Quote:
Originally Posted by Nutrivce
And how long did it take you guys before learning to go up a steep hill?
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Many years ago when I got my license, I lived on a steep hill in a quiet residential neighborhood. I took my dad's MGB out and bucked that car up and down the hill for weeks before I felt comfortable with a hill start. Pretty soon all the neighborhood dogs and children would run when they heard me crank the car. I would practice for an hour, come back a few days later and practice for another hour, etc. It didn't help that the car had a racing engine in it that had to have the gas feathered constantly because it wouldn't idle.
You may not have a '74 MGB with a racing engine and a convenient hill outside your front door. But I told the story to illustrate that it just takes practice. Lots and lots of it.
If there's a hill nearby without much traffic where you can go practice without being under pressure from angry horns behind you, go practice. Then go practice some more. About the time you're feeling comfortable, you'll be in traffic somewhere, panic and stall out again because you'll be worried about the eyes on you from the other cars nearby. It will make you feel discouraged about your skills, but the only way to feel good about them again is to go practice again.
After you've been driving for a few years, there will come a day when you'll stall it in traffic again. People who have been driving for thirty years will stall out occasionally, and they usually say, "What the fuck was THAT? What is WRONG with me?"
Don't worry about the car. The clutch is designed to take the force of the engine and transmit it to the transmission and all the way to the rear wheels. It's not necessarily a gentle process. The clutch can take it.
And consider this: 82% of Americans already can't do what you can do. Only 18% can drive a manual, and that includes all the ones who can just barely drive it, but not very well. There are very few people in any kind of position to sit in judgment of your skills. So take the pressure off yourself, because you're already among the elite.