by Ross Bentley
Let me make one thing clear. A race car must be driven at the subconscious level, not the conscious level. Why? Because a race car is much too fast to be driven effectively at the conscious level. A driver cannot think through each skill and technique as he or she drives the car. If, at the end of a straightaway, a driver thought, “Start braking now by moving my foot onto the brake pedal and squeezing it down, depress the clutch pedal with my left foot, move my right hand onto the shifter, move the shifter forward, blip the throttle, turn the steering wheel,” where do you think the car would be? At best, at the back of the pack, but more realistically, crashed into a barrier.
To emphasize the importance of driving at the subconscious level, consider this fact: Your conscious mind processes information at a rate of 2,000 bits of data per second, while your subconscious mind processes at a rate of 4 billion bits of data per second! Is there any wonder the subconscious is better at driving something as fast as a race car?
You must rely on, and trust, your subconscious programming to drive the car. Where does that programming come from? Mostly from experience, physical programming. But it can come from mental programming as well. This is most often referred to as visualization or mental imagery.
Most drivers will tell you that they use visualization, when a majority of them really just close their eyes and think about what they want to achieve. Effective mental programming is more than just that. Mental imagery is really “actualization,” where a person not only uses his or her visual sense, but all the senses. He or she not only imagines what a scenario looks like, but how it feels and how it sounds. The more senses a person uses in this mental imagery, and the more real he or she can make it, the more effective a tool it will be.
THE THREE KEYS TO IMPROVING DRIVING PERFORMANCE
Based on the Performance Model, you can see there are three keys to improving your driving performance:
• Faster processing: The faster and more efficiently you process the information in your brain, the better your performance.
• Quality input: The better the quality, and the more quantity of input from your senses, the better the output and the better your performance will be.
• Quality programming: The better your mental programming—your software—is, the better your performance will be.
Because these are so critical to your performance, I’m devoting the next three chapters to just these key factors. I’ll then discuss in more detail focus, state of mind, decision making, behavioral traits, and belief system.
You are most likely aware that your brain is made up of two halves or hemispheres. Each hemisphere has its own primary responsibilities: the left hemisphere for logic, math, language, and details; the right for creativity, intuition, art, and the big picture.
How would you describe yourself? Are you a left-brain–dominant person, meaning you’re logical, factual, and detail-oriented? Or are you more right-brain dominant: creative, intuitive, and able to see the big picture?
Which do you suppose is the ideal for a race driver? If you answered “both” you are correct. You must be able to see the details and the big picture, be logical and creative, factual and intuitive. You must be what is called “integrated,” where both hemispheres of your brain are working at their peak and with the hemispheres working together.
ILLUSTRATION 21-1 Your brain is made up of two halves, or hemispheres, each with its own duties. When you’re performing at your best, at your peak, both sides of your brain are operating together, fully integrated.
In fact, sports researchers have shown that one of the most important factors that lead to an athlete performing “in the zone” or “in the flow” is having a fully integrated mind. Between the two hemispheres of your brain is a bundle of nerve fibers called the corpus callosum. This acts as a communications link, transferring bio-electrical current between the hemispheres. It acts like a cable between a computer and a printer. It is as if there is a dimmer switch in this communications link, one that can dial up or down the amount of bio-electrical communication between the hemispheres. When the communication is restricted, you act either more left-brained, or right-brained. When the communication is turned up, your are integrated. That is what leads to great performances; that’s when you drive at your best.
Also, the left hemisphere controls the right side of the body, and the right hemisphere the left side of the body. At least, that is the way it should be. Some people, and thus some race drivers—people often referred to as being uncoordinated—do not operate completely in this manner. Instead, their right hemisphere controls the right side of their body, and vice versa, at least partially.
When you are fully integrated, you will think more whole-brained and perform in a more coordinated fashion.
BRAIN INTEGRATION EXERCISES
There are three exercises that will help you improve your level of integration.
Cross Crawl
As I mentioned earlier, the right hemisphere of a driver’s brain controls the left side of the body, and vice versa. There is, or at least should be, cross-lateral communication from one side of the body to the opposite side of the brain. This occurs at a high level when you are integrated, and not so much when you are less integrated (this is referred to as disintegrated).
Almost any physical movement that connects one side of the body with the other will help your level of brain integration. However, the simple cross-crawl exercise may be the most effective. Here’s how it works.
While standing, raise your right leg, bending it at the knee, and bring your left arm over and touch the right knee. Return to standing. Then raise your left leg and touch the knee with your right hand. Return to standing, and then continue, alternating sides. You will find yourself marching in one place while alternately touching your knees with your opposite hand.
