May 12
17
Stop trying to drive faster…
Stop trying to drive faster...
That’s right, I said it. Stop trying to drive faster. Stop trying to pass the car in front of you. Stop trying to be quickest in your run group. Stop trying to advance to the next run group. Do or do not, there is no try. Yoda from Star Wars (which really had very deep spiritual meaning) had it right. Stop trying and start doing.
Morpheus from The Matrix hit the same concept when he told Neo, “Stop trying to hit me and hit me!” Again, stop trying. Sure these are works of fiction…well with the Matrix, I’m not so sure…but they do speak to a real concept, particularly when driving. It’s all about Feel. Instead of trying to do this or that when you drive; passing, avoiding being passed; moving up to the next run group, etc.; place all of your attention on Feel.
Feel not only what the car is doing (that goes without saying); but Feel what the other cars are doing around you. Feel how you are feeling on a moment to moment basis. And, when your attention is directed Effectively, you can Feel what the other drivers around you are feeling. It really is the most Effective way to drive. So how do you do that? You stop trying. In other words, you give up trying to force some thing to happen from an external perspective and you simply Feel what is going on. Said another way, you stop thinking about what you want to do and where you want to be, etc.
Stop thinking...
Trying to “think” your way through driving is not only ineffective, it can be dangerous. You can’t possibly think of every possible scenario at all times in order to be able to handle whatever happens out on the track. You need Feel to do that. Your Feel is your guide. Sometimes when I tell this to my students they’ll say things like; “I didn’t feel very fast this session.” or, “I felt slow.” or, “I felt like I was holding everybody up.” Those are all valid observations and I’ll assert that they are all thoughts. In other words the students went out and tried (thought about) driving faster or not getting passed or whatever the case may be. They then measured their perceived success against that thought.
Stop thinking. I tell them that the next time they go out. Instead of thinking about how to drive faster. They should just open themselves up to Feeling what is happening around them. By Feeling and not thinking they allow the session to flow more naturally to them. They’re more relaxed in the car, more aware, more receptive. And guess what else? They get faster! The next time you go out; focus only on Feel and don’t think about anything. At all.
Before you do that, leave a comment below on Twitter or on Facebook and let me know how you Feel about all of this. Let’s go driving!
I’ll see you at the track!
Cheers!
May 12
15
How to drive the line…
How to drive the line...
So you’re at your first event, you’re excited about the day, you’re in your first drivers meeting and you hear the lead instructor say, “We want to you drive The Line.” What!? This sounds like work!? I thought I signed up for a day of fun — what’s up with that?
No worries, driving The Line is the first and key part of learning to drive effectively on a racetrack. By learning The Line, you are essentially learning how to drive on that particular racetrack. You are also forming the basis of understanding on how to control your car at or near its limits on the track.
The Line, simply put, is the most efficient way to navigate a given racetrack and each racetrack will have its own unique line, just as each racetrack will has its own unique layout. In almost all cases, at the beginner level you will be driving “The School Line”. Suffice to say, this is the baseline for learning that particular track and it is the easiest line for new students to grasp. There are other lines such as The Race Line, The Qualifying Line, The Wet Line, etc., each is a derivation of The Line.
Nearly all sanctioning bodies will provide some explanation/demonstration of The Line for a given racetrack. In many cases you will actually be shown The Line on the racetrack itself, either through a ride-along with an instructor (where you are a passenger in the instructor‘s car); a lead-follow with the instructor (where the instructor leads you out onto the track in his or her car and you follow in yours); video tutorial (where you watch a video of someone else driving the track), by reviewing a track map or through some combination of each.
Interestingly enough, my first time ever driving on a racetrack I drove right down the middle of the track (just like I would on a one way road if I were driving on the street). My instructor at the time was patient with me and explained how to drive that track properly — Thunderhill Raceway. By the second session I was beginning to learn where to go and I was on the path to becoming a more efficient driver because of it.
...relax and the line will find you...
I bet, you’re thinking, “Okay I understand what The Line is and that it will be shown to me, but how do I actually drive it?” Great question and the answer is simple, you drive it by feel. When you are driving The Line the car will feel settled and composed, the car will feel like it is going where you want it to go, the car will feel as though it is under your control.
When I say feel in this case, that is exactly what I mean. The key to efficient driving is feeling what the car is doing around you, feeling your inputs the car and then feeling the car’s outputs to you. Typically beginning drivers can interpret the feel of what the car is doing more easily than they can explain what the car is doing. I always ask my student’s, “How did that feel for you?” Their answers always then provide me with the exact information I need in order to provide them with additional training and development.
