by Ross Bentley
A couple of months later she came to me and asked to have the training wheels taken off again. She had decided it was time to learn to ride a two-wheeler. Within minutes she had practically mastered it. Within 30 minutes she was showing me how she could ride up and down steep hills while holding on to the handlebars with one hand.
There was no learning curve here, at least not when observed from the outside or probably even consciously on her part. It appeared as though her learning curve was absolutely flat, then took a perfectly vertical step. In reality, even though neither of us were aware of what was going on, she was progressively learning.
And you know what is most interesting? All the race drivers I’ve observed or worked with closely follow the same pattern in their development.
The only drivers that do not seem to follow this pattern are the ones that get frustrated when they are on a plateau, the flat part of the curve. They get to that point where they don’t feel they are getting any better, get upset or frustrated, and stay at that level or even get worse. The one piece of advice I can give about the learning process is that if you seem to be stuck at one level for some time, be patient. If you are using the strategies suggested here, you are about to make a big step up to the next level. You are about ready to take the training wheels off.
SPEED SECRET
If it seems you are not improving, you are about to.
Over the past few years a lot of people have talked about the importance of karting to the success of today’s top drivers. Look at the grid, at the front of the grid, anyway, of almost any of the top forms of road racing today and you will see drivers who have grown up racing karts. And, check out what they do between races, and you will most likely find them at a kart track of some type.
One question comes to mind to most casual observers: How does driving 30- or 40-horsepower karts relate to driving a 500- or 800-horsepower race car? The usual response is to point out the kart’s power to weight ratio, the cornering grip, and just how fast things happen on a kart. All these things are suppose to help a driver keep in shape, mentally and physically. And they do. However, there is another area where driving karts of any type and speed can help a race car driver: learning how to learn how to go fast.
Every time you drive on a track, you are constantly trying to figure out how to drive quicker. At least you should be. If not, you are not a real race driver.
As you drive through a corner, whether in a 700-horsepower car or a 5-horsepower rental kart, your mind should be sensing how the car or kart is reacting. You should be traction sensing, becoming aware (subconsciously) of whether the car or kart has any traction in reserve at any point throughout the corner, allowing you to go faster. You should be analyzing whether turning in earlier or later, taking a shallower or larger radius through the turn will enable you to carry more speed. You should be experimenting and discovering whether a change in when you brake, how much you brake, when you begin accelerating, how hard you accelerate means a quicker lap time.
In other words, you are constantly trying to learn how to go faster. And it doesn’t really matter what you are driving to learn this. I drive a shifter kart to stay in shape and tune up. I also drive rental karts on indoor tracks. I sometimes wonder which I learn the most from. Yes, the shifter kart relates more to my race car in terms of speed, but learning how to make a 6-horsepower kart get around a slippery indoor track is just as challenging from a learning perspective. If learning how to find that last little “trick” to break the track record at the local rental kart track is your objective, you will become a better race car driver.
LEARNING AS AN OBJECTIVE
Given a choice, which would you rather have, a race win or a great learning experience? That may be an unfair question, but I want to get you thinking. Most racers would do or give just about anything for a win, but would you give up learning for one?
No matter how talented you are, or how successful you are, the more you improve, the better your chances of winning in the future. I’ve known and seen far too many drivers who thought they were so talented and knew so much about driving that they would be successful wherever they raced. Every single one of them eventually reached a point where they no longer had an advantage, and they were no longer successful. If they had focused on learning and improving, they would have built on the advantage they had and continued to be successful.
SPEED SECRET
The more you learn, the better you get; the better you get, the more you win. Focus on learning, and you’ll win more often.
Let me tell you about a driver, who will remain nameless, who I knew. He had always been a competitive person, in business, in sports, in anything. When he and his friends did anything, from buying homes to cooking the best barbecued burger, he had to be the best at it. He hated to lose.
The competitive nature had been a good and bad thing for him. It drove him to practice as often as possible and be aggressive in traffic, but it’s also inspired him to do things that he regretted later, such as trying to force another driver off the track. And because of that inner drive and competitive nature, from the beginning he won more than his share of races. And that’s what led to the problem.
The more he won, or even came close to winning, the more he focused on winning. While that’s not a bad thing in itself, it is if that’s the only focus; as others in his class improved, he began to win less often. The less often he won, the harder he tried to win. The harder he tried, with all of his focus simply on winning, the worse his driving performance became and the less he won. Whenever anyone tried to talk with him about his approach, he would snap back with, “I’ve won in the past; I’ll win again if I just try harder.”
So here’s a question for you: Do you typically turn your fastest laps when you’re trying really hard or when you’re relaxed? I’m not suggesting that relaxed is not caring, being unfocused, or not performing at your maximum. But there is a huge difference between trying hard and being relaxed and focused. And that’s where my acquaintance made his mistake.