At first, do this at what is a comfortable rate for you, then slow it down to as slow a pace as you can. Doing it at a slow pace puts more stress on your sense of balance, improving it over time. Then speed it up until you are almost running on the spot while touching the opposite knee with your hands. At speed, this is a great exercise to get your body warmed up prior to getting in the car.
There is a reason this exercise is called a cross crawl. When babies first begin to crawl, they most often do it in a unilateral motion. That is, they move their right hand and leg forward, then their left hand and leg, and so on. One side moves, and then the other. After a week or more for most babies, they change to a cross-lateral crawling movement, where they move the right hand with the left leg, the left hand and right leg, and so on. This cross-crawling movement is the first step in the integration process of brain development.
Children who do not do enough cross crawling (often because they go almost directly from unilateral crawling to walking) may miss out on becoming fully integrated at an early age. In many cases, this leads to the child being slightly uncoordinated, or even having what some people call learning disabilities. By simply using the cross-crawl exercise, many children have been able to “recover” from learning difficulties and have become far more physically coordinated. This exercise is extremely powerful.
Do cross crawls for about 30 seconds to two minutes each morning, in the evening, and especially just prior to getting into the race car. After doing this for a few weeks, you will begin to be aware of when you need to become more integrated by doing more cross crawls. You will just feel better—more in the zone—when you’re integrated.
ILLUSTRATION 21-2 Doing cross crawls helps “switch on,” or integrate your mind, increasing its ability to process information quickly. Do a few cross crawls just prior to getting into the car and heading onto the track.
Lazy 8s
The second integration exercise is especially effective in helping integrate your vision. Just as there is a cross-lateral connection between your brain and body, there is a similar connection between your brain and eyes. In this case, the information coming into your right eye is sent primaril
y to the left hemisphere of your brain, and the information from your left eye is sent primarily to your right hemisphere. Once it is in your brain, the information is processed and constructed into what you “see.”
If that communication from your eyes to brain, and from hemisphere to hemisphere is restricted in any way, you’ll miss a piece of the picture. At the speed you’re traveling in the race car, missing just the tiniest piece of information may be catastrophic. And believe me when I say that a large percentage of drivers, even at the highest levels of professional racing, have visual processing problems resulting in incomplete visual pictures. Is it any wonder that many drivers make the wrong decision when trying to cut between a couple of cars in an overtaking maneuver, or that they make a small error (turning in too early for a corner, hitting a curb, etc.) that results in a slow lap time or a spin? Either of these may be the ultimate result of a visual-processing problem that can be cured through the use of the lazy 8s exercise.
ILLUSTRATION 21-3 Lazy 8s will improve your visual processing, providing your brain with better quality and more visual information. Do Lazy 8s just prior to getting into the car.
Here’s how it works. Stand with one arm stretched directly out in front of you, with a slight bend in your elbow and your hand in the thumbs-up position. While you keep your head steady, trace an imaginary figure eight laying on its side with his thumb, with your eyes following your thumb. Therefore, your eyes will be tracking this lazy 8 figure.
Do this exercise for about 20 to 30 seconds with each hand, and then with both hands. When doing it with both hands, make two fists, place the knuckles from each hand together, and make a cross with your two thumbs. While flexing your arms and shoulders, trace the lazy 8 while focusing on the cross of your two thumbs. Again, make sure your head stays steady.
At first, have someone watch your eyes closely while you do this. Do they move smoothly or are they notchy? Do they jump ahead in certain areas, skipping part of the figure eight? If so, you may be missing information in that area of your visual field. Do your eyes move congruently (together)?
If your eyes have some notchiness, jumping, or incongruency in your tracking, doing some lazy 8s for even 30 seconds to a minute will probably begin to make some improvement. And even if you didn’t notice any problems with the way your eyes track, this exercise will benefit you. Again, it helps with brain integration, and specifically visual integration.
You should do this exercise at least twice a day, and especially just prior to getting into the car. Many drivers report an immediate effect after doing these exercises. They say it helps them become more aware of what is going on around them and much more perceptive. This, obviously, helps improve the quality of visual information being input into his brain.
Most people seem to think that good vision is something you are either born with or not, and that it is something that just goes away with age. And yet, they will agree that if a person does some form of physical exercise that their body will be and stay healthy for a longer period of time. Well, the same thing applies to a person’s vision. If you exercise it, it will improve and maintain its health and performance level longer.
Centering
How important is it to the overall performance of the race car that it be well balanced? Critically important, right? But even if the car is perfectly balanced, if your personal sense of balance is not near-perfect, are you going to be able to drive the car to its limit? Or if the car is not perfectly balanced, and neither are you, how effective are you going to be at reading exactly what the car needs?
