and I am a thoughtful introspective driver/instructor. But, to consider myself consistently great would be flatly wrong! Oh, but make no mistake, I want it as badly as when I was a teenager. That carrot STILL dangles in front of me, tantalizingly close, and I pursue it with all my passion! I hope you feel the same way and therefore find benefit from my perspective and experience, even if it bruises the ego occasionally. Humility is the number one attribute of a successful student (or a successful teacher or person for that matter). Humility only gains us perspective, and gaining perspective only does one thing… it makes us wiser…it makes us crave wisdom.
So, what does wisdom gain you? The ability to see root causes of problems. Fixing root causes and not just treating symptoms is the basic cornerstone of teaching; and speaking of cornerstones, here is an example of how this really succeeds. One of the foundational driving skills to ingrain is that consistently driving fast is a game of anticipation, not reaction. You have to think and therefore look as far down the road as possible. The phrase “eyes up” (telling the student to look further down the road) is a great example; you hear it constantly at any school. Since most racers by design don’t have great empathy, it doesn’t occur to them that there are real ingrained reasons students don’t do it right and repeat the mistake over and over (much to the instructors’ and students’ frustration in many cases). It’s not because the student doesn’t understand or is not good enough; they actually physically can’t make themselves look down the road, Why? It’s because the teacher really can’t teach, because they don’t see the root cause of the issue. The root cause is so many steps away from the instruction “eyes up” that no student could possibly connect the dots and fix the issue. Efficient improvement starts with the root cause and only there; everything else is just a masked symptom, and that has never made anyone actually better.
The “low eyes” driver is that way for a reason, they are concerned about the present and therefore not planning for the future. So, you have to figure out why they are concerned: They are worried about the car in the corner… They are worried that they are near the physical limit of speed and the car may skid… They are worried that if the car skids they won’t be able to catch it. So, they aren’t looking far enough down the road because they lack car control. That is the root problem. Car control is a learned skill, whether on the farm, in a snowy parking lot, in karts or on a skid pad. If you never learn it, you will never be a driver that feels comfortable at the limit. The only way to make a driver without car control stop looking down and get their eyes up is to slow them down and get them to drive below their limit. The instant they do that, they regain cognitive bandwidth and now can plan. Therefore, telling them to look further down the road will never fix the problem; even if through sheer will power they force themselves to look further, they still don’t have good car control, they were worried for good reasons, right!? Now they are ignoring the car control issue (though it is very real), and putting themselves (and everyone on the track with them) at risk. Not how it should be done.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I have great news for you! I have a system that is based on the reality of what you have read so far, not on a projection of who we like people to think we are. That’s why this and only this will work. Oh, and tell your ego to relax… doctor/patient privilege is in effect here. No one will know our many shared secrets! Everyone can still think you burst onto the scene as the second coming of Ayrton Senna. That’s how every single great has done it and continues to do it.
Chapter 2
The Myth of the “Natural” Talent
Yes, I am saying natural talent is a myth. It appears to be real, but actually, when you dig into their history a bit, you may occasionally find they have never driven a race car before, but they have “driven” something. The love of speed starts really early in life. Even if you’re in your “Autumn,” I would venture that the itch you’re scratching came from your childhood. Raise your hand if you ever did anything risky and dumb as a kid just for the thrill of it. OK, now everybody put your hands down! This is where the seed is planted, and some continue to do “risky dumb stuff” throughout their youth and (if they survive) refine and up the ante (careful not saying upping the risk, because their growing knowledge mitigates the risk increase at each step), and grow comfortable visualizing, planning, executing, analyzing, and refining. Then one day they get a chance to jump in a kart or even a race car – and they fly. They come in and astonished observers ask the most magnificent question that their ego has had the pleasure of hearing: “You sure you’ve never driven one of these before!?!” May I present to you an amazing “natural” talent. Not everyone grew up in an environment that allowed this very useful experimentation that (while they thought they were just playing) gave them a balanced real feel for how they interact with the natural world and ingrained a process that will help them succeed at just about anything they tackle. You see, learning ability is the real talent.
There are other characteristics that differentiate people as well. It’s not just as simple as you’ve either spent your childhood being a daredevil on a Big Wheel or a bike or not. Along with all that is the very real possibility that it went really wrong one day with that plywood ramp or rope swing and you got seriously hurt. Physically you’ve healed, but deep down the psychological scarring remains, and it has a real and negative effect on you at the exact moment you need clarity, not a triggered panic reflex. I have seen this countless times, and it is especially obvious with a student driving and me riding (on a skid pad usually) or when I am giving a hot lap. The instant the car slides, you see the panic attack; some get over it and gain some semblance of control a second or so later, some do not and simply can’t. I would estimate half the population has the sort of trauma-triggered panic buried within that will affect their ability to ever do anything that is risky very well.
There is also the physiological response your body has to fear stimuli that is independent of the trauma you may or may not have had in your past. This is a large variable, and studies and my own experiences have shown that only 10% of the population has the proper “chemical cocktail” that is released during high risk situations to naturally have the ability to think clearly and not panic in “fight or flight” situations. This is a natural dispersion of these risk taker genes that has always occurred in human beings. The 10% are the fighters who protect the village, the warriors (the opposite, ironically, of the “worriers”). The 90% think the 10% are crazy adrenaline junkies, and the 10% think the 90% are boring and live in fear. They are both right; relatively, the 10% have a lot more fun (kids that never grow up), but the 90% tend to be more pragmatic and therefore on the average live a lot longer. Funny enough, due to the influence of the nurture side on us, 90% of people think they are in the 10% and vice versa. There are infinite combinations of these traits, and they have a very large influence on how we learn and what strategy will work best for us.
Now, of course, you are wondering which one you are? Or actually, maybe you already have it pegged. Before we choose teams, you should know that both types have won World Championships (but their personal journeys are vastly different). So, here’s the test: Do you literally laugh at fear? That’s it, are you one of the “adrenaline junkies” who actually have a pleasant response to being scared? Does your “chemical cocktail” allow you to retain cognitive clarity (aka grace under pressure) at precisely those dangerous moments when you should panic, but don’t panic? Do people think of you as brave? Remember, it’s only 10% of the population (and it varies culturally and geographically). However, those 10% are drawn to these types of books and activities so the crosscut of those of you reading is probably more up towards 50/50 and maybe more. Then again, real “fly by the seat of your pants” types don’t like reading about doing stuff, they like doing stuff, and to heck with the instructions. We are if anything interesting.
So, what are the plusses and minuses of each type? It might seem like the “10 percenters” have all the advantages. Driving a race car without being scared – how ridiculously liberating, right!? Well yes, but that can be the issue, they tend to immediately be relatively fast, but… (and you’ve guessed it by now), they tend to crash a lot. Crashing is expensive (so they better have deep pockets), oh, and it is risky so they can get hurt (with physical, financial, and physiological trauma as a result). They