initcode.html
 |
||
Rod Hall: Driving Slow Enough to WinSeptember 30, 2002 Rod Hall has won too many off-road races to count, but it's safe to say the number is over 200. Rod always raced a full-size pickup, and his specialty is desert racing. One of the few things he will brag about is having raced every Baja 1000 since 1967. What he will add only if you ask him is that he is one of the very few who managed to win the race overall in a pickup -- beating not only the single-seater racers but the motorcycles, which traditionally finish ahead of all the four-wheel vehicles. That was in 1969. Now Rod runs the Rod Hall Off-Road Driving School in Sparks, Nevada, where the distilled wisdom of decades as a champion off-road racer are available to weekend students in an outdoor, rolling classroom. As a racer, Rod Hall had a surprising philosophy in a sport that would seem to epitomize the essence of macho: "I always drove slow enough to win. That means getting your car to the end of the race without breaking it, which is what it takes to win, since you have to finish in order to win." Rod's idea of "slow" in an off-road race was 97 MPH over a washboard Baja arroyo that would have a street driver crying "uncle" at 30 MPH. To Rod, the speed at 97 MPH was comfortable. 99 would have been too fast, and 100 would have broken the car. In races, there would often be vehicles ahead of him -- going 101 or 102 -- until something broke and they dropped out. "I teach three basic rules, to gauge how fast you should be going when you're driving off-road, because the biggest culprit in driving off-road is always speed. Whether going too fast means 30 MPH or 10 MPH -- if it's 30 and you should be going 10 MPH, or you're going 10 MPH when you should be going 3 MPH. "First is to notice your ride. If you're gettin' a smooth ride over a washboard situation, your speed is probably okay. If things are flying around in your car, then you're probably running out of suspension and starting to damage the car. "The next thing is to notice whether you're always able to put the vehicle where you want it all the time. If you come around a turn, over the brow of a hill, using the whole road, and there's something in front of you and there's no time to steer around the problem, and you can't put the car exactly where you want it, then you're driving over your head. "The third thing is to notice whether you're comfortable behind the wheel. If you're tense, your hands are blue from gripping the wheel, you probably need to slow the vehicle down a little." 
Rod runs all his driving schools and tire seminars on BFGoodrich® tires, his long-time sponsor, and points out that the key to understanding how to get the most out of a tire off-road is knowing the tires' strengths and weaknesses."To prevent tire damage, remember that the tread surface is the strongest part of the tire, and the sidewall is the weakest. That means that if you're going over rough terrain, you're better off putting the tread over something tough, than slicing through the sidewall." Knowing how the tires work is important, too. In recent years, Rod has been driving a HUMMER, which has on-board adjustable tire pressure -- a feature he says is so desirable that once you've experienced it, you don't want an off-road vehicle without it. "When you go off-road, start out with the recommended tire pressure. Then, when you want added traction and better ride, you can drop the tire pressure a bit. "Going down a paved road in my HUMMER at 75 MPH, I hit a spot of washboardy road, and I slow down, and I want the tire to flex more, and I'll drop the speed down to 22 MPH and drop the tire pressure down to 16 to 18 pounds. At that pressure, the flexible sidewall is sucking up some of the energy instead of just pumping it into the chassis of the car. "Going through sand and dirt, you may want to go down to 8 or 9 pounds pressure. When I'm climbing dunes in my HUMMER, I'll go down to 8 or 9 pounds as I'm climbing. The low pressure gives you more flotation, with more tire surface on the ground. The footprint gets longer, the sidewall widens. Then when you're over the top, you raise the pressure." Rod gives special instruction to off-road students on a mud hill, on which the tires will spin. That's where he shows them the gentle art of backing off on the throttle far enough to allow the tires to bite, and move the car. It's getting the tire to work for you. "A tire will do a lot more for you if you give it a chance to get hold of the ground, than it will if you spin it and throw it mud and dirt everywhere." Rod made a dramatic demonstration of this philosophy in the East African Safari, some years back, when he came around a bend on a night section near Mombasa, and encountered a giant mud-hole, filled with cars, all of them stuck. The mud hole was 40 or 50 feet wide, and there was no getting out of it for the cars that were already stuck. Most of them had come to grief the same way: They took a run to build up enough speed to charge the mud-hole. Then they charged in and got stuck. Rod entered it gently on his BFGoodrich® Mud-Terrain T/A® tires. It was the first year they were available. "I just eased in, at about 1 MPH, letting the tires work for me, letting the tire get ahold of the surface, and I was able to steer, and I was able to drive right through it. Past everybody. It was slow, but it got me across." That was Rod's philosophy as a winning off-road racer. "I was never the fastest guy from point to point in an off-road race. I just managed to be the first one across the finish line." Exceeding the legal speed limit is neither recommended nor endorsed. If you're interested in attending the Rod Hall Off-Road Driving School and learning off-roading from a bona fide legend, call, write or e-mail:
|
||
 |
||
| See Archives 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 |
