The Secret to Driving A Manual Car (and the First Day of School)

I learnt the secret of driving manual cars today. As you may remember, we had our paddock slashed and baled several days ago. Well today, the slasher lent us his ute to pick up those bails. He even said that one of us kids could drive it around! Naturally I, being the only one who can drive, was appointed to do the driving. My job was to drive down the rows and stop every time there were some bails lying around. My dad did the hard work of throwing them on. Each ute load held exactly 24 bails, and we did four loads. That meant that we transported 96 bails!

Anyway, when I first started the ute and tried to drive forward, the ute stalled. I did it again, and the same thing happened. I decided just to push the accelerator down a fair way and release the clutch. Of course, that worked, but the ute jumped when it started to move. Every time I stopped so some bails could be thrown on, I just pushed the clutch and brakes in. This routine went on till about the last load, when I finally got the hang of it.

The trick is to change into first gear, keeping the clutch in. Then, slowly release it until the engine is hinting that it will be stalling soon. The car should start moving if you hold the clutch in that position. As soon as the car is moving smoothly, quickly let the clutch out to normal and at about the same time, press the accelerator in. The car should then be running under the power of the accelerator, not the clutch. The transition should also be unnoticeable to any passengers.

Note: For those of you wondering how I seemed to learn how to drive a manual so quickly, the answer is that I have had experience driving another manual ute that we used to own.

Another Note: I didn’t forget that today is supposed to be the first day of school for 2007. It’s just that I am changing schools this year, and we haven’t received the new schoolwork yet.