by Ross Bentley
When I first drove a ground-effects car, I had to work on expanding my Comfort Zone, building my confidence. With a ground-effects car, the faster you go, the more aerodynamic downforce you have. This gives you more grip, which means you can go even faster. That takes confidence, but it doesn’t happen immediately.
When I first went to Indy, it took a little time to get used to the speed. I had never run at more than 200 miles per hour, and I had to gradually work that speed into my Comfort Zone.
Often, if you feel as though things are happening too fast, as though you’re being rushed, it may just mean you’re not looking far enough ahead. Pick up your vision, and your Comfort Zone will expand.
To drive fast and win races you have to feel totally confident in driving at the car’s limits. That means your limits—your Comfort Zone—must be at least equal to the car’s limits. In fact, your comfort level must be equal to the car’s performance level, otherwise it is next to impossible to drive at 100 percent. Again, this takes experience and constantly pushing the limits of your Comfort Zone.
Drivers usually operate within their comfort zones, going outside every once in a while to “push the envelope.” To go faster, to improve as a race driver, you have to have a comfort zone that extends beyond the limits of your car. In other words, if you are not comfortable driving as fast as the car can be driven, you will not be able to maximize your performance. If you’re not comfortable driving slightly beyond the limits of your car every now and then, you will never be able to consistently drive at the limit.
To improve your performance level, to stretch the limits of your comfort zone, you have to progressively push the limits in small increments. Some drivers never go beyond their comfort zone and never improve. Others go too far too soon. If you take too big a leap, at best you won’t improve. At worst, you have a big crash.
You must feel completely comfortable and confident with the sense of speed just slightly beyond the limit. One of the best ways of doing that, although not always practical, is to drive a car that is faster than the one you race. You then become so accustomed to a higher speed that when you return to the speed of your race car, it feels slow. The objective, really, is to help slow down the feeling of speed.
Short of spending time behind the wheel of a race car much faster than yours, mental imagery is the key to developing your comfort zone. As I said earlier, this can be done by driving a track in your mind, and then accelerating the speed in your mind to “fast motion.”
CONSISTENCY
The mark of a great racer is consistency. If you can consistently lap a track at the limit, with the lap times varying no more than a half second, then you have a chance to be a winner. If your lap times vary more than that, no matter how fast some of them are, you won’t win often.
When you first start racing, concentrate on being consistent. Don’t be too concerned with your speed. Work on being smooth and consistent with your technique lap after lap.
To do that, when driving the limit, you must remember what you did and keep doing it lap after lap. That is not as easy as it sounds. But it’s not until you drive consistently that you can begin to work on shaving that last few tenths or hundredths of a second off your lap time.
If you want to change something—either to the car’s setup or your driving technique—how are you going to know if it took a few tenths of a second off your lap time if you’re not consistently lapping to begin with?
EFFORT
One of the most common mental errors a race driver makes is “trying.” Trying is a conscious act. Not only is trying not an automatic, programmed act, but the second you try, your body tenses and therefore is unable to perform smoothly. Trying is a primary cause of errors, particularly under pressure. You must learn to relax, and let your body and the car “flow.” Drive naturally, subconsciously.
As I said, one of your objectives should be to always go faster. Unfortunately, many drivers at that stage try to go faster. The result is rarely what the driver wants. Remember what I said about trying? Trying rarely works. Instead, don’t force it. Relax and just let it happen, focusing on your performance.
As Yoda said, “Do or do not. There is no try.” Either do something, or don’t do something. There is no point in trying to do something. By the very definition of the word, trying gives you a way out, an excuse. Trying means “to attempt.” To us, that doesn’t sound positive. It doesn’t to your brain either. Remember the muscle check. The second you try, you become tense. The second you become tense, your performance suffers.
As you know, driving a race car well—performing at your own 100 percent—comes from driving subconsciously. It comes from your “program” in your brain. Trying to drive fast is just like trying to make a computer with no software do something. It just isn’t going to happen. Trying is driving consciously. Instead, focus on giving your bio-computer more input. Focus on what you can see, feel, and hear; become aware; and visualize the act of driving.
ILLUSTRATION 29-2 It’s easy to get too “comfortable” behind the wheel of the race car, and never push beyond your comfort zone. Of course, that will never lead to a great performance.
Have you ever noticed how practically every great athletic performance looks almost easy and effortless? Great performances, and therefore the best results, are always achieved when the right amount of effort is used in the right places. This right amount of effort is usually less than you think necessary. Like what I said about psychomotor skills, the less unnecessary effort you spend, the more successful you will be. The key is to use appropriate effort or economy of movement.
Doing the wrong thing with more effort rarely results in a good performance. Great race drivers use less effort to produce great performances and great results. The more intense the competition, the more they relax and just let it happen.
SPEED SECRET
Relax, use less effort, and just let it happen.
