Take a Course in MINI Motoring

Once you’ve read the manual thoroughly, and become an expert on your own car (just try not to bore your MINI-less friends with your new-found knowledge and enthusiasm) and you’ve been around the block a few times with the car, it’s time to get serious about really learning to drive.

First, we want you to go back to school. Yes, we know you’ve been through that driver training school before you got your license, and some of you might even have already had the experience of taking one of those state-administered driving schools that are offered with the first traffic ticket. Trust us; they didn’t even scratch the surface.

When you were driving that little driving school car around your town, did you ever stomp on the brakes hard enough to make the anti-lock braking system kick in? Did you ever take a turn fast enough to make the tires squeal? Did you ever get the car to skid? Intentionally? If you haven’t done all of these things, you haven’t begun to learn to really drive.

When you’ve had the chance to learn these things and practice them, the difference will be that when things do go wrong, you’ll be able to be a real driver, not just another potential crash dummy or organ donor behind the steering wheel.

What we’re talking about is a real driving school, like professional race drivers take when they first start to learn to drive fast. We’re talking about taking the car out on a driving course or race track so you can find out what happens when something unexpected happens. We’re talking about learning what you should do when things do go wrong, so you can make them go right again.

Lest you assume that you only need to go to an advanced driving school if you’re thinking about racing, let us be very clear. Participating in one of these schools will return every penny it costs and every minute it takes will make you a better, safer driver even if you never put a wheel on a track or autocross course again in your life.

In several studies comparing high school students who have taken advanced driving courses to a random sample of those who didn’t, the rate of accidents was shown to be significantly reduced. Most insurance companies even give a discount to young drivers who have completed one of these schools. And if these penny-pinchers see the dollars and sense value of advanced driving schools, then you can make up your mind that value exists.

There are lots of different opportunities to learn to drive better. Start by checking with your MINI dealer, since some of them sponsor MINI driving schools, or will be aware of courses in the local area. Check with the websites listed in the back of this book for driving schools sponsored by or in conjunction with the suppliers of aftermarket parts for the MINI.

If there is a auto-racing track near you, check with them as well, since most race tracks host driving schools. The best situation is one where you can drive your own car in the course. One basic driving courses where you can use your own car is available at Thunderhill Park near Willows in north-central California (www.thunderhill.com).

At least one driving course has been designed specifically for BMW MINI drivers, developed and presented by the Phil Wicks Driving Academy. Information is available at www.Minidriving.com.

In this book, we’ll be passing on many of the tips that these courses offer their students, but nothing substitutes for the experience of taking a good driving course in your own MINI to put those tips into practice.

Getting to Know Your New Best Friend

Right off the mark, two things are good about MINIs. First, they’re already among the best sports cars on the road in terms of their ability to go fast, corner fast, and stop fast. Second, like other cars that are just plain fun to drive, MINIs have the uncanny ability to gather people together into clubs and organizations that have the sole intent of helping their members enjoy driving their cars.

Combine these two factors, and you have a recipe for easy weekend fun: a good car to drive and a like-minded group of friends to drive it with. Our first recommendation is to get to know the car well so you’ll know how much fun it can be. Our second recommendation is to join a Mini club so you’ll have excuses to have fun with it as soon as possible.

We’re even going to recommend that you not make any changes in the car immediately. Why spend money improving the car until you’ve got a benchmark to which you can compare it? With a clear memory of what your car was like before the improvement, when you do make changes in the car you’ll be the first to notice and appreciate the difference.

The MINI has been designed by enthusiasts with enthusiasts in mind. What we want to do is show you the difference between simply operating an automobile as a means of transportation, and driving a performance car for the sheer pleasure of it. But where should you start?

We’re Serious: Read the Manual

We’re going to assume that when you first considered buying a MINI and visited the dealer, the sales rep spent a few minutes showing you the good features before you went out on a test driver, and told you more about how and why things are designed the way they are.

We’re going to hope that you allowed a little time and curbed your enthusiasm when you first picked your car up to listen again as the rep talked you through the main controls and features. However, we’re going to bet you weren’t paying much attention. Sitting in your very own brand-new car is just too overwhelming an experience.

So now that you’ve been driving your new MINI for at least a few days, what should you do? Start with the owner’s manual. We’ll bet that you’ve never read the owner’s manual from beginning to end for any car you’ve ever owned. Too bad. There’s a lot of information in those manuals so that from the beginning you’ll feel confident that you understand your car.

The best way to do that is to take an afternoon in your driveway and sit in the car. As you read each section, look at the diagrams and compare them with the way things actually look in your car. Move, adjust, push, pull, try each of the levers and buttons. Don’t just look at the top of the oil dipstick, for example. Take it out and see what real oil looks like. Take the radiator fill cap off and look inside to see where the level should be.

In other words, get to know the car thoroughly. Learn about it as if your life depended on knowing the car. Some dark night, it very well might.

If you don’t have time to read the owner’s manual all the way through right now, then put it in the bathroom. Owner’s manuals are great reading material for those few minutes when you really don’t have anything else to do. Every time you have a chance, read a section, and then when you go out to your car the next time, try to remember what you just read and check out how it looks in real life.