SPEED SECRET
Focus on your performance; the result will take care of itself.
ESTABLISHING STRATEGIES AND OBJECTIVES
A car engineer would never be successful at developing the car without some type of plan. The same thing applies to learning and developing your driving. Without a plan, one of two things will happen. Either no change—and no improvement—will take place, or the wrong changes will take place. That is why establishing objectives prior to every on-track session is critical, even if the objective is to not make any change so that you can make note of some subtle change to the car.
It is a complete waste of time if you head onto the track without two or three specific objectives. These objectives may relate just to the car, in terms of feedback on a particular setup change, or they may all have to do with a change in driving technique. The point is, without making a change, it is doubtful at best that the car or your driving will improve.
One of the best ways of doing this is by figuring out what questions you plan to ask yourself after the session. If, for example, you’re going to ask where you’re beginning to brake for Turn 1, what you do with the steering wheel just after turn-in for Turn 4, and whether the car understeers or oversteers at the exit of Turn 8, you have helped establish three specific objectives for the session. You have helped yourself focus.
The driving styles of the greatest racers in the world have always had one thing in common. Whether it’s Jackie Stewart, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, and Michael Schumacher in Formula One; Mario Andretti, Rick Mears, Helio Castroneves, and Dario Franchitti in Indy-car racing; or Richard Petty, Darrell Waltrip, Dale Earnhardt, and Jimmie Johnson in NASCAR, the key to their success has always been smoothness and finesse (even if it doesn’t always look like it in the rough-and-tumble world of NASCAR).
With experience you will develop your own driving style, one that suits your personality and your car. Everyone, in fact, has their own driving style.
I hope yours will be one of smoothness and finesse, as well.
Driving styles are why a car set up for one driver may not suit you. If, for example, the car you’re driving is understeering slightly in slow corners and you want it to oversteer, think about how you can alter your driving style to help the situation. What normally happens is you get a little frustrated with the understeer and try to force the car to go faster. About all that does is make the understeer even worse, slowing you even more. Usually, you’re better off being patient with an understeering car. Slow down a little more on the entrance to the turn, working the weight transfer to your advantage, and concentrate on getting good acceleration out of the corner onto the straight.
What I’m saying is, when the car is not handling the way you would like, think it through. Think about whether there is a way you can modify your driving style to suit the car. It may be easier and less expensive than trying to modify and adjust the car.
Your driving style or technique may actually be the cause of what you consider to be a handling problem. So whenever you are having a handling problem with your car, don’t just think about how to adjust or modify the car’s suspension and aerodynamics. Consider your driving style, or perhaps your driving errors. The first thing to determine when dealing with a handling problem is whether you are causing the problem. Take a real good look at your driving style and be honest.
You influence the weight transfer and tire traction at each corner of the car and at each and every turn on the track in a variety of ways. If you are too hard on the throttle in the middle of a turn (probably because your corner-entry speed was too low, and now you’re trying to make up for it by accelerating too hard), you may cause the car to either understeer or oversteer. How and when you use any of the controls can often cause, or cure, a perceived handling problem.
For example, when entering a turn, if you turn the steering into the corner too quickly (not giving the front tires a chance to gradually build up their traction forces), you may experience an initial turn-in understeer. This is particularly true if you do not trail brake enough.
Is this initial understeer a handling problem, something for which you should modify the chassis setup? Or maybe you’re turning too gradually, never getting the car to take a set in the corner until you’re half way through it.
Sure, you should work on adjusting the suspension to help cure any problem. But by doing that you may cause another problem elsewhere (such as an oversteer during the midcorner or exit). Instead, it may be better to adjust or improve your driving style or technique. The key is analyzing and recognizing the problem.
Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t suggest trying to overcome every handling problem by altering your driving. Always consider how you can improve the car, but don’t fool yourself. Look at your driving technique as well.
ADAPTABILITY
One of the key areas that separate good race drivers from great race drivers is their ability to adapt their driving to suit a car’s handling or from one type of car to another.
ILLUSTRATION 34-1 If you graphed the perfect, theoretical brake force application, it would look something like the solid green line in the graph above. The shaded area is the trail-braking phase. The red line shows three common braking errors. First, the initial application of the brakes is too soon and too slow. Second, the driver is not using all of the brake force available. It’s just under 10. And last, and probably the worst thing, the driver finishes braking too soon. By not keeping the front of the car loaded by trail braking, the car would probably understeer beginning right at the turn-in point. Is that a chassis setup problem or a driving style problem?
