Every teenager cannot wait for the day that they get behind the wheel and officially have their drivers license. Driving on the pavement is one thing, driving on dirt is a whole different animal. We take a look at some basic things to know before having the tires hit the dirt.

Turn Left, To Go Right

It may sound funny, but what Doc Hudson tells Lightning McQueen in the Disney movie Cars is true. Anyone that has had any experience turning a little too quick on the dirt instantly knows this is true.

When the rear tires lose their grip on the road if you steer into the turn, the rear of the car will over-rotate in the direction of the turn, causing the vehicle to spin out. To compensate for this, you have to turn the front tires away from the spin, or opposite the direction of your turn.

Turning left to go right does not sound like it would work, but it does. It does take some getting used, and in the end can really help you have some more fun getting sideways on the trail.

Reading The Terrain

The first thing to understand before heading out to the trail is knowing what your vehicle is capable of. Thinking you have a rock crawler or a prerunner when in actuality you have a stock truck or Jeep can create havoc on the trail.

Reading the terrain is something that can be learned over time. Learning the correct lines to take to get over obstacles or how to scale a rock will all come in time. Off-roading alone is something we learned about in a pervious article, but off-roading with someone does have another benefit. Off-roading with someone else allows them to be a spotter. A spotter use hand signals or other motions to drive the vehicle through a technical section without actually driving the vehicle.

Lower Tire Pressure

Lowering the tire pressure is something that many off-roaders talk about and should be done when hitting the trail. One thing to keep in mind with lowering the tire pressure is the availability to air them back up.

The picture above shows how much a difference this makes. Lowering the pressure allows for a larger tire footprint. Lowering the pressure can also lead to problems on the trail. The lower pressure means that the tire bead is more likely to pop off the wheel.

Running a lower tire pressure allows the tire to run on top of the sand or snow, rather than digging into it. Lowering the tire pressure leads right into our next topic, traction.

Traction

Traction is important in any type of driving, but is even more crucial when climbing over rocks, or playing around in loose sand. Tires play a large roll in being the one part on the vehicle that touches the trail. The type of tire you go with also plays a huge part in the amount of traction the vehicle will have.

Tire choice is largely dependent on the type of driving the vehicle will be doing both on and off the road. For vehicles that will be seeing mud or rocks a mud terrain tire would be the best choice. The larger voids help the tread act as little fingers to grip onto the rocks.

We could go on and on about tires with pros and cons of each, but selecting the right tire is just as important as selecting anything else for the vehicle. Our section of tire reviews can help make that decision easier.

Vehicle Angles

This topic is probably the least thought about in the off-road community. Few people think about what their angle of departure, approach or break-over is or how it works.

Approach angle is the maximum angle of a ramp onto which a vehicle can climb from a horizontal plane without interference. Departure angle is the maximum ramp angle from which the vehicle can descend without damage. Break-over angle is the maximum possible angle that a vehicle, with at least one forward wheel and one rear wheel, can drive over without the apex of that angle touching any point of the vehicle other than the wheels.

These angels play a roll in knowing how much clearance the vehicle has when coming off a rock or down the trail. Knowing your vehicle’s angles will help keep the adventure rolling and not high centered on a berm.

What else should people know about driving off-road? Tell us in the comments below!