Heel and Toe

A view between my legs here shows - well, luckily, my feet. As my car is an automatic, there are, surprise surprise, just two pedals. So how many feet should I use when driving?

I use just my right foot - it does help when I swap and drive a manual again. However, the late, ex-World Champion racing driver, Graham Hill, suggested that if you had two feet you should both of them. I can see where he's coming from, but I'm sticking with just one.

Many decades ago, when I had a car that needed double-declutching, I perfected the art of heel and toeing. This method of driving required the left foot to manage the clutch (no change there then) and the right to share it's attention between the brake and accelerator (no change there either).

BUT this is braking AND accelerating at the same time. I suspect this is still used in rally driving. Basically the idea is to blip the gas on downshift to bring the engine revs up to match the lower gear.

Double-declutching requires the gearbox be put in neutral when changing down gears, lifting the clutch, matching revs and selecting the next gear. All with a fraction of a second, hopefully!