Feel is a key component to successful and safe track driving, you will even hear advanced track drivers and professional race drivers talk about how things feel. It is this feeling, even at the beginner level and the understanding of feeling that will help you become a very efficient and effective track driver.
So, relax, enjoy, feel what the car is doing, feel how you are feeling (how’s that for a circular statement) and you will do just fine!
Let’s go driving! I’ll see you at the track!
Cheers!
@TMarcJones #Motorama
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Stability control systems can help...
With modern cars being the way they are with so many safety and performance enhancing features, many of my students ask me if they should leave the systems on or turn them off when they are out on the track. Since there are many, many different kinds of systems and they tend to have their own characteristics, I won’t go into a deep discussion on the system types or whether one system is “better” than another.
Instead, I am going focus on how the systems can be incorporated into your driving. The great thing is that at least you have a choice! When I started driving, the only systems available were on the very high end cars. In many cases the systems were either fully on or fully off — meaning if you kept them on, great; if you didn’t — you were on your own.
These days almost every manufacturer offers a Stability Control system. Actually, they are now mandated for all model years 2012 and beyond. I realize that for some of you starting out, you may be using an older car (built before, say 1995). However, the majority of students tend to track drive with the cars they use for daily driving. Since that is the case, there is a good chance your car has one of those systems in place.
While you are staring out, I strongly recommend reading the owners manual (I know, crazy, right!) to learn how your manufacturer intended the safety systems to be used. By doing this you will understand their intent and you’ll know exactly what your system is designed to do and you will understand the different engagement points/settings/assist levels etc.
It is important to understand how the system works for two reasons. The first is simply for the sake of knowing how your car was designed to operate. Second, based on how the system is designed, you can make an informed decision on whether you want to use it or not.
I’ve talked in other posts about Feel. Feel is essentially what we use to drive the car. When you think about it, many of these systems are really in place to try compensate for you in terms of feel. As a Novice or Beginning driver you don’t yet have the awareness to feel what the car is doing or to anticipate what it is going to do while driving. Concepts like, yaw rate, polar moment, slip angle, etc. and their real world application aren’t yet in your realm of understanding. Don’t worry, they soon will be!
...and you should be mindful of how they work. What they will and wont do.
For this reason, I recommend that you leave the systems in the “Full On” mode, whatever that is for your car. To take it a step further, I would also recommend that you leave the car as neutral as possible during your learning stages. Many modern cars are adjustable in terms of suspension, engine and gearbox (transmission) settings — many have multiple levels.
You should keep your stability system in full on mode because you will have plenty of other areas where you will focus your attention; learning The Line, learning the track, Situational Awareness, etc. I’m all for you making it easy on yourself and if you can focus on just these things; you will be an effective driver more quickly and the experience feel easier to you.
Keeping the car a neutral as possible helps because it gives you a baseline of Feel. From there you can understand what your car can and will do. You can more effectively make the appropriate inputs from there.
In fact, whenever I have students with manual gearboxes (for those of you born after 1980, that’s the stick looking thing between the front seats and the three pedals) I tell them to leave the car in one gear (usually third) when they go out just so they can focus their attention on driving. And think about it, that’s the whole reason you are interested in the sport in the first place.
So, in conclusion, I recommend you leave all of that control stuff on until your Feel level increases. Then gradually pare back the systems (as much as they allow) as you become more effective at Feel.
Plus you car won’t get dusty from running off the track a whole bunch of times!
Let’s go driving! I’ll see you at the track!
Cheers!
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What it means to be an effective driver...
I speak of being an effective driver and all of my training and development with my students is geared towards having them become effective drivers. Having said that, what do I really mean when I say effective? Why do I use that particular word and how does that really apply to track driving? Lastly, how can being effective serve me in other areas of my life?
Webster’s Dictionary defines effective like this:
Main Entry: ef·fec·tive
Function: adjective
Date: 14th century
1 a : producing a decided, decisive, or desired effect <an effective policy>
They go to define effect as; 1 a : purport, intent b : basic meaning : essence
The reason I use the word effective is that it is truly what we want to accomplish when we are driving. When we drive on a new track we want to learn the new track effectively. If we look at the definition above, we see the basic meaning is essence. Our goal then, is to learn the essence of that track. We want to learn The Line, we want to understand the track’s nuances, its unique character and we want to do all of this quickly and safely.
