Look Ahead, Think Ahead

Whether you’re just on your way to the grocery store, or coming through that fast right-hander at the race track, it is critical to think far ahead of where you are and where you want to go. You always want to be continuously aware of everything around you. Here’s our first lesson in how to drive fast and safely. The moral of this message not only will help you stay safe on the highway, but it will also help you become a faster driver when you do get out on the track.
Get into the habit of continuously scanning your environment, never letting your eyes pause for more than an instant on any one point before you move on to the next point. Look far down the road, then bring your vision closer. Check your left sideview mirror, then your rearview mirror, then your right sideview mirror. Sweep your eyes across your gauges to check not only that your speed and rpm are where you expect, but also your safety gauges—the gas, temperature, and oil pressure, and “idiot” lights—aren’t signaling any impending problems. Then do it all again, maintaining a complete picture of everything around you that might in any way affect you.
The problem with most drivers is that when they’re in traffic they fixate on the rear bumper of the car ahead of them. If something happens a little further up the road, they don’t notice it until after the car ahead does. Then it’s too late and they don’t have enough time or space to do anything except become part of the accident report.
When you’re scanning all the things in your world—what’s happening far down the road, what the car ahead of you is doing, what’s on either side of you, how wide the shoulders are on the road, what’s behind you and how fast are they overtaking you—you should also be playing a continuous game of forecasting the future.
For example, is that car that just came onto the freeway from the exit ramp ahead going to try to spurt all the way across the road ahead of you and try to cut into your lane? If a car several hundred feet ahead has just put on their brakes, or changed lanes abruptly, could they be reacting to something in the lane that you can’t see yet? Is there a driver tailgating you who might not be able to stop when you do if there is an obstacle in your lane?
The trick is to look ahead, think ahead, and decide ahead of time what you will do if one of the things that could go wrong does go wrong.
A story is told about Juan Manuel Fangio, the famous Argentinian driver of the late forties and fifties—well before our time, of course—in a race in Italy. The photographer on one of the corners said that every time the great driver passed him, Fangio’s front wheel would touch the corner within inches of where it had touched the time before and the time before that, exactly on the fastest line around the corner. Then, on one lap, passing that corner Fangio abruptly swerved wide several car widths to the middle of the track.
An instant later, a crash and smoke from around the corner telegraphed the news of a serious accident. But Fangio’s car came around again on the next lap without problems. He had managed to swerve offline to miss a swerving car that he couldn’t even have seen.
When he talked to Fangio afterward, the photographer asked about the accident. Fangio told him, “Every time I came up to that corner, I could see the crowd looking my way. Then on that one lap, they were all looking the other direction, down the track. So I knew something was wrong and moved off the line so I would have room to handle a problem if there was one there. Sure enough, they had seen the driver ahead lose control of his car and swerve sideways, but I was able to get around him.”
Fangio was not only watching where his car was going, as well as a thousand other details like the condition of the pavement, the feel of his tires, and the gauges on his dash board, he was even aware of what direction the crowd was looking. And noticing a small change in one detail of his surroundings saved his life and allowed him to win the race.
While you may not be able to process information as fast as a famous racing driver from history, you can do the same thing he did. You can be aware of changes in your surroundings, and decide what they might mean to you, so you’ll be prepared to avoid an accident instead of winding up in the middle of it.
Practice this every time you drive so you can react not just to things after they happen, but be ready for anything that could happen. Soon it will seem like you not only have 360 degree vision, but also have the ability to predict the future.

Driving a MINI Cooper Fast Safely

Before you jump in your current transportation module and head out to your MINI Cooper dealer, let’s take the time to go over a few basic driving tips that you’ll be able to use when you buy your new MINI. You can practice them every time you drive so you’ll be ready when your very own MINI Cooper arrives. And we can guarantee that these tips will help you avoid any life-threatening, or license-threatening incidents so you’ll be safe and alive when the dealer calls you to come pick up your MINI.

Good Driving Starts Before You Turn the Key

We’re going to start with the absolute basics. How do you sit in your car? As you go faster, you’ll be surprised at the importance of your basic sitting position. We realize it may seem cool to have the seat reclined to the point where the only thing showing above the door sill is a reversed baseball cap. But from that position it is impossible to stay in control when the motoring gets interesting.

As soon as you get in, push your butt back into the seat until your lower back is against the backrest. Now slide the seat forward or back until you can push the clutch pedal all the way to the floor with your left leg straight but your foot at a right angle to your leg. That should put your right foot on the accelerator with your knee slightly bent.

