What is Excitador?

Excitador is a place for people who love driving. The sort of person who doesn’t mind stopping for red lights, so long as they’re at the front of the line. The sort of person who forms an involuntary grin every time they get into oversteer. The sort of person who chooses their route based on how fun the roads are, even if it’s just a trip to the supermarket.

It’s also a great resource for people who want to learn more about what driving really is, and perhaps even a place where a drivers partner or loved ones can come to try and gain an understanding of what goes on inside their head.

Let me put it this way: If being behind the wheel of a car has ever touched you in a special place, then Excitador is for you. Of course there is a possibility you were just sitting on your sunglasses. Either way, feel free to have a look around, I’m sure you’ll find something you’ll like.

What will I find here?

Here you will find a wide variety of articles about driving, such as car reviews, profiles on famous roads and race tracks, tips and advice on driving, and discussion of the news, trends and technology in the automotive industry.  Some say that if you look hard enough you will also find evidence of alien life, a formula for cold fusion and the lucky numbers in next week’s lottery. I can neither confirm, nor deny, these claims.

What is The Art of Driving?

Driving is much more than knowing which pedal means go, which one means stop and how to use the big circle thingy to make the car point a different way. It’s knowing when to push and when to back off, it’s about timing, balance, understanding the feedback your car is giving you, about knowing how to read a road.

Driving is made up of three essential elements: The Road, the Car and the Driver. Combining these three elements isn’t always simple, there is no guaranteed formula. It’s a little different for everyone, but when you strike the right balance, there’s no question about it: It’s sublime.

If you do your best to know your road, know your car, and most importantly know yourself, you’re practicing The Art of Driving. Anything else is merely transport.

Who is Rob Vale?

I’ve been obsessed with cars and driving for as long as I can remember. It probably helps to be brought up by a draftsman (who went on to become an engineer) for a major car manufacturer, and who races cars in his spare time. I got my first car on my third birthday, a bright orange pedal car complete with stripes and a racing number. The brick path in the backyard was my race track, and the only time I willingly stopped driving it was when I had to give it a ‘tune-up’. This involved me putting it up on blocks just outside the garage, and then laying underneath it whacking the pedals with a blue plastic spanner while dad worked on his racing car. If I was really lucky he’d take me down to the local supermarket when it was shut and let me sit on his lap to steer the car around the car park. At that age it was possibly the most exciting thing I could imagine.

Over the next few years many weekends would be taken up attending race meetings and driver evaluations with dad as he scrutineered cars for C.A.M.S. (the governing body of Australian motorsport). I wandered the paddocks snapping away with my little 110 camera, and learning everything I could about motor racing.

My dad’s encyclopaedic knowledge of how cars work ensured that every question I asked was answered, and then some. I once asked ‘How does an engine work?’ and before long he had pulled an engine from a wreck at the local tip, hauled it back to our garage and spent the next few weekends stripping it down with me, explaining the various parts as we went.

When I was 16 I became a volunteer scrutineer and started helping out at race meetings in an official capacity. I also got my learner drivers permit, and naturally my dad taught me. I’ll always remember my first lesson: An automatic 5.0l V8, a deserted dirt road, and his only instruction: “Floor it”. I wasn’t only taught how to obey road rules; I was taught how to handle a car. Just after I turned 17 I bought my first proper car, a ’76 Mk2 Ford Escort 1600 Manual. In the 9 months before I could legally drive it on my own I undid every bolt, screw and clip I could find, then cleaned, inspected and reassembled. I knew that car inside and out.

Although I didn’t realise it at time, the Escort was an ideal choice for an inexperienced yet spirited driver: small, light, underpowered, rear wheel drive and reasonably well balanced. I would also come to learn that Ford Escorts are highly addictive, and are an affliction celebrated by thousands of people around the world. But that’s another story.

In the last decade or so I’ve consciously made an effort to involve cars in my life as much as possible. Driving them, modifying them, crashing them, fixing them, reading about them, lusting after them, and on the odd occasion earnestly explaining to a police officer why it was absolutely necessary for me to be driving them as fast as I was.

I’ve driven every type of car that has been made available to me, in every condition I could. I’ve worked hard to increase my skills and broaden my knowledge. I’ve immersed myself in the technology, both old and new, and followed the racing formulas.

My one enduring passion is driving. I know there are many others out there who share my passion, many others who want to learn what driving is all about. This website is for them.

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