On Wed, 7 Nov 2001 10:22:29 +0100, "Jan Verschueren"
Jan,
Well, theres a couple of thing going on at the same time in order for
me really to feel I am driving at 100%. They are 2 aspects but It's
only sensible to talk about them as one as they are to a defree,
mutually exclusive.
Generally when I'm testing I have a number of things on my mind,
maybe I'm playing with a braking point or trying a slightly different
gearing. Mostly it's about the approach to the the corner as a whole.
This is almost always to do with the throttle states throughout the
corner, when to trail it, balance it or boot it.
Anyway, concentration wise thats pretty much 100% and, more
often than not (but not always), testing is aimed at going quicker
so I'm pushing the car to 100% as I currently see 100% to be.
But it's a sort of methodical concentration, I'm doing what I refer
to as "joining the dots".
Because I'm pushing the car to 100% AND thinking in this
fashion I am more likely to crash. Sometimes it's because I've
moved my brake marker to far, or the particular technique I've
tried hasn't worked but I beleive it's as much to do with my
"join the dots" mentality as these factors.
Now, I (and everyone) has to do this type of testing in
order to learn a new track, improve ones laptimes, improve
consistency but it's not an approach I like to have to race
with.
OK, so testing is 100%, now onto racing.
By the time I come to race I no longer want to feel the need to
join the dots, in a way I hope to engage some sort of mental
auto-pilot to get me aorund the track in good speed.
I feel I NEED to do this for 2 reasons.
1) I need some processing power for race situations, passing,
definding, just the stuff that goes through you mind in a race.
2) If I can get my co-pilot (which is the sub-concsious) to do the
driving for me I know it can re-act much quicker than my
conscious mind to any driving related error, so fast that reaction
blurs into anticipation.
However, I don't have a switch to switch between sub-conscious
and conscious, the only things I can to make that switch is to
keep my conscious mind so busy with other things (easy on
lap 1/in a chase etc.) and just try and avoid going through my
join the dots scripts.
I of course have to pay attention to braking points etc., the
subconcsious isn't that good, but it's more of a glance than the
fixed stare you often get into whilst testing.
It's virtually impossible to do this for a whole race but I know
I have more accidenrts when in join the dots mode (unless
that is also couple with a toning down of pace).
My fault that I refer to is I often try and maintain the same
pace whilst lapsing into join the dots or just not having my
sub-conscious on song.
To me driving in any way safe is not really possible without
getting into a position where I'm joining the dots, or more
specifically, my conscious mind is dealing with the mechanics
of driving.
So, in answer to your question then yes, I do always try
and avoid safe driving :) but "safe" being a mental state
rather than an actual measure of the likelyhood of crashing.
Funny you should ask this, I have just realised why I hate
Spa and am very poor at racing there. It's impossible for
me to get in that state there unless I'm on someones tail.
When the next requirement to do anything is over 30secs
away and you can see your next braking point looking up
for 10-15 secs or so there is no way to busy yourself enough
to let the sub-conscious deal with it.
Yes, put like that, absolutely, but I can appreciate it's difficult
to let go.
AI races are good for this if you get them at about your
speed and have plenty of em. I often race 19 AI which
are usually a bit slower than me (I'll use GEM or Markenpol
to arrange this). The idea is I should be able to pass most
of them in a few laps so I'm always doing something.
This should be much easier to arrrange once the new GPLAIM
program is released at the end of this week.
Hope I've answered your question, if not or you have more
questions, fire away.
Maxx