Now adjust the seat back until your wrists can touch the rim of the steering wheel with your elbows straight. In that position, your hands will rest comfortably on the sides of the steering wheel rim with your elbows slightly bent, making it easy to turn the steering wheel. Most important, there should be at least 12-14 inches between your chest and your steering wheel, so that if the air bag explodes it won’t hit you in the chest before it does its job of absorbing your forward momentum.

With you and your seat in the proper position, now adjust the rearview mirrors. The center mirror should show the entire rear window, giving you as much vision directly to the rear as possible.

The Mini Cooper sideview mirrors are there for a specific purpose. They allow you to see the blind spots beside you that you can’t see out of the corner of your eye or in the center rearview mirror. To adjust the left door mirror, lean over until your head is right against the side window. Now adjust the door mirror so that you can just see the left side of your car on the inside edge of the mirror. Adjust the right door mirror by leaning to the center of the car, then adjusting that mirror the same way, so you can just see the side of your car on the inside edge of the mirror.

Now check your whole field of view. The view in your left-hand outside mirror should just overlap the view in your center mirror, and that view should just overlap the view in your right-hand outside mirror. If this is the case, then you’ll have no blind spots in which a car can hide to cause problems when you change lanes or later, on the track when you get ready to make that pass.

You can check this when you get out on the highway. As you pass a car, as soon as you can’t see it out of the corner of your eye, it should be squarely in the sideview mirror. As it passes out of the sideview mirror, it should be completely in view in the rearview mirror.

Now, you can start the car and head out, comfortable, confident, and in control of your car.

Wait a second. Where should you put your hands? Of course, you’ve been told to keep both hands on the wheel – no cruising along with one arm on the window sill and one wrist lazily draped over the rim of the wheel – but at what position? When you took driver training in high school, we’ll bet you were told to keep your hands at “ten and two o’clock” thinking of the wheel as a big clock face. That may have been all right years ago, with large steering wheels and no air bags, but in today’s cars, that won’t work.

For everyday street driving, the best position for your hands is at “four and eight o’clock.” This position is comfortable, allows you to keep both hands on the wheel for quick response in an emergency, and most important, the air bag can deploy without hitting your arms and throwing one through your side window and the other knocking your passenger unconscious.

We should note that if you take the car out on the race track, you’ll probably move your hands up to a “nine and three” position, like your favorite race driver, but on the track you only need to move your hands a few inches each way for most turns, and you want the maximum possible control to cut that corner apex neatly.

One more thing about those hands. A light grip on the wheel is all you need. Squeezing the rim hard and flexing those biceps isn’t going to make the car hold the road any better around the corners. All you will do is tire yourself out.

Other Accessories and Choices

But wait, we’re still not through with all the choices in all five boxes on the MINI website. We still have to think about interior trim and a few other miscellaneous goodies.

Let’s start with seats and upholstery. Since you’ve already opted for the Cooper S, you’re going to get a good set of sport seats, with effective bolstering to keep you from sliding around on those tight corners. And you can choose from a variety of different colors. We don’t have any advice on most trim decisions but we do suggest that you order the gray cloth upholstery rather than the leatherette or leather.

In our view, cloth upholstery is best because it provides more grip against the seat of your pants in tight maneuvering, helping those bolsters do their job. It’s also cooler in summer and warmer in winter, and won’t show wear as much as the leather or vinyl.

Best of all, the cloth doesn’t add anything to the cost of your MINI. We talked about trade-offs earlier. How about thinking of your decision as trading off the leather, which won’t help you go faster, for a set of tires and wheels that cost about the same and will definitely help you go faster. Seems like a fair trade-off to us.

There are a few other choices to make. If you didn’t choose the Sport package, you might want to look at those front fog lamps again, but as far as we’re concerned they don’t really do much good in fog conditions, and they just irritate other drivers ahead of you. Rear fog lamps, which provide brighter visibility to drivers overtaking you, on the other hand are a good option if you ever drive anywhere when you’re likely to be in the fog.

The navigation system is another option that depends on what kind of driving you do. If you are going to be driving back and forth to the same office every day, and rarely venture into unknown territory, you can probably pass on this expensive item. It certainly isn’t going to be much help getting through the corkscrew at Laguna Seca.

On the other hand, if you’re going to be using your MINI to make sales calls or long-distance trips, the navigation system can be a real time-saver. We’ve tested them and we can say that the latest generation of these high-tech gizmos is pretty terrific. It will change the interior in one important respect, however. The screen goes where that big pie-plate of a speedometer would normally be mounted, and instead you’ll get a smaller speedo mounted next to your tach on the steering column. That’s actually kind of a good thing.

