WEBVTT

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- Okay, I have a confession to make.

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No one else is here, Steve
and Andy aren't here.

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I'm a writer at Jalopnik,

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and I don't know how to drive a manual.

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I had originally learned
how to drive a manual

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when I was a teenager, but
not owning a manual car ever,

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I never drove manual since then.

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Naturally, I was a candidate
to get flown out by Mini

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to Palm Springs,

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to go be in their inaugural class

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of their Manual Driving School.

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It was an interesting
situation, being almost 30,

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learning how to drive again.

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So at the Mini Manual Driving School,

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they start the day off
in a classroom session

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where they teach you about
how a clutch operates,

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how you're forceful on the pedal down,

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and you lift your foot up
gently to engage the clutch,

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and they teach you about the
layout of the gear shift,

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the pattern in the Mini,

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so you're not useless when
you get out into the car.

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Once you're out in the car, you
go through the basics again,

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you know, so you don't just
stall the car constantly

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once you're out on track.

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They have you run through first,
second, third, and fourth,

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at a standstill so you
know what you're doing

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before you roll off.

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And then one by one, we
slowly go around the circuit

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and then slowly, lap by
lap, you get up to speed,

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learn the basics,

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you go first, back to a stop,
and then you start up again.

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Then once we got the hang of that,

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we got to go up the second gear,

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and then before we know it,
we're lapping the track.

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The instructors were very helpful

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to make sure that we grasped the concepts

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of what we were doing

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and that we weren't relying
on the features in the Mini

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to help us get along and that
we could transfer those skills

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to other manual transmission vehicles.

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All in all, it was a great experience.

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I am definitely not an expert
in manual transmission cars,

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but it was definitely a great foundation

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to learn and improve over time.

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(upbeat music)