Senna's Track Notes
An alive approach to hyper-focussed attention Senna style
One of the great temptations in karting is to just get in and drive. I’d say it is the most fun way to drive, delightful I’d call it.
Drivers usually sack me at that point of the conversation!!
But the point stands nonetheless. Do you want to wing it, or do you want to push yourself to new limits?
You don’t prepare, you just get in and light it up. You get magic moments of catching slides that come from nowhere and you get to experience your natural driving talents taking over as you dance your way around the track.
Because that is so lovely an experience, pure enjoyment…
…who wants to sour that with ‘schoolifying’ the whole thing!
By ‘schoolifying’ I mean turning joy into a system, a chore.
Data, track notes, controlling where you look exactly, planning starts etc. Miserable.
Well, the answer to that question is:
WINNERS do, winners go into details.
They ruined it for everyone!! If you want to operate at your limit, you can’t just wing it.
Now I do hear descent from the ranks ‘I know such and such a driver and I never saw them do any of that notes stuff, or data crap - and they win!’.
I have a rebuttal. That means your driver x should find tougher opponents, they need to stretch themselves. Eventually they will find their ‘winging it’ limit, where they need to up their game. I reckon they are leaving performance on the table, which might be a good way to enjoy racing! But they can move up a level by stepping out of their current comfort level.
BUT who cares about those natural freaks.
We are here to push your limits. So, what can work for you? Does pushing the limits necessarily turn everything into a systematic, sucking the life out of racing kind of discipline.
I think not. I think we can keep the magic and add a bit of professionalism - and go faster.
Impetus and detail vs winging it and dead-flow
I have written a ton on track notes. Different ways to squeeze the life out of every corner so that you can make yourself cheat-level fast. They tend to work on logical progression, where you keep refining over and over.
Fine, but really deep down I don’t think it is the logic of the process that works the magic.
I believe it is having something specific, ready in your mind, for each corner that makes all the difference because it drives your focus through the roof. With increased focus everything gets better. It almost doesn’t matter what the focus is so long as it makes some good sense.
What you need is detail PLUS impetus for every corner. It flashes up in your mind of how you do the corner and how you want to nail it a bit better.
That means you are primed, clear and focussed on every corner, every lap.
Dead-Flow. A flow-state driving dead end.
The opposite state to ‘detail plus impetus’ driving is what most of like to drive in. A pressure free, enjoyable ‘just driving’ kind of immersion flow feeling.
I’m calling that dead-flow. Flow state is something sports psychologists hype, and I do too, as the holy grail of performance. I think we all have been there.
But I don’t believe ‘flow’ is always peak performance. I think it is often a quite mediocre performance where happiness and freedom in driving feels great. The vast majority of drivers are satisfied if performance is good enough, at a ‘that will do level’ (for most drivers a couple of tenths off, top 10 but could be top 5 if we had a tow kind of thing). You probably recognise that sentiment, right? You were happy driving, kind of flowing - the result is good so happy days.
That’s where most drivers are happy to stay - I say F**k that!
I’m calling it dead-flow because it isn’t it isn't maximising performance, but settling for 'good enough'. It’s a dead end.
I want you to risk losing that happiness because you want to push for more…
So, a standard confrontation I will have with a driver happy with p4 in qualifying goes like this:
Me: Do you think Senna was a proper driver?
Driver: Well, I pray to him every night!
Me: Do you think he would be happy with p4 in qualifying and put his feet up, saying that will do?
I’m a bit cruel to be honest - but obviously Senna, a freak genius driving god, didn’t just rely on the fact he was fast AF. He wanted to go to the limit and meet God again in his hyper-flow-state, and he certainly invested his time in creating track notes that worked for him in order to get there.
Drivers usually sack me at that point of the conversation!!
But the point stands nonetheless. Do you want to wing it, or do you want to push yourself to new limits?
