Bob Bondurant's Driving Basics by Bob Bondurant (5/5/2001)

One of the most commonly asked questions from students here at the Bondurant School involves front-wheel vs. rear-wheel drive and how the handling characteristics differ between the two.

The most important consideration to keep in mind is that all cars, whether front-drive, rear-drive or even all-wheel-drive, ride on four tires. Now, you must keep in mind which wheels are doing the driving and where the majority of the vehicle's weight is distributed.

A front-engine, front-wheel-drive car on a level road will have an advantage over a rear-driver on a slick surface simply because you have the weight of the engine sitting up front, directly over the driving wheels. When you accelerate, there's plenty of weight over the front-driving wheels, which helps the car gain traction.

With a front-engine, rear-wheel-drive car in the same slick road conditions, however, it would be very easy to spin the rear tires and not go anywhere. Technically, what's happening is that there is little or no weight on the rear tires, so they have little traction.

However, as soon as the road begins to go uphill, the rear-wheel-drive car will have an advantage. Think of the weight transfer. For example, as the car goes up, weight shifts back and onto the rear tires, giving them more traction.

Unfortunately, the front-wheel-driver will lose traction as the weight shifts toward the rear. This is magnified as you attempt to accelerate, as even more weight shifts off the front tires.

This leads to the high-performance and racing drivers' argument that front-wheel-drive vehicles are not as fast as rear-wheel-drive vehicles, particularly in drag racing. Under hard acceleration, weight is shifting toward the rear, off the front tires, onto the rear ones.

For high-performance and racing purposes, it has long been thought that rear-wheel drive is the only way to go. On the other hand, the Ford Taurus SHO, a high-performance front-wheel-drive sedan, has been proving itself quite well on the race track, winning several showroom stock events and beating its rear-driven counterparts.

Which configuration is better for you? Only you can decide.

Bob Bondurant, racer and entrepreneur, owns and runs the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving in Phoenix, Ariz. For more information on classes and schedules, click over to www.bondurant.com or call (800) 842-RACE (7223).