I’ve overheard a lot of people scoff at prepared driving courses, especially in reference to those we’ve built for the Overland Expo over the years.

Usually, these are people who have not been on those courses. 

The fact is, a carefully engineered driving course can be, in some ways, better than a random trail to demonstrate the capabilities of a vehicle. Side slopes, ascents, and descents can be built to simultaneously amaze and instruct new drivers while remaining safe as houses. Elephant footsteps, as we call alternating tire-swallowing craters, are perfect for demonstrating different traction-control devices, finding the limits of suspension travel on a student’s vehicle, and teaching throttle control and left-foot braking. Even simple perpendicular or angled ridges or logs, while effortless to cross, make perfect teaching points.

Over the years I’ve ridden in the right seat with a wide variety of drivers. There’ve been burly guys in Wrangler Rubicons who professed extensive experience and then nearly fainted at a 25-degree side slope; diffident women who professed no experience whatsoever and then sailed through the course effortlessly, and everything in between. 

My favorite participant at the last show was the archetypal burly guy in a Wrangler—except as soon as I climbed in he told me it was his wife’s Jeep and he had no idea what he was doing. He then proceeded to be guilelessly amazed at every challenge and obstacle. “I can’t believe we just drove through that!” “We’re going up that?” “You’re sure we’re not going to tip over?” “That was incredible!” It was the most fun I had the entire weekend because there was zero ego involved.

At the other end of the scale was the fellow who assured me of his vast experience. His wife was in the back seat; earlier she had driven the course with another instructor—excellently, as I found out later—but he was going to show her how to actually do it correctly. He then proceeded to do nearly everything incorrectly, actually, while I simply sat and let wheels spin and vehicle bounce needlessly. It would have been pointless to intervene. I was secretly hoping we’d get stuck, but he managed to bash through the entire course.

Lest this sound superior, I’ve found that I nearly always learn something new with each track we construct, and at the very least I find it valuable to hone my own skills while prerunning and tamping down the course, and hugely instructive to watch how different vehicles and different drivetrains/traction systems perform.

Graham Jackson had an in-depth look at one vehicle—a fully optioned new Toyota 4Runner—during the “Braking with the wrong foot” class, in which instructors shepherd a driver through increasingly deep elephant footsteps while coaching the him or her on how to use left-foot braking to both control the speed of the vehicle at a snail’s pace, and increase traction as well. This 4Runner was loaded with all of Toyota’s current tricks: Crawl Control, etc. After several runs through the course Graham and the owner hit upon the absolute most effective setup: locked center diff, locked rear diff. That’s it. Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best. 

If you’ve attended an Expo but skipped the driving course (or other driving classes) because you thought the experience would be too formulaic, consider reconsidering. You might be pleasantly surprised.

But what about the rest of the year? Why not design your own course? You don’t need a backhoe. Find a trail you know and can access easily and frequently, and practice running it on weekdays or any time not many other people are around. Then, rather than simply driving the trail end to end, go back and forth over sections that either concern you or on which you are not as smooth as you feel you should be. Try different lines, different speeds, different combinations of traction control systems. If you own an über-competent vehicle such as a Wrangler Rubicon, try negotiating difficult passages without disconnecting the front anti-roll bar and engaging both diff locks. Practice driving rather than simply dialing in the right program and steering. I think you’ll find your competence and confidence soar.