Think back to some of your great performances in your life, whether in a sport or anything else. Were you tense and aggressively trying, forcing yourself to perform well? Or were you relaxed, calm, focused, assertive, and simply doing what seemed to come naturally? I bet you were in the latter mode, not even aware that you were trusting your subconscious programs to perform.
Again, focus on what you can control. Focus on what you want. Focus on where you want to go. Focus on the moment—your execution, your form, your technique—rather than on how much more there is to go, how much faster you need to go, or what position you are in.
PRESSURE
One of the most frustrating things to observe is the pressure that is often placed on young athletes by the media. It’s almost like they go around with a “can of pressure” and spray it all over the athletes. This is particularly seen in and around the Olympics. The media seems to love to remind Olympic athletes of past failures and mistakes and ask them if they will be able to “put that out of their minds.” If we really cared about the performances of our Olympic athletes, we would keep the media away from them. Of course, that’s not going to happen.
The same is true of many race teams and sometimes with the race media. If a team manager believes that he is enhancing the performance of the team and the driver by going around “spraying” little cans of pressure on everyone, especially the driver, perhaps the team manager needs to become more aware of the strategies that really will enhance performance.
For the race driver, having an understanding of and a strategy for controlling pressure is critical.
Many drivers’ performance levels are limited by their fear of failing, their fear of losing. So much of their focus is upon “not losing” (again, an outcome), and what losing will mean (at least, what they think losing will mean), that they almost guarantee losing. It’s unfortunate—not to mention, destructive—the amount of pressure, external and internal, some drivers put on themselves or that others have put on them.
ILLUSTRATION 29-3 Learning how to handle the pressure many team ow
ners, sponsors, friends, and family members “spray” on you is a critical part of your job.
Internal pressure is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as it is focused in the right direction. In fact, this sometimes helps to drive or motivate a person. But most of the time, pressure to deliver an outcome only results in increased tension, stress, and anxiety, and decreasing performance. Make sure any internal pressure you place on yourself is focused on your performance, not the result.
External pressure rarely, if ever, increases a driver’s performance level and most often leads to not winning. External pressure is the pressure a driver puts on himself or herself to win in front of others, or to live up to other’s expectations. It’s also the pressure others, whether it is family, friends, sponsors, or crewmembers, put on the driver to win.
People who place this external pressure on you must realize how much they negatively affect you with their expectations. Understand that there is a difference between having and showing confidence in you and having high expectations. Having confidence is a performance-related thing. High expectations are outcome related. Of course, you know which is best.
The same thing applies to you. If you think about what people expect of you, what they will say about you, what their expectations are, you decrease your chances of winning. If you focus on your performance and forget about whether you may lose and the consequences of that, you increase your chances of winning.
POSITIVE TALK
Turn everything you can into a positive. For example, just saying you love racing in the rain over and over again will make you a better driver in the rain. If you take every situation that other drivers consider a problem or unpleasant (rain, boring track, uncompetitive car, too much traffic, and so on) and turn them into positive challenges, you will perform better. Turn them into “watch this” situations, chances to tackle a challenge head on and show what you can really do. It’s simply a matter of turning negative thoughts and questions into positive talk.
A study showed that the average person has approximately 66,000 thoughts every day, with 70 to 80 percent of those being negative. I doubt that this study included any champion race drivers! From my observations, great race drivers seem to be able to turn almost everything into a positive. I would suggest that at least 70 to 80 percent of their thoughts are positive (although some people might joke that race drivers are not capable of 66, all of them about driving, let alone 66,000 thoughts per day!).
The more times you repeat a phrase, the more it will become a part of your belief system. If you tell yourself over and over again that you are a great qualifier, eventually you will truly believe you are a great qualifier, and your chances of being just that are greater. It really is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Early in my career I spent a lot of time racing in the rain. Hey, it’s part of life in the Northwest! As I began racing against other drivers who hadn’t had as much experience in the rain, I realized I had a slight advantage. But more important, the more I told myself I had an advantage in the rain, the more I really did. Of course, that resulted in some great performances in the rain, and therefore I enjoyed it even more. I still love to tell other drivers how much I love racing in the rain, and it still results in an advantage. I do the same with everything that other drivers look at as problems. I love to make a point of letting other drivers know how much I enjoy and look forward to things they don’t like. And when I am driving a car that is obviously uncompetitive, I look at that as an opportunity to really show off, to do more than anyone expected of me.
INTENSITY
Every time you get behind the wheel of a race car, you must perform at the same intensity level you want during a race. There is no point practicing in a casual, “I don’t really care how I do this session; this session is not very important” attitude and then expect to perform any differently in qualifying or the race. Remember, practice is programming. If you program driving with low intensity, that’s how you’ll perform in the heat of the battle.
