Road tested

Growing up in Indiana, I learned to love two sports: basketball and racing. I shot free throws before I could ride a bike and happily drove my dad’s Ford F-150 workhorse around the farm by the age of 12. Thankfully, I never took out any fence posts, and I always missed the side of the barn.

Driving has long been a love/hate relationship for me.

The sound of a well-tuned engine, down-shifting and flying through a set of well-banked curves always puts a smile on my face.

But road rage, orange barrels and gross negligence have put a damper on my zeal for the open road.

So, when invited to attend a day at MasterDrive, I gladly accepted.

MasterDrive is a hands-on driving school designed to teach crash avoidance, which includes much more than defensive driving. Driving offensively and knowing your own limitations, as well as the limitations of your vehicle, are topics often overlooked but covered in this course.

Before Ken Stout founded the hands-on driving school in 1990, he toured the race circuit as a tire engineer, trained drivers at the General Motors proving grounds, served as chairman of the Public Safety Highway Transportation Committee and competed in off-road races for five years.

Stout recruited retired and active-duty police officers to help teach various classes, and he developed specific curriculums for the three programs MasterDrive offers.

A man of patience

MasterDrive’s course offerings are a testimonial to Stout’s tolerance, versatility and courage. He trains law enforcement officers for everything from high-speed chases to simply maneuvering through grid lock in an emergency.

And if that isn’t enough, he regularly rides shotgun with teen drivers, teaching an in-depth teen driving class. He’s even trained postal workers to drive in ice and snow.

Now he’s taking on corporate America, training key employees and executives.

“What happens if (God forbid) your editor is involved in a serious car accident?” Stout asks. “While he recuperates, the magazine would go on, but it wouldn’t be the same product without him.”

The task of training corporate executives and other professionals may not seem valiant until you consider what Stout knows about the average adult driver.

Stout asks the class (of engineers and vice presidents of a local utility company) to rate their own driving skills on a scale of one to 10 with one being the absolute worst and 10 being race car driver skill level.

“We’ve tested more than 5,000 adult drivers and most test at a 5.25 level,” Stout says to the class. “You will know by the end of the day where your skill level actually is and where your limitations are. You’ll know what you can and cannot do.

“Teens typically think they’re up at a 10 when they’re really at a one. They don’t know because no one gave them the opportunity to find out how good or bad they really are.”

No matter how skilled a driver, physical and emotional states can change a person’s performance level.

“Michael Jordan can shoot eight out of 10 all day long,” Stout says. “But walk up and tell him his mom just passed away and he won’t be able to shoot at all. Athletes work hard at their physical skill but spend more time on their mental state. The same principles apply to driving.”

Stout suggests to drive as though everyone else on the road was just fired, had a fight with a spouse or backed over the family pet on the way to work.

A vehicle’s limitations and road conditions can also bring a level 10 driver to a two. Rough or wet road surfaces reduce the friction between your tires and the pavement, yielding far less traction. And let’s face it, a Winnebago simply doesn’t handle speed or curves like a Porsche.

Complex dynamics

“You don’t really drive a car, you drive the tires,” Stout says. “The only part that counts is the part touching the road, or the ‘contact point.'”

Consider the weight of your vehicle. Then consider the weight of the golf clubs in the trunk, your mother-in-law and her poodle in the back seat and the 20 gallons of gas in your tank-all factors that affect how your car handles.

Stout explains both the simple and complex dynamics involved in guiding a vehicle through stops, accelerations and turns.

“Seventy percent of crashes involving operator error take place in turns or curves,” Stout says.

If you brake suddenly while in a sharp curve, the entire weight of your vehicle (including the poodle) rests on one tire-this is referred to as losing slip-angle.

Stout says he doesn’t call a car crash an accident simply because 92 percent are operator error. Only eight percent can be attributed to mechanical failure.

Classroom lectures are brief, but provide an animated and informative preparatory introduction for the driving portion of the course. Stout says the only way to learn crash avoidance and other skills is by practice.

So, the participants hop in their own cars and hit the driving course.

Ladies and Gentleman, start your engines.

MasterDrive utilizes several expansive parking lots at Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Falls for the actual driving portion. The modular classroom sits on the edge of one of those lots.

How to reach: MasterDrive (330) 666-4666


Ready for Indy

An intrepid reporter tests her skills

The time had come to put down the reporter’s notebook and experience a little of what I’d been observing.

Ken Stout founder of MasterDrive joined me for a skills test through several courses including a slalom, cornering, backing and skid pad.

My six-cylinder, all-wheel drive, five-speed with its low profile tires and tightly engineered German suspension handled the slalom with ease. Heading into the cornering course, with 90 degree turns at 40 to 45 miles per hour was also a breeze.

We tried the skid pad in my car, but it wouldn’t comply. No fish tails and no doughnuts from my ride; so we used one of MasterDrive’s fleet vehicles: a front-wheel drive compact car.

As one of Stout’s instructors dumped water on the skid pad, I eagerly approached it but quickly realized how vehicle limitations can change things. Spinning for what seemed a long period of time, fence posts and barbed wire flashed through my brain. When we finally came to a rest (facing the right direction, by the way), I was just thankful there were no golf clubs in the trunk.

How did I rate? Well, let’s just say my next vacation will include a few days at the Skip Barber Racing School. Open-wheel sounds like fun.