How To Drive Faster:
Short Shift – What Is It?
When accelerating out of a corner, there are times when it’s awkward to upshift. For example, it may be that you’re so busy with the steering that it’s difficult to remove your hand to go work the shifter.
There are also times when because of a downward elevation change, you don’t need – or even want, if there’s also some cornering going on at the same time – to take the engine to redline before shifting. There are times when it’s best to shift before your engine reaches redline to achieve maximum acceleration.
It’s these times when you’re upshifting before your engine’s redline, where you’re short shifting – upshifting prior to your engine reaching it’s redline.
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I used to try to keep it up at the red-line as much as possible but it’s becoming clear that you need some head-room to be able to feed in more throttle and adjust balance. When driving at the limit is there an ideal range to keep the revs at? “80%-90%”? I know it will vary from car to car and where the torque is on the rev-range- but any general thought-lines to keep in mind?
I wish there was a simple answer to your question, but there isn’t. Every car is different, so you have feel for where it’s generating max power.