The multifunction steering wheel and cruise control are also a matter of personal taste and requirements. If you expect to spend long periods of time on the highway, being able to set the speed and forget it, while tuning the radio without taking your hands off the wheel, are good things. If you don’t expect to do much over-the-road driving with your MINI, save the $650 to spend on your new go-fast, sound-good exhaust system that we’ll discuss in the next chapter.

Auto-dimming mirrors, rain-sensitive wipers, and automatic air-conditioning are nice things, we suppose, but these are probably things you can manage to do for yourself rather than paying little robots to do them for you. As for the “park distance control?” Give us a break; the car is only 14 feet long, for heaven’s sake. If you can’t get it into a parking place without a back-up beeper, you’re never ever going to master the Charlize Theron parking maneuver or even hope to drive your MINI through a Beverly Hills mansion without knocking over the lamps.

Whew! That should take care of all the little choices to make and right-clicks to push, so you should have an idea of what the car is going to cost and be ready to talk to a real live MINI expert at your nearest dealer (the address of which, of course, can be found on the website, along with a map and driving directions).

Getting the Right Rubber for the Road

We have already said that you may not want the wheels and tires that the MINI dealer has to sell you. To understand why, we need to start talking about performance.

Performance, in gear head terms, is the general measure of how well your car does the four things it is supposed to do: start, run, turn, and stop. To win on the autocross or race course, you need to get up to speed as quickly as possible, go as fast as possible, get around corners as rapidly as possible, and stop in as short a distance as possible.

While many of the components on the car contribute to one or more of those goals, your wheels and tires contribute to all four. More than any other component on your car, the tires and wheels you choose will make significant differences in performance.

Let’s be clear about one thing from the very start: there is no such thing as the best tire and wheel for all those jobs. But there are some features that you should consider when buying any tire and wheel. They include weight, flexibility, and grip.

Weight is the most important aspect to consider. When we measure weight in a performance car, we divide it into two categories: unsprung weight, and sprung weight. Unsprung weight is the weight of all those things that stay attached to the road, or at least should stay attached to the road, when you hit a bump or pour the car into a turn while the rest of the car, the sprung weight, goes up and down on the springs. In other words, the wheels and tires are most of the unsprung weight.

In order to improve performance, we want to reduce our unsprung weight to the minimum required to get the job done. The first issue with heavy tires and wheels is that it takes more torque to get them up to speed. Further, Since heavier wheels have more momentum than lighter wheels when they are spinning, more braking effort is required to slow them down.

Finally, the more unsprung weight you have, the more difficult it will be to adjust the handling of the car. Changing springs, shock absorbers, and anti-sway bars will change how the weight above the springs moves around, but it won’t change have any effect on movement of unsprung weight.

For these reasons, you really want the lightest wheels and tires you can buy within your budget that are still strong enough to do their job.. The problem with the original stock or factory-optional wheels is that they’re heavy. There are many choices of wheels on the aftermarket that are much lighter because of their materials and construction, but that will still provide all the safety and functionality needed.

Tires are another issue where we’re going to go to the aftermarket to get better performance. Your MINI can be purchased with two different types of tires: performance run-flats and all-season run-flats. Notice that both types are “run-flat.” That’s a nice engineering feature, assuring that a flat tire won’t leave you parked beside the road. They also allowed the designers to avoid having to figure out where to stick a spare wheel and tire, which saved weight and cost.

But there are two problems with run-flat tires. In order to provide the run-flat capabilities, the tires are heavier than standard radial tires and they are stiffer than regular radial tires. As a result of the weight, they require more engine power to turn and have more inertia when stopping. Because of the stiff sidewalls, they don’t flex as well, so they don’t stick to the pavement as well in turns. They also give a rougher ride than most standard radial tires, which may not affect performance, but certainly detracts from comfortable motoring.

So here is where we stick our neck out for the first time and suggest that if performance is your goal, you can improve the performance of your new MINI by buying from sources other than the dealer. Reputable aftermarket dealers offer an extensive variety of wheel designs to choose from at a wide range of prices and varying weights, as well as tires with different performance and behavior characteristics from several different sources.

Tire Rack (www.tirerack .com) for example lists 42 different wheels, and several different brands of tires for a high-performance MINI Cooper S for you to choose from. The MiniMania catalog shows 25 different choices of wheels, which are supplied with Kumho Ecsta Supra 712 Z-rated tires, a tire choice that they’ve tested and liked on their own cars.

