The Karting Question That Drivers Hate Me For

The question that forces drivers to think about the mistakes they forgot

Racing drivers have to be unreasonably optimistic. Absurd optimism is a powerful trait to have if you want to exist in the racing world. If any of us are wise enough to apply rationality and logic to our existence in racing, even in the zenith of racing which is karting, then we are done for.

Logic and rationality will not suffer such profligate waste and glorious celebration of what it means to be mad.

So, with racing drivers I will happily defend their hyper-optimism and rejection of as much negativity as possible. Of course I realise that most of our creed are really very grumpy and barely show signs of life away from the track, but that’s a different issue, (just in case you say the drivers you know are NOT optimistic at all - that’s just a symptom of being in the normal world)

I hope so far I have made a case for you being a very optimistic and positivity oriented individual (despite what people might think from your day-to-day demeanor).

Small driving mistakes get deleted by our optimism, blocking perfect laps!

The optimism is great - well essential really

But don’t let it rule the roost when you need a critical eye on yourself and your execution of cornering!

The anatomy of a regular driving mistake.

A typical session on track where you lose a few tenths just getting things a bit wrong.

1. Mistakes start with the need to be fast, to push harder into a corner out of the blue. A natural instinct of the racing driver of course!

2. Then you find you can’t quite make the apex.

3. Your exit speed is compromised because you wait to get on the power.

4. Frustration kicks in with a big FFS. The slow exit feels like hell and generates a healthy self-loathing and annoyance.

5. The desire to repair the lost time immediately can be enough to over-drive the next corner (mistake hangover). So that’s two bad corners

Next lap. Same corner

Aware of the previous mess you decide to take it easy - keep it tidy. Do it slower- No problem. But slower is well... Slow!

Next lap. I’ll push harder

I’m going wide again... FFS!!

After the session - Pace is ok

This is where a very natural, and unnoticed bit of optimism kills the opportunity to make definite and rapid progress.

After the session the times look kind of ok considering, just a couple of tenths off the leader.

Somebody asks ‘How’s the kart?’

Driver: ‘It could do with a bit more front actually’

Conversation ensues about how to change the kart.

In that short time the mental file labeled «missed apexes in that session» has been filed under ‘stuff that happens’ - rather than ‘stuff that needs fixing NOW’

This is the positive thinking and optimistic racing driver avoiding and burying the difficulties in the session, and looking at the kart instead. Here’s the killer thought:

We’ll make some kart changes and everything will be spot on.

That’s pure optimism and illogical. Things won’t just fix themselves, the changes to the kart will amount to nothing and the cycle will just repeat.

You won’t find the couple of tenths you need to win, you will just think that’s the pace of the kart - things are kind of ok.

During the actual driving you are aware and noticing problems. But you can’t think clearly, you are driving at the limit and fully occupied!

But after the drive, nobody wants to self-analyse. We want to chill and talk about the kart.

So you are either self-critical during the actual driving when you can’t process it, or you are burying it after the driving when you are perfectly positioned to fix it!

Kart driving perfection can’t be achieved - I call BS on that!

And why I am often unwelcome at the track

When I see a driver is stuck in this loop, which only really becomes worth confronting once they are close to the front, I ask very unwelcome questions:

“Are you getting turn 1 perfect?”

That goes down like a bag of sick usually, they know I’m asking them to recall a corner and don’t want to!

The standard deflection is a well learned cliche that is plastered all over performance literature:

No corner is ever perfect - we chase perfection but never reach it, it is always the goal but blah blah

Whatever mate.

The answer should either be

1. Actually pretty damn close or…

2. No, not at all - I don’t actually know what I am doing there.

Those answers are acceptable because answer (1) means we can move on to corner 2 and answer 2 means we can say right, let’s get to work on it.

Now, as a full hypocrite I will say you really don’t want to be doing this with a ‘coach’.

It can foster dependence on them watching and asking that question for you so you don’t really develop fully - or you get really tired of having your driving questioned all the time and you just want to knock their block off! I fall into the latter category, making my life a bit complex!

So here’s what you really should do.

FORCE yourself to dig out your buried memories of the session you just drove

Time to get rational…

After a session ask yourself: Am I getting corner X perfect?

It’s a good question because it’s confrontational. You know you’ve hidden something about what went on out there. This will dig it out.

The word ‘perfect’ stops you fobbing off the question and giving yourself margins.

“Are you getting turn x perfect or not?!?!”

For the corner where the answer is no, the full answer is I haven’t got a clue!

That’s probably what no driver wants to own up to: “I do not know”

Now you have to define what is perfect for that corner

The only way to assess how perfect a corner went is to compare it with your own definition of perfect.

And if you don’t know where to start, make a bloody good guess at the following:

1. Where you want to apex

2. What exit point to hit

3. From those, what the braking priorities are

Create a picture of what makes that corner work, decide how you want to hit a bunch of references and hit that plan PERFECTLY when you drive. Since you created the plan, we can guarantee it is possible.

You already have a good idea stored of what should work, but you haven’t actually thought about it properly. Now you are getting to grips with making the corner work when you have time to actually think

So instead of trying to get a corner perfect without any standard at all, instead get the corner perfect according to what points you say you are going to hit.

If that is ‘wrong’ then hit it wrong, but perfect by your own strict definition at least 10 laps in a row.

Now you are getting somewhere, because you can now say what seems wrong about the way you are hitting the corner perfectly!

So change the plan, then execute that perfectly.

You will home in on eliminating all the messing about that you forgot you were doing.

This is how I help drivers push themselves from quick… to wins. If you can do it yourself then you don’t have to hire me, then fall out with me!

Thanks for reading

Terence