Want to Drive Tall Trucks Fast Off-Road? Listen to These Experts Tell You How
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A high center of gravity can be difficult to manage, but a little patience goes a long way. The post Want to Drive Tall Trucks Fast Off-Road? Listen to These Experts Tell You How appeared first on The Drive .
The proliferation of fast factory off-road trucks has created a new driving challenge. Pickups like the Ford F-150 Raptor and Ram 1500 TRX can cover a lot of ground in a hurry, but their high center of gravity is the exact opposite of what you want in a performance vehicle. It’s all fun and games until you roll it.
The folks at Team O’Neil can show you how not to do that. The New Hampshire-based driving school’s instructors love to rally random things , and they’ve put many important lessons in YouTube-ready packages. A new video focuses on driving fast in a vehicle with a high center of gravity. An older Toyota Tacoma was used for the demo, but the techniques shown here can be broadly applied when driving a tall truck fast on loose surfaces.
With so much weight so high off the ground, and with the generous suspension travel of an off-roader, managing lateral weight transfer is key. If too much weight shifts to one side too quickly while cornering, that’s a recipe for a rollover. As explained in the video, one of the simplest ways to avoid this is by braking in a straight line. Scrub off all the speed you need to, then start turning the wheel while smoothly easing off the brake pedal (a.k.a. trail braking). While it might be tempting to use oversteer to slide through a corner, this approach provides much more control.
Oversteer can come in handy when exiting a corner that doesn’t lead into a straightaway, though. It provides rotation that allows you to gradually unwind the steering wheel before getting on the throttle. As with braking into the corner, you shouldn’t do that until the wheel is straightened out. And if you’re carrying less speed into a corner, lifting off the throttle before steering can be a substitute for braking.
If you’re driving a truck, chances are it has a selectable four-wheel drive system. The instructors at Team O’Neil recommend keeping it in 4-Hi (low range limits speed) to provide more stable braking and better control in the corners. Leaving a truck in two-wheel drive and sliding the back end around might be fun, but it allows lateral loads to build more quickly, meaning you may have to chase the steering if you’re too exuberant. The squarer sidewalls of all-terrain tires can also dig into loose surfaces more easily, causing a lever action that can flip a vehicle. So excessive drifting just generally isn’t a good idea.
Even with perfect technique, going fast around corners in a tall truck or SUV can still be sketchy . That’s just physics. But these pro tips show how you can do it safely.
The post Want to Drive Tall Trucks Fast Off-Road? Listen to These Experts Tell You How appeared first on The Drive .