PDF The Lost Art of HighPerformance Driving Speed Secrets Ross Bentley eBook

Product details File Size 21605 KB Print Length 160 pages Page Numbers Source ISBN 0760352372 Publisher Motorbooks (July 1, 2017) Publication Date July 1, 2017 Sold by  Digital Services LLC Language English ASIN B0711ZHTXY

The Lost Art of HighPerformance Driving Speed Secrets Ross Bentley eBook Reviews

• If I had not spent the last 20 years autocrossing, doing High Performance Driving Education (HPDE) events and reading other book's (such as the other Ross Bentley books) I would have given this book 5 stars. For the average driver, or novice autocrosser, or track day driver, it is an excellent book that is a great review for anyone and a must-read for the average driver. As a driving coach myself, it is a great review and a great reminder book that does not really offer a lot of new material. It is, however, very well written and although I did not feel I was finding new "nuggets of knowledge" to make me faster on the track, it was still a very good read. For most drivers, this is an essential read if you want to truly be a "good driver."
• I own 5 other Speed Secrets books by Ross and I love them all... The reason I especially love this book, is because it takes a different approach to driving one from a daily commute driver, instead of an occasional track driver. The whole emphasis of the book, is to improve your driving on the track by improving your driving on the street. This is definitely not your typical 1970s High School Driver Education handbook. Everything from seat positioning, to where to look to down the road, to the mental game is covered here... I just wish my daughters had a book like this to learn from when they were in High School... As far as I'm concerned, Chapters 11 and 13 are worth the price of the book -- Pure Gold! And, as an uptight Los Angeles commute driver, I have come to live by the mantra "Be a Collaborative Driver"... Thank you Ross, for another fine literary achievement in the Speed Secrets library... and for helping me to "chill" during my commute!
• As an introduction to high performance driving, this book is good. However, if you picked this up after already reading "Ultimate Speed Secrets" and doing your fair share of track time, this book will likely feel like a waste of time.
  
  Half of this book feels like Ross Bentley just telling you the things he wished everyone on the road knew. "This is an accelerator pedal, or on a gas engine car it's called the 'throttle' " ...Really?
  
  By the time you get toward the end of the book, everything that actually has to do with dynamics feels copy/ pasted from the other books. I kept hoping for that extra crumb of knowledge I could take with me.. but unfortunately it's all the same "smooth is fast" and "brake here not there" that you've heard before.
  
  To summarize whether you need this book
  Did you just buy a Porsche 911 that you have no idea how to drive? Buy this book
  If you've done a few track days, and are looking for a few pointers to help you get that perfect balance of throttle-steer coming through an apex... this is not your book.
• As a tactical driving instructor I found that the whole Speed Secrets series to be a great help in better understanding how to drive cars. Ross' knowledge of how to win in racing has a lot of application to everyday driving or in my case tactical evasive driving. For somebody who just wants an overall review of the information Ross has, I think that this is the best book of the series to get. If you want more in depth information then by all means start adding the other books in the series. I use his teaching points in my driving classes all the time. I also recommend his books when we do an instructor school.
• I am a big fan Ross Bentley's speed secrets. This is my second book and I have read and listened to him many times. Repetition builds good habits and this book helps with that. I enjoyed the book and while I had heard many of the thoughts and ideas before there were some unique items or perhaps items I had missed. Getting reminded to look ahead, smooth is fast, and others is a good thing and never gets old. Never stop getting better.
• Not everyone who buys a high performance car is going to track that car, but these cars are designed to be used in a way that can be. That design predicates the car to be driven aggressively and this book shows how to do this in a safe and entertaining way legally on roads where commuters and other "normal" drivers populate. That's a tall order and Ross Bentley manages to thread that line between "safe" aggression and polite cohabitation on the roads. He doesn't entirely ignore skills that are needed on a track, but serious racers may want his other books on the topic.
• I would say much of the book feels like common sense, but they also say common sense isn't so common. I would consider myself an enthusiast at most, and many of the concepts covered you can figure out on your own. The chapter on road driving is information for people that would never buy the book, and info the rest of us discovered by paying attention. I was hoping it would read more technically, but was instead preachy and anecdotes scattered in.
• Six chapters in and so far, I've seen nothing interesting or new. I'm hoping this improves but I fear this is more of a driving for dummies level book... way more basic and aimed at the kind of driver that isn't going to read a book on high performance driving anyway.