occur to you for the most part.

I'm not trying to be a jerk here, honestly - but what you're doing here is a bit like going to one of the flight sim forums and asking the guys there how you can apply dogfighting moves you learned in a fighter jet sim to one of these:



It's just not the same thing.



Rather that focusing on learning from performance driving (racing) you should look into defensive driving. That might give you a better set of skills to apply to public road driving.

I find that most medium prized cars are not even so comfortable to drive on the actual speed limit, especially around blind bends where I can't see who's going to hit me if I stray over the middle. So I'm not tempted to go that fast.

A bit of power in a turn or such - see no problem with that though. As long as I can easily remain on my side or see all the way clear that I have all the road to myself.