Another tip: when you’re driving your car, try to be as aware as possible about what it does and how it does it. Try to feel how the car moves and sounds when you accelerate, when you take your foot off the gas pedal, and when you put on the brakes. Try to feel what the car is doing when you turn a corner. Turn off your Ipod once in awhile and listen for the sounds of the engine as you accelerate and shift gears. Those feelings will be important as you start to plan how you want to improve your MINI and when you work on improving your driving.

MINIs for Streets and Roads

When the original Minis were first introduced, they were intended simply to be used by regular drivers on regular streets and roads. Nevertheless, with a few upgrades by John Cooper, they proved to be great on the long-distance European road rallies such as the Monte Carlo and Alpine rallies where they first made their fame.

In SCCA club racing and later in vintage racing events in North America, they showed their ability to wag their tails at the opposition and then run away and hide until they took first at the checkered flag. They were also very successful in European saloon racing (which isn’t racing around liquor bars, as you might expect, but the continental term for sedan racing).

But classic Minis became popular mostly because they were so darned easy to drive fast, and because they could go so many places and do so many things better than bigger, more powerful cars.

The new MINIs are stamped from the same mold, fun and practical at the same time. Right out of the showroom, they’re able to do the everyday stuff well, and still bring a smile to your face every time you take one around a corner quickly or pass a pokey car on the highway.

But we’re here to tell you that you can tweak your MINI just a little bit and make it even better, making your driving around the neighborhood or around the countryside even more fun. With a little professional instruction and some opportunity for practice, you can also learn to drive it better than you’ve ever driven another car.

Going Fast is All About Stopping

Any racing driver will tell you that speed doesn’t matter. That’s why most real racing cars don’t even have a speedometer. We would argue that the same thing is true in everyday driving. As long as you’re not over the speed limit, you won’t get a ticket, but that’s really the only instance where it even matters what the speedometer says. What does matter is the distance the car will go in the time that it takes to notice and react appropriately to changes in conditions. Here are three rules of thumb that will tell you whether you’re going too fast. Stopping Distance
We’ve already recommended that you look a long distance down the road to anticipate what might happen before it happens, but what really matters is how long it takes for you to stop or change directions before you hit the car ahead of you. We all know that the faster we’re going, the more distance we’ll cover before we can hit the brake pedal, or turn the wheel. We also know that the faster we’re going, the longer it will take to stop, and that we shouldn’t turn the wheel abruptly at high speeds because that will cause the car to swerve.
But we can’t look up our speed and distance in car lengths in some book every time we want to know whether we’re driving too close to the car ahead, or whether the car behind us has enough room to stop if we do have to stop ourselves.
To determine how close you should be to the car ahead of you, all you need to do is count to three. Notice when the car ahead passes a particular point, such as a tree or mile marker. If you can count to three slowly before you get to that point, then you have room to bring your car to a stop, or turn into the next lane, should the car ahead stop or swerve abruptly. No matter how fast you’re going, it will take three seconds for you to get your foot from the gas to the brake, and bring the car to a stop.
What about the car behind you? When you’re passing, or changing lanes, you want enough room to give the car behind a safe space. As you pass the car ahead, wait until you can see them completely in your inside rearview mirror. If you can see them completely in your rearview mirror, it’s safe to move over into their lane. Remember that your side mirrors have been adjusted to cover your blind spots, which are close to you, and that the right mirror says “Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.”
On the road or on the track, it isn’t enough just to be ahead of the person you’ve just passed before you change your line. You need to be far enough ahead of them to cut over into their path and still give them time to react.
But what about when you can’t see the car ahead? Curves are another place where we often drive faster than we should. After cleaning auto wreckage off curves for many years, the highway departments of America finally figured this out and started posting warning signs, with a suggested speed for that curve.
Unfortunately, most of us see these signs as challenges since we think they are the fastest speed that the highway department thinks the average driver can get their car around the curve. So we see how much faster we can go than the warning sign. “I took a curve at 40 mph that was posted at 20 mph. I guess I’m twice as good as the average driver,” we say.
Too bad that’s not what the sign means. What it means is that, if there is something in the road ahead that you can’t see, the posted speed is the fastest your car can be going and still have time to stop when you do see the obstacle. You can test the laws of physics if you like, but you won’t win.
On an open race track, things will be different. There will be a person on the corner looking around the bend for you, to wave a yellow flag if there’s a problem while you’ve still got time enough to stop. That’s the place to see just how fast you can get the car around the corner, because if the corner worker isn’t waving the flag, you can be sure there isn’t anything there. But on the highway, with no corner worker, it’s best to slow down to the recommended speed. The stalled driver, bicycle rider, or deer you have time to avoid will thank you for it.
That’s enough driving lesson for one day. But if you’ll practice a good driving position, get used to thinking 360 degrees and into the future, and not going faster than you can stop, you’ll be a better driver when your new MINI arrives at your dealer, and be ready for our next lesson in motoring.

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).