2- Understanding the car you are driving

FRONT ENGINE - FRONT WHEEL DRIVE

Most cars are now front-wheel drive.  Rear-wheel drive used to be most common among passenger cars, but front wheel drive offers the advantage of eliminating the drive-train mechanism necessary to transmit the driving force from the front-mounted engine to the rear wheels. The drawback of front-wheel drive for a sports car is that the engine and drive train mechanism get concentrated in the front of the car, making the car nose heavy and creating an unequal weight distribution between front and rear. The front tires then have the responsibility of both steering and accelerating braking, making it difficult for sports cars to maintain ideal weight balance.

However, front-wheel drive has come a long way and has even been used in some race cars. A good example of the advance in front-wheel drive technology is the Honda Civic hatchback, which delivers impressive performance and is capable of outperforming second-tier rear-wheel drive sports cars. Something to be careful about with front-wheel drive is that it's easy to induce understeer. If you continue to understeer throughout a race course, the front tires will become very hot and begin to lose their traction. Thus it's important to master the proper steering and acceleration techniques.

Some other advantages to front-wheel drive include,  decreased tendency to spin, and better traction on wet surfaces.

FRONT ENGINE REAR-WHEEL DRIVE

With its weight-balance advantage, rear-wheel drive remains a popular choice for sports cars, Although most cars today have front-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive still offers a big advantage in weight balance. In addition to having a nearly ideal 50-50 weight distribution between front and rear, the rear-wheel drive uses the front tires for steering and the rear tires for accelerating and braking. This divides responsibility between the front and rear, putting all four tires to good use. This gives rear-wheel drive a huge advantage in handling and control. It offers the greatest room for Improvement in driving, and maneuvers such as drifting become possible. If you've mastered the fundamentals of driving, rear-wheel drive gives you the ability to control the car at will, leading to a more enjoyable driving experience. By using all four tires evenly, you also decrease the chance of one tire overheating during long continuous driving. Other advantages of rear-wheel drive Include the absence of sudden changes in handling and very slow drop-offs in speed.

MID-ENGINE REAR-WHEEL DRIVE

              MR stands for mid-engine rear-wheel drive.

Positioning the heaviest part of the car, the engine, near the car's center, maximizes the car's cornering ability. As anyone who has seen a Formula One race car knows, cars built for speed have their engines mounted in the middle. With the front of the car relatively light, steering becomes very sharp and direct. Because the engine is near the rear  axle, power from the engine gets transmitted to the road with little wasted energy. Mid-engine cars also have a high resistance to losing control even during hard braking. Although mid-engine cars offer many advantages, they are difficult to drive. Mid-engine cars demand a mastery of fundamental driving techniques such as weight transfer. Although they have excellent cornering characteristics, it's easy to become nervous about the consequences of making a mistake during cornering. If you master the advanced driving techniques, you'll be amazed at the speeds you can reach with a mid-engine sports car. For experienced drivers, mid-engine Is definitely the way to go.

FOUR-WHEEL DRIVE

Every car has four wheels, not every car uses them equally

It's more efficient to transfer the engine's power to four wheels rather than two. Although in the old days a car had either front-wheel brakes or rear-wheel brakes, today all cars come equipped with four-wheel brakes. Cars today equipped with four-wheel drive deliver good traction even on slippery surfaces such as snow and other bad road conditions. Four-wheel drive is effective for sports cars that run on paved surfaces or dirt, and it is used almost exclusively in rally racing. There are also sports cars in circuit racing and mountain pass racing that use four-wheel drive. Four-wheel drive becomes more effective with more powerful engines.

One drawback behind four-wheel drive is the complicated mechanism necessary to distribute power evenly to all four wheels and to keep the wheels synchronized during cornering. This is particularly troublesome in cars that have a tendency to understeer.

But recent advances in four-wheel drive technology such as electronic control have increased handling performance considerably. This performance coupled with the traction offered by four-wheel drive creates a powerful combination. On wet surfaces, four-wheel drive clearly out performs two-wheel drive and even offers performance equal to mid-engine/rear-wheel drive.