Making the change won’t even cost too much. A good set of four aftermarket wheels that are much lighter than the MINI wheels, shod with a set of proven performance tires, can be put on the car for between $1000 and $1,300. Of course, you can get much fancier, and more expensive, tires and wheels but at least that gives you a ballpark idea of your costs.

Bottom line, if you don’t need or want the other components in the Sport Package, such as the Xenon lights, save your $800 and put it towards a good set of tires and wheels. It will be the single best investment you make in improving the safety and handling of your MINI.

John Cooper Works Tuning Kit

You said you wanted performance, right? Then why not go for the whole deal and have your local dealer install the BMW-approved John Cooper Works Tuning Kit? After all, it takes horsepower from 163 to 200 ponies, and brings torque up to 177 pound-feet from 155 in the stock MINI Cooper S. With that power, you can get from zero to 60 in 6.5 seconds and, if you can find enough space on a closed course, get up to 140 miles per hour. And you get a slick decal and engaving on the exhaust pipes to prove you’re faster than the average bear. Now that’s motoring.

Nevertheless, we suggest you don’t opt for the JCW kit. We say that because the parts are pretty expensive at $4500 in the box, and then you still have to pay your dealer to install them, which takes ten hours of shop time. The whole thing is going to cost from $5000 to $6000 out the door.

For the same amount of money, with aftermarket components you can easily get your horsepower well past the JCW’s 200 mark, and at the same time improve the tires, wheels, brakes, and suspension to keep your power under control, so that you’ve got a balanced performance package. If you still need decals to impress the pedestrians, the aftermarket suppliers will be happy to help you out.

You might note that the MINI website makes a point that the JCW tuning package comes with a factory warranty, and won’t affect your standard warranties on your car. That’s an important point, of course. When you start making changes to engine, suspension, brakes, or other mechanical parts of the car, these changes can affect the performance of your car.

However, reputable aftermarket suppliers now offer their own warranties on the parts that they sell, and some, such as MiniMania even guarantee that if their properly-installed parts cause a problem that voids any part of the factory warranty, they’ll pay for the repairs and replacement themselves. You should check the fine print yourself on both the factory and the supplier warranties, but at least you know that you can make changes to upgrade your MINI without worrying that you’ll lose the peace of mind of BMW’s solid warranty protection.

Tintop or Ragtop?

We can’t really help you much with your decision if you’re trying to decide whether to buy the MINI Cooper coupe or the MINI Cooper convertible, often referred to as tintops and ragtops by motoring enthusiasts. BMW has done an excellent job of engineering body stiffness into the MINI Cooper convertible so it won’t rattle and shake over rough roads and railroad crossings, so the convertible will be just as good as the hardtop on backroad tours. Also, there’s a lot to be said about being able to look up at the mountains or redwoods when you’re driving that scenic byway, instead of craning your neck to peak at them through the windshield.
However, the convertible does have some blindspots when the soft top is up that you wouldn’t have with the hardtop. That can make it a bit less safe in heavy traffic, or when backing up. More important, most track day activities and some autocross events won’t allow a ragtop to run because it offers less protection in the unlikely event of a roll-over. So if you’re thinking seriously about high-speed and timed events in your MINI future, the hardtop might be the better choice.
The real question is where you’re going to be driving. If your home base is blessed with temperate weather all year around, you’ll be able to get a lot of driving time with the top down. On the other hand, if your driveway looks like Ice Station Zebra six months of the year, the hard top may be easier to live with.

