How to Precision-Slide a Car
Maneuvering into “position to cover” is a useful tactical skill—or at the very least, a neat trick.
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In this How-To video from our upcoming Cars & Guns adventure, which we put together in partnership with Team O'Neil Rally School and Sig Sauer, we walk through the steps needed to maneuver a car into "position to cover"—in other words, a controlled slide between two barriers that provide some protection.
It looks simple from the outside: a bit of steering input, the front tires take a set and the back end rotates around, snapping the car into place. But as with anything requiring precision, doing it well requires not just executing the steps but performing each one proficiently. In this case, that means lining up the car correctly at speed, initiating the handbrake at the right time (starting further out than you'd think, at least when on low-grip surfaces), adding the correct degree of steering input (about a quarter-turn), then adding the correct amount of foot-brake to stop the car in a position 90 degrees to the original path of travel—and snugly in between, say, two other cars.
Initiating the maneuver is fairly simple, but doing it well requires practice. Luckily, it's pretty low risk if your only "barriers" are some cones.
More How-To videos from the series to come all this week. Check out the full Cars & Guns trailer here, and come back for the finale on Friday, April 21.