Some drivers, despite how the car is handling, will only drive it one way—their style. And guess what? A driver’s style will never suit every handling characteristic. If you cannot adapt your style to suit the car’s handling, a change in track conditions, a mechanical problem, or a different type of car, I doubt you will ever be a real champion race driver.
In 1994, Michael Schumacher finished second in the Spanish Grand Prix, despite the fact his Benetton was stuck in fifth gear only. What was really impressive was that other than in about two laps when he first encountered the problem (as he figured out how to adapt his driving to the situation), no one but his team even realized he had a problem. His lap times barely changed. That is one of the reasons he was the champion he was.
Although it would be impossible to list every problem scenario you may someday face when racing, I am going to attempt to identify the most common ones and give you some suggestions as to what you may be able to do to adapt your driving to help the situation.
The overall objective with the following suggestions is to give you some knowledge as to what you may be able to do to reduce the effect of the problem. In other words, what can be done so the problem has the least effect on your lap times and your ability to race your competitors? Of course, if at all possible, you would adjust the car: the anti-roll bars, brake bias, weight jacker, and so on. But if you don’t have any more adjustment, or any adjustment to begin with, it is all up to your adaptability once you are in the race.
As I said, being able to jump from one type of car to another is also an important element to being a great race driver. For example, having the skill and knowledge to be able to drive a rear-wheel-drive purpose-built race car running on slicks and a front-wheel-drive production-based car running street tires will greatly increase your chances of being a hired gun. Therefore, I will also try to cover the basics of the differences in driving style required for different types of cars.
SPEED SECRET
Improve your adaptability through knowledge and practice.
I’m giving you this information or knowledge at the conscious level. For you to truly use it you will need to make it a part of your subconscious by programming it using mental imagery. Until it becomes a subconscious program, the information will be next to useless; you will not be able to access it efficiently while at speed under racing conditions.
CORNER ENTRY UNDERSTEER
The best place to start when trying to figure out what you can do with your driving technique to help any handling problem is to think about the weight balance of the car. If your car is understeering in the entry portion of a corner, consider what you can do to induce some forward weight transfer and what you can do to lessen the weight transfer to the rear.
To increase the forward weight transfer, you can increase or lengthen the amount of time spent trail braking into the corner. That means not trailing, or easing off the brake pedal so quickly, keeping a little more pressure on the pedal for a little longer. And, if it is a corner that requires little to no trail braking, then it may be a matter of waiting a little longer—being more patient—before beginning to accelerate, or squeezing on the throttle a bit more gently.
One of the challenges is when you are chasing another car. As you approach and enter the corners, the distance between your car and the competitor’s car is reduced. Visually, it seems you are catching the other driver (even if the time gap has not changed, it is just that you are traveling at a slower speed). So your natural instinct in trying to catch your competitor is to actually ease off the brakes and get back to throttle a little sooner. That, of course, exaggerates the understeer, slowing you a little more. Then, you “try” a little harder, carrying more speed into the corner, causing more understeer, overheating the front tires more, causing more understeer, you “try” even more, and so on. As you can see, the problem just gets worse and worse.
The key, then, is to be patient. You will probably end up entering the corner a mile-per-hour or so less. If you focus on increasing the forward weight transfer and decreasing the rear weight transfer, you will be able to get the car rotated (turned) earlier in the corner and get back to throttle solidly, without having to come back off it to control the understeer. That will improve your acceleration out of the corner and down the straight, giving you a better chance at passing the opposition.
Avoid the temptation to turn in a little earlier. If anything, you want to turn in a little later, opening up the exit line so that you can focus on the acceleration phase of the corner.
One of the benefits to trail braking more is that you may actually be able to begin your braking slightly later (since you are doing more of the slowing down in the entry phase). However, that may also be part of the cause of the understeer problem: overloading the front tires. If you are carrying a lot of speed into the corner, still have a fair amount of braking going on, and trying to get the front tires to change the direction of the car, you may be asking too much from them. In this case, the cure is to begin braking a little sooner and trail brake a little less. Be patient.
ILLUSTRATION 34-2 Corner-entry understeer.
If the weight balance of the car is not the cause or the cure of the understeer, then you have to consider one other thing. It doesn’t matter where in the corner the understeer is; think about what you are doing with the steering wheel. Often, corner-entry understeer is caused by the driver cranking in too much steering input or cranking it in too abruptly. Try turning the steering wheel a little less and a little more gently. I know it may not feel right; the car is not turning enough (understeering), so you turn the steering less? Exactly. Keep the front tires at an angle they can work at. If you steer the front tires too much, they can’t help but give up their grip and begin to slide.
Again, be aware of how much steering you have input and try taking some out. Or turn the steering wheel a little slower, a little more gently as initiate your turn-in. Give the tires a chance to build up their cornering grip.
