Winter driving often more demanding

EDITORIAL

Driving mishaps seem to have been the stock-in-trade of the Otago Daily Times’ editorial and online pages in recent weeks, a phenomenon that I have noticed is invariably associated with the onset of true winter weather. Or perhaps to be more accurate, associated with the failure of ever so many Otago drivers to adjust to winter weather which, while unpredictable for sure, is still a mild version of what is experienced in some other parts of the world.

I make this observation having witnessed some pretty poor driving so far this month, additional to my perennial bugbears of inattentive, distracted and discourteous driving. My particular winter gripes so far have been motorists failing to adjust their speed to slippery conditions, and far too many following far too close when conditions are wet and visibility is low.

Some useful rules of thumb to keep in mind are that compared with a dry road, stopping distances are up to twice as long in the wet, and up to four times as long in the snow. As for ice, well, think in terms of five to 10 times longer, and with the attendant possibility that you are quite likely to stop only by hitting something.

It might do us all good to remember that we are not engaged in a grand prix motor race, and even if racing is not your thing, perhaps take five minutes to watch the highlights of last weekend’s British Grand Prix,which shows how even the most talented of drivers struggle in the wet, and how quickly and dramatically things can go wrong when a road is slippery and visibility is poor.

This year’s British Grand Prix was a disappointing one for New Zealand’s Liam Lawson, though he was blameless in his first-lap exit from the race: rather, he was the victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time as Yuki Tsunoda put the squeeze on Esteban Ocon, who in turn rammed Lawson off the rack and into a very early retirement.

While that left Kiwi race fans with little to cheer about in F1 last weekend, there was every reason to be both proud and cheerful after big wins for both Scott Dixon and Shane van Gisbergen in the United States.

That van Gisbergen was in with a good shot of winning the Nascar Cup race at Chicago’s Street Circuit was something I predicted in Drivesouth last weekend; no special second sight was involved in that call, just an appreciation that SVG has won there before, in both the premier Nascar Cup category, and the second-tier Xfinity category. He contested both categories and won them both last weekend, which was a great result.

Much more surprising was Scott Dixon’s IndyCar win at mid-Ohio. Heading to the race, Dixon had his truly remarkable tally of 58 career wins in IndyCar, including at least one win in each of the past 20 seasons. But in recent races, the old Dixon sparkle appeared to be missing, to the extent that it seemed to me he might never win in IndyCars again.

Then up the old master popped, running a two-stop strategy when three stops was easily the favoured option, and pouncing late in the race when his team-mate and series leader Alex Palou ran wide exiting a bend.

In winning for the first time this season, Dixon became only the third driver to win in IndyCar this season, the previous nine races having been won by either Palou (six wins) or Kyle Kirkwood (three wins).

So now it’s 59 Indycar wins for Dixon (second only on the all-time list to the great AJ Foyt) including wins across 21 consecutive seasons. Once again, I am reminded that Dixon’s a driver whose achievements place him up there with 1967 F1 world champion Denny Hulme and the legendary Bruce McLaren as one of the three greatest race drivers New Zealand has produced.