I've liked cars for a very long time, since I was very young, and 2 days ago my dad told me we are going to a barbecue with a friend of his in the building we live in, we can call him Joe (mama), I decided to go and it turned out really good!
The day before we prepared and got to bed early, and in the morning I woke up at 7:15 because my dads friend who agreed on going at 8:00 was a little too exited, we got up and ready quick and got downstairs to the street in no time just for me to discover that my dads friend has a car! It's a kinda old but well taken care of Peugeot 305 RX. So we set sail as some would say, Joe(mama) got on the highway and ran it through all 5 gears in no time, cooking at 80 miles an hour the whole way except a few times he had to slow down for cameras, but shhh don't tell any cops.
We stopped at the side of the highway at a small field of grass with a couple trees here and there, we set up the barbecue, got out drinks and the raw meat to cook, and when they were going to start cooking my dad tells me "surprise! Joe(mama) let us use the car for you to learn to drive" and it was a pretty big experience for me because cars are my passion and I've literally dreamed of this and have wanted to get behind the wheel of just about any car I could!
At first I was kinda nervous about driving and it was a little complicated to manage since it had a manual transmission, but after a few tips and corrections by my dad I started driving pretty well going smoothly up to 4th gear and driving alone twice out of 30 laps around the outer edge of the field which was about 400 meter,s which is about a quarter mile, and on every lap at least once I stopped and accelerated from a full stop and only killed the engine 3 times.
Some things I noticed where small details but if anyone reading this is new to driving this could help you with your first experience. I will talk about how in different cars these things will change and how you shouldn't expect all of these since every car is unique and different but here goes:
- Steering can be a little stiff and rougher than expected but that's in my case because this car does not have power steering.
- The brakes are extremely sensitive because this car has power brakes, so instead of using normal brakes when you only want to slow down you can use gear and clutch braking, where you can either shift down and let the clutch out to have the engine slow down the car, or just press in the clutch until the rpm drops and let it out, so that it has the same effect without downshifting Remember, these methods of braking will not hurt the car if you are traveling at the correct speed for each gear.
- Accelerating can be kinda weird, it's hard to explain but the car will be slowing down or accelerating at all times, it is very difficult to keep it at a constant speed when going slow.
At the end of the day, I can easily say that I've learned to drive a stick shift and shift smoothly, thank you for reading and I hope to see you next post :)