Instructors at Team O’Neil, a rally driving school in New Hampshire, recommend leaving a tall pickup or SUV in 4-Hi, not 2WD, when driving fast on loose surfaces. They say four-wheel drive in high range gives steadier braking and better control through corners, while low range caps speed too much for a rally pace. The advice comes from a school video shot in an older Toyota Tacoma, which The Drive’s Stephen Edelstein summarized on Nov. 7.
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Tall vehicles carry a complication that low sedans never face: a center of gravity high enough that sideways forces can tip the whole truck onto its side.
4-Hi versus 2WD and low range
As The Drive reported, the instructors say keeping the truck in 4-Hi makes braking more stable and cornering more predictable. In two-wheel drive, lateral loads build more quickly, which can leave the driver chasing the steering wheel with corrections. Low range, by contrast, limits how fast the truck can travel, so it suits crawling over obstacles and not fast gravel work. Edelstein’s write-up also relays the school’s view that excessive drifting is not a good idea in a vehicle this tall, however tempting a slide may look on video.
Team O’Neil is not a casual operation. Its course listing says the school was founded in 1997, sits in the White Mountains just outside Littleton, New Hampshire, and covers 583 acres with about six miles of roads. Rally School runs from one to five days. A school page on loose-surface mobility says rally driving techniques are intended for unpredictable surfaces and lists manual and automatic high-center-of-gravity vehicles in its training fleet. Neither page names individual instructors.
Owners weighing a course will find the cost listed openly. The school’s site prices a one-day Rally School at $1,800 and a five-day session at $8,500, with a two-day drift school at $3,500 and a five-day tactical driving school at $10,500. The pages reviewed do not describe a course built around tall trucks specifically, although the loose-surface page lists a Jeep Cherokee on 31-inch tires among its vehicles alongside front-, rear- and all-wheel-drive cars. Anyone wanting to try the 4-Hi advice under supervision would need to ask the school what a high-center-of-gravity session includes.
Straight-line braking and trail braking
Lateral weight transfer is the main hazard, according to the video’s summary: too much weight shifting to one side too quickly can roll a tall truck. The recommended sequence is to brake in a straight line first, then turn while easing off the brake, a technique known as trail braking. Sliding through a corner on oversteer gives up the control that straight-line braking provides. At lower speeds, lifting off the throttle before steering can stand in for braking. On corner exit, oversteer can help when the bend does not lead onto a straight, because the rotation lets the driver unwind the wheel, but the throttle stays off until the wheel is straight.
Earlier coverage put a name to the school’s message. Writing for Jalopnik in May 2019, Andrew P. Collins described Wyatt Knox of Team O’Neil Rally School stressing awareness of a vehicle’s center of gravity. Knox’s point was that the surface changes the risk: sliding on a frozen lake with no grip is unlikely to roll a vehicle, tight turns on high-grip pavement are riskier, and sand is especially dangerous at speed. Hooniverse made the same point about Knox’s 2019 video: loose surfaces allow more angle and slip, while higher traction raises the rollover risk.
Squared-off tire sidewalls and the lever effect
Tires carry a warning of their own. All-terrain tires have squarer sidewalls than road tires, and on loose surfaces those edges can dig in and act as a lever, flipping the vehicle. Jalopnik’s 2019 account added a second tire hazard: long drifts on gravel can expose sidewalls to sharp rocks, which can cut the rubber and cause a loss of control. Edelstein closes The Drive’s piece with a caveat that fast cornering in a tall truck or SUV can still be sketchy even with good technique, because, in his words, that is just physics.
Federal crash data show why instructors worry. A National Highway Traffic Safety Administration technical report found that in 2003 about one-third of passenger vehicle occupant deaths, 10,376 in all, happened in vehicles that rolled over, although rollovers were involved in only about 3% of crashes. Rollover was involved in 59% of SUV occupant deaths, against 23% for passenger cars, and the death rate per 100,000 registered vehicles was 7.18 for pickups and 10.22 for SUVs, against 3.69 for cars. Those figures cover all roads and date from 2003.
An open question is how much 4-Hi alone changes the odds. The video is a demonstration on a controlled course, none of the sources quantify the reduction in rollover risk, and The Drive credits the Team O’Neil instructors as a group without naming the one in the Tacoma clip. Knox appears in 2019 coverage of the school’s high-center-of-gravity lessons, but the Nov. 7 report does not say who is on screen.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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