Particularly in some of the “stepping-stone” series, such as Formula 2000, Formula Mazda, Indy Lights, Midgets, and the NASCAR regional tours, the competition is intense, fierce, in fact. One technique I recommend to raise your intensity level is this: Every time you leave the pit lane, whether on a private test day, practice session, or qualifying, drive like you mean business. Accelerate hard out of the pits and get up to speed as quickly as possible. Push as hard as possible right away. Be intense (but not tense!).
If you slowly roll down pit lane and then gradually build up to speed, you may lose valuable time. Plus, and more important, it may take too long for you to mentally get up to speed, to dial up your intensity level. Quickly accelerating out of pit lane, being the first car out, driving as hard as possible right away, sets a tone for you and sends a message to your competition: you’re here to do business. It is a trigger for your mental intensity.
Being intense often requires energizing yourself. Not being energized or intense is not a problem for many people in a sport like racing, but still, it is not uncommon for drivers to be too calm, relaxed, or even fatigued. If that is you prior to practice, qualifying, or a race, you need a program for energizing. See yourself alive and energized. Then use some physical warm-up exercises (cross-crawls), clench your fists, flex your muscles, yell or scream, use powerful words when talking to people, get your heart rate pumping, take some deep rapid breaths, or listen to some loud rock music.
The same thing applies to your level of being “psyched.” Some drivers need to psych themselves up, while others must psych or calm themselves down. You need to determine what level of “psyching” results in your best performance. Each driver has his or her own optimum level of being psyched, the optimum level of emotions, tension, anxiety, nervousness, and energy. The key is to be aware of it at all times, and when it results in a superior or peak performance, to use that to program it so that you can recall it over and over again.
ASSERTIVENESS VERSUS AGGRESSIVENESS
Traditional wisdom says that in any sport you must aggressively dominate your competition. Observe the great athletes: Roger Federer, Michael Schumacher, Michael Jordan, Alex Rodriguez. They are not aggressive; they are assertive (well, most of the time). It may seem to be a subtle difference in language, so subtle that many people use the word “aggressive” when they really mean “assertive” and vice versa; but there is a significant difference between being aggressive and being assertive.
The dictionary defines assertion as “a behavior that emphasizes self-confidence and persistent determination to express oneself in a positive way.” Aggressive, meanwhile “implies a bold, energetic pursuit of one’s ends, connoting, in a derogatory usage, a ruthless desire to dominate, and in a favorable sense, enterprise, initiative, etc.; and rarely suggests the furthering of one’s own ends.”
Aggressive behavior is usually the result of a driver trying to hide something, a weakness. Your competitors will recognize that and most likely take advantage of it.
An aggressive start is wild, not controlled, and often results in disaster. Being assertive means placing your car where you belong. It always appears in control, because it is.
SPEED SECRET
Be assertive, not aggressive.
Did you ever see Michael Schumacher or Michael Jordan look out of control? Perhaps Schumacher was out of control when trying to hold Jacques Villeneuve behind him at the last race of the 1997 Formula One season with the world championship on the line. Was that an assertive move? Or was it a desperate, aggressive move? I’d say he resorted to aggressiveness. Even the best can make mistakes. (In case you missed it, Schumacher bounced off the track while trying to defend an assertive passing attack from Villeneuve, who went on to clinch the world championship.)
I’m sure you have heard the saying, “Nice guys finish last.” Some people relate being “nice” to not being assertive, but that’s not the case. You can be nice and still be assertive. But I doubt you can be unassertive an
d finish first. Perhaps the saying should be, “Unassertive guys finish last.”
RISK AND FEAR
No doubt about it, racing is a risky endeavor. If you really want to succeed, you will have to take risks, not only on the racetrack but with career decisions as well.
Whether it is on the track or off, taking a calculated, planned risk and failing is better than not risking at all. Of course, the goal is not to fail. The point is, you had better plan to deal with the risks. As the saying goes, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”
Of course, calculating and planning risk is the key. It would be foolish to risk taking a corner at 80 miles per hour that you normally take at 70, just as it would to accept an offer to race for the Williams Formula One team in the next Grand Prix having just graduated from your first racing school. In either case, it is best to work your way up in calculated increments.
If anyone ever tells you they never have any fear in a race car, they are either lying or are driving nowhere near the limit. There’s not a successful driver in the world who doesn’t scare himself or herself every now and then. Fear, or at least self-preservation, is the only thing that stops you from crashing every corner. If it’s the kind of fear that makes you panic and “freeze up,” then that’s not good. But if it’s the kind that makes the adrenaline flow, your senses sharpen, and makes you realize if you go another tenth of a mile per hour faster you’ll crash, then that’s good.
Really, it’s more of a sense of self-preservation. Usually, you are going much too fast to be scared at the moment. However, there are times when I realized after a corner just how close I was to crashing, and there’s a little fear there, knowing I came oh-so-close to losing it. That probably means I was at or a little beyond the limit.