Premium, Sport, and Cold Weather Packages
After you’ve clicked the button marked MINI Cooper S, decided on coupe or convertible, and taken a first shot at picking a color scheme (don’t worry, you can come back and play with this again later), you’ll have to decide whether you want to take any of the three combination accessory packages—Premium, Sport, or Cold Weather—that the MINI dealer will offer you. The simple answers, we think, are “no,” “maybe,” and “it depends.”
We would say no to the Premium package because the primary component in it is the sunroof. It’s very nice if you want to cruise down the highway with the sun fighting the sun block you just applied, but when you’re going fast and concentrating on your driving, it’s just a noisy distraction. And it adds weight, something the person seeking performance isn’t going to want. Besides, if you envision your perfect car with a checkered flag, Union Jack, or custom graphics on the roof, you won’t want the sunroof.
The other components in the premium package, including cruise control, multifunction steering wheel, automatic air conditioning, and on-board computer, can each be bought separately for a total of $1200, so even if you want all of these convenience items, you can still save $100 by buying them separately. On the other hand, if you have your heart set on the sun roof—and it certainly is the closest you can come to a convertible without buying the cabriolet—and think you want any one of the other convenience items and can live with the rest, then at $1300, the premium package would be a bargain.
The Sport package is a definite maybe. It includes one thing you will want, the Dynamic Stability Control (DSC) system, and some things you might want, including the Xenon headlamps with power washer, fog lamps, and bonnet stripes. The package also includes 7x17-inch MINI S-Lite alloy wheels and tires.
If bought separately, these options would cost a total of $1890 but the complete package is available for $1300. This price difference makes the choice seem obvious, but it really depends on whether you want all the individual upgrades in the package.
We definitely advise you to buy the DSC, whether or not you buy the rest of the package. Selected separately, this option costs $500. That’s a small price for the peace of mind you will have in knowing that if you hit a patch of wet pavement or black ice on a dark night while cruising down the road, sensors in the system will tell your throttle to ease back and apply the brake on the spinning wheel to keep you from skidding, all in the fraction of a second it will take you to realize you are in danger of spinning into oncoming traffic.
Sure, you’ll switch off the DSC before your turn in the next drifting competition, but the rest of the time, you’ll want it on. And yes, the standard traction control system will keep your wheels from spinning under most circumstances, but it won’t help you much in the turns.
But the main issue with the sport package is the wheels and tires. We’re going to recommend you buy performance wheels and tires from aftermarket sources, since there are better choices out there. Unless you definitely want the Xenon headlights ($550), fog lights ($140), and bonnet stripes ($100), you’ll save money by not buying the Sport Package that you can use to get the high-performance wheels and tires you want.
If you have decided that you do want to get the lights and stripes, as well as the DSC, then you might as well get the whole Sport combo. There’s nothing wrong with the bigger wheels and tires offered in the Sport package, and by the time you’ve paid for the other parts of the package, the wheels and tires are effectively free when you buy the whole deal (you can do the arithmetic). Then you can wait until you’ve worn out your first set of tires before ordering your own set of wheels and tires from your favorite aftermarket supplier.
As for the Cold Weather package, that depends on where you live and drive. If you live where winter lasts four months of every year or more, with colder-than-whatever mornings, accompanied by slush on the road and the sun not even over the horizon yet, then the warmers for the seats, mirrors, and windshield washers will be very good things to have, indeed. And they won’t slow you down during the fast season. Those warm seats are also a nice option in other parts of the country if you’re buying a convertible and like to drive with the top down even on chilly morning.

Tips on Filling Out Your MINI Cooper Order

Now that you’ve spent some time thinking about your ultimate goals, and how fast you want to get there, we can help you sort through the choices you’ll need to make before you sign the order form and start counting the days until your very own MINI is produced, shipped, and prepared for you to pick up at the dealer.

Cooper or Cooper S?

The first buttons you’ll have to click are the ones labeled Cooper or Cooper S. This is actually pretty simple. Since the Cooper S costs only $3000 more than the Cooper, and offers many more features and capabilities, we think it offers the best value for money.

For starters, the Cooper S has a 6-speed manual transmission. That difference alone, in almost anyone’s book, would justify the extra money. You’re probably already pretty sure that an automatic transmission is for people who want to use their right hand for something inane like applying make-up. You already know that a quick hand on the gearshift and a good foot on the clutch separate the motorists from those people who buy a car for transportation. And you get the bolstered sport seats thrown into the bargain.

But it isn’t only the MINI Cooper gear shift and sports seats that you’ll be able to look forward to. It’s all the extra horsepower potential lurking in the pages of the go-fast catalogs that separates the Cooper S from the perfectly-adequate-for-other-people Cooper. Yes, the Cooper can be made to go faster. But by the time you’ve installed everything possible, you will have spent more than the $3000 you saved, your Cooper will have reached its maximum horsepower potential at just about where the Cooper S starts, and you’ll still have only one tail pipe on the back.

By comparison, with a Cooper S, you start with a car that is already pretty quick, and after that the sky’s the limit. So click the button marked Cooper S and we’ll move on.  (For those of you who already bought a Cooper before you bought this book, don’t worry. Keep on reading and we’ll give you all the tips we have on how to get the most out of your Cooper. If you decide you want a little more performance, we’ll discuss modifications that will give your Cooper approximately the same horsepower as the standard Cooper S.

And if you have to drive under conditions where an automatic transmission makes sense, the Cooper automatic still allows you to upshift and downshift on your own, so you can learn to upshift and downshift at the most efficient shift points.

And we can guarantee, if you learn to be a better driver as we’ll teach you along the way, you’ll be able to beat many of those Cooper S owners who think that they can buy fast lap times with their credit card.)