Similarly, as we get more accustomed to a given track, we want to become even more skillful at driving that track. We want to learn the different lines on the track, we want to learn what our particular car feels like with the different inputs we give it on the track. We want to begin to learn to increase the pace at which we drive the track. All of these things come about through our effectiveness; our purpose or intent — as defined above.
Here’s an example. If we want to learn to overtake (pass) other cars effectively, we start out with that purpose or intent — overtaking other cars. Through that intent, we focus our attention on how and where and when we can make passes on a given track. We bring our attention to our own car’s capabilities as well as our own along with those of the other cars and drivers out on track with us. This attention brings awareness to these given factors. Through that awareness we increase our effectiveness. The process itself is very simple to describe, yet it takes our focus or intention to execute in practice.
Remember to have FUN!
I always want students to focus on their effectiveness because from there all of the other track driving elements will manifest themselves. Whenever I go out, my goal is to be effective at whatever purpose or intent I’ve set for myself for that particular event, day, session, lap or track segment. Naturally my intent or purpose will change given any number of circumstances, yet my desired outcome — namely to be effective — stays the same.
When you think about it, again there is a direct correlation to life — as an aside there is a quote from a famous racing movie where the main character says, “for men (drivers) who do it well racing (driving) is life, everything before or after is just waiting”. For many of us life is life and our goal in life is to be effective, whether we realize it or not. We want to be effective in our workplaces, in our communities, with our families and in other close relationships. Just think about that for a moment.
On the track the beautiful thing is that we have a tangible and measurable closed-loop, feedback activity where our effectiveness is measured moment by moment by moment. If we aren’t effective with our braking points into a turn, we immediately realize that fact by either missing our turn entry or by going off track (hopefully not). If we aren’t effective with our gear selection, we either run out of motor or we lug the engine. If we aren’t effective with our steering inputs, we don’t present the car properly into the turn and thus can’t negotiate the turn effectively. The examples are infinite.
In each case our effectiveness, or intent, or purpose, or the essence of what we are trying to do — driving the track — is constantly fed back to us in real-time, instantly. That instant closed-loop feedback manifests itself through feel. We feel what the car is doing or not doing, we feel how we are feeling and these feelings in turn let us know how effective we are as it relates to our purpose.
See, I bet you thought it was just about going fast! Well if that is your intent, purpose or essence then you will become effective at that too!
Let’s go driving! I’ll see you at the track!
Cheers!
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May 12
3
Doing As Little As Possible…
Showing students the School Line
As I work with my students and as they begin to understand The Line and other basics of track driving I stress to them to do as little as possible in the car. I tell them to create the intention of doing as little as possible whenever they go out onto the track.
What it means really, is to focus on providing the minimum necessary inputs to the car in order to negotiate the track effectively. When driving; inputs are steering, braking, turning, accelerating — essentially all the components of operating the car. Doing as little as possible with those inputs leads to smoothness and smoothness will help you become an effective driver in a short period of time.
Whenever I go out onto the track I draw my attention to conserving my movements inside the car as much as possible. When I up-shift or down-shift (I drive a conventional manual transaxle car) I draw my attention to making the minimum necessary movement or physical input to get the car to do what I want it to do — namely change gears in this example.
The reason I draw my attention to conserving movements is not so much to conserve my own physical energy nor is it necessarily to preserve the equipment (car) although those two outcomes do come about as a result. My reason or intent for doing this is to allow me to more effectively feel what the car is doing and how it is reacting to the dynamic environment which is track driving.
By not “doing” anything my attention is free to feel how the car is reacting, from there I can then most effectively provide the necessary inputs to complete my objective which is to drive the track. As I explain it I realize it may seem counter intuitive. You may be thinking, “But you are doing something, you are driving. You are braking, steering and accelerating.”
Very true, yet at the same time I am in the act of doing these things as little as possible. Said another way, I am not thinking about those things at a conscious level, since my attention is on feeling what the car is doing, those inputs manifest themselves based on the feel I am getting from the car on a moment to moment basis.
Here are some examples; when you sit in a chair you really do anything to sit in the chair, you just sit there. When you walk across a furnished room you don’t do anything to walk across the room you just walk across it. Your attention in each of these examples is on sitting or walking and you are then able to effectively accomplish each of those tasks through your attention.
I’ve talked in the past about Intention and Attention. All you have to “do” is create the intention. That directs your attention and the rest comes from there. Much of my driver training and development is to really have my students “do” less and feel more. The less they do, the more they can feel and the more effective they become!
So now all you have to “do” is get out onto the track and apply this in practice!
Let’s go driving! I’ll see you at the track!
Cheers!
@TMarcJones
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