ILLUSTRATION 21-4 To center and calm yourself, as well as improve your sense of balance, gently touch your tongue to the acupressure point on the roof of your mouth, just behind your upper front teeth.
The point is, of course, your sense of balance is as critical as the car’s, perhaps more so. Can it be improved? Yes. How? One way is by centering.
Centering is a technique used in martial arts. All you need do is lightly press the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth, toward the front behind your upper teeth, where peanut butter sticks. This area in a person’s mouth is a strong acupressure point, which triggers brain integration and an improved sense of balance. To make this fully effective, you should press a couple of fingers from one hand on a point just below your navel, and focus all your energy upon this center point of the body. In martial arts, this point is called the “chi.”
Obviously, you cannot drive the car while pressing your navel. But you can place the tip of your tongue on the roof of your mouth, particularly in high stress areas of the track. For example, as you approach the fastest turns on the track, or when trying to brake late for a corner, center (placing your tongue on the roof of your mouth) and breathe. This way, when you most need to be integrated, sensitive to what the car is telling you, and balanced, you are.
This centering technique also has a stress-relieving or relaxing effect. An uptight, stressed-out driver will rarely perform at his peak. By centering, you will be more relaxed, learn at a quicker rate, and perform at your best more consistently.
If you practice centering on a regular basis, you will notice a difference in and out of the car. Just before you leave pit lane to go onto the track, center. Over a short period of time, this will trigger a calm, focused, integrated brain.
SPEED SECRET
The more quantity and the higher the quality of sensory information going into your brain, the better the quality the output will be and the better you will drive.
Think of it this way. Every little piece of information entering your brain from your senses (primarily vision, feel, and hearing when it comes to race-car driving), results in a decision or physical movement. And just like having more information about the financial performance of a company can help you make a better investment decision, the more information you have about the position of the car in a corner, where other cars are around you, the amount of traction the tires have, the precise speed the car is traveling, the g-forces and vibrations, the sounds from the engine and tires, the better your decisions and physical actions will be.
Most people would agree that hand-eye coordination is a very important part of driving a race car, but few could give you a clue as to how to improve it. Basically, here is what hand-eye coordination is. Information is fed to your brain through your eyes, where it is processed, and then your hand (or any other part of your body) is instructed to perform the appropriate action. From this simple explanation, it is easy to see why any improvement in the quantity or quality of the information going from your eyes to your brain should result in a more “coordinated” action.
In reality, we also rely on hand-ear coordination, where information from your hearing is processed and the appropriate action is then performed by your body, as well as what could be called hand-hand coordination, kinesthetic or feel information providing the input to the brain.
Imagine trying to drive a race car along the ideal cornering line if your vision was restricted 90 percent. Or if your body was completely isolated from the car so that you could not feel any of the vibrations, g-forces, or chassis roll or pitch. Or what if you were deaf? You could not hear any sound whatsoever from the car. Would that affect your ability to drive the car at its limit? Absolutely!
VISUAL INPUT
Have you ever wondered whether what you see is what other people see? Have you wondered whether what you see, or perceive to be the color red for example, is the same as what other people see or perceive as red?
Have you ever wondered whether other drivers see as much or more than you do? Why is it that some drivers seem to be all seeing, all aware, all knowing of everything going on around them, when other drivers seem to have blinders on?
It is a fact that what you see is primarily what your brain constructs. In other words, your eyes send to your brain a small amount of data, where it is turned into a lot of useful information. Most people think it is your eyes that provide you with what you see, where in rea
lity it is more your brain. Vision researchers have proved this point. And that is why some people with 20/20 vision “see” more than others with 20/20 vision. Some older drivers whose eyesight may not be as good as younger drivers’, for example, see and are aware of more.
Some drivers see a tiny flash of something in their mirrors and know exactly what it is. For others, that same amount of data from the eyes results in little to no visual construction in the mind. No information is assimilated. That, of course, is why some drivers seem to be able to stay out of trouble; whereas, others seem to be attracted to it. It’s just that these drivers are not able to make any useful sense out of a miniscule amount of data being sent to the brain by the eyes.
Think of a driver who has a reputation for making a lot of bad decisions and crashing a lot. To most observers, it is simply a shame that he or she makes so many mistakes, since the driver is so fast, so talented otherwise; the driver is written off as a serious championship contender.
For a driver who makes a lot of mistakes, the root cause of the problem is often a lack of quality sensory input, especially visual input. For instance, where most drivers entering a corner in a pack of cars may recognize that there is not enough room to make a pass, our “crasher” may see it as an opening. The reason is that for a fraction of a second, the driver is not seeing the whole picture. For a variety of reasons, the driver’s visual input is restricted. As you know, it would only take a small piece of the puzzle to be missing for an error to occur at racing speeds.
