We’ve probably spent months, maybe even years, fine tuning the handling of our cars. We have probably spent even more time learning how to extract the most out of a car that is balanced perfectly for our driving styles. Having confidence and predictability in our vehicle’s handling is vital to extracting the most out of it in the heat of competition. But the fact is, no matter what kind of racing we are involved in, sometimes the car just isn’t going to behave as well as we want it to. For road racers, the most common causes of this include tire degradation, changing fuel loads,Read More →

Photo by Perry Bennett - http://autoxpix.com/

The unbending truth is that a race has exactly one winner. Every other competitor loses, and depending on their expectations, each of them has to deal with varying degrees of the emotions that come with losing. A single loss can be hard enough to deal with, let alone a string of losses that shake our very ability to perform. No matter what the sport, every competitor hates losing, and for good reason! Besides the blow to the ego, losing actually hurts; not in an abstract way, but in a very real manner! It makes your stomach churn, changes your blood pressure, constricts thousands of muscles,Read More →

This is the final part in a 3-part series… Part 1: Identifying and fixing execution errors Part 2: Identifying and fixing errors in our game plan Part 3: What to look for when analyzing video In the previous 2 parts of this series, we learned how to get better at identifying execution errors as they happen, and how to identify errors in our game plan during a run. The techniques we went over gave us the tools needed to perform our best and fix our mistakes while we are on track. But in order to instill deeper habits that translate to improved performance over time,Read More →

This is the second part in a 3-part series… Part 1: Identifying and fixing execution errors Part 2: Identifying and fixing errors in our game plan Part 3: What to look for when analyzing video Last time, we talked about how to use visualization to identify execution errors as they happen. Of course, doing so assumes that our visualized game plan is correct to begin with. But what if our visualized game plan itself is wrong? Before we can identify errors with our game plan, we need to consider how we go about coming up with our visualized game plan. While we’ve established that creating detailed visualizations isRead More →

This is the first in a 3-part series of posts… Part 1: Identifying and fixing execution errors Part 2: Identifying and fixing errors in our game plan Part 3: What to look for when analyzing video Have you ever known a driver to come back after an autocross run or track lap, say something like “I left 4 tenths out there”, and on their next run they end up going 4 tenths faster? How did they know that?? How were they able to accurately figure out how much time they left out there, and then go find it? There is nothing mysterious about this, and overRead More →

When it comes to driving techniques, approaches, or styles, there are a number of choices that drivers are presented with. And we spend enormous amounts of time debating, both internally and with others, which of those choices is better. We obsess over left foot braking vs. right foot braking, shuffle steering vs. not moving your hands, trail braking vs. braking in a straight line, setting up a car to be loose vs. pushy, cutting distance vs. using more space, and the list goes on. We will explore all of those choices (some of which are real and impactful, and some of which are false) in futureRead More →

Yes, this website is about driving faster, but let’s kick things off with a little introspection. Humans are pleasure seeking creatures, and our natural desire is to seek happiness. Pleasure refers to anything that can give us satisfaction and gratification; it can be good or bad. The directive is to gratify our immediate needs and wants and to avoid pain. And because we are generally focused on our immediate needs and wants, our natural tendency is to focus on the “now” rather than the “later”. So it is extremely difficult for us to put in the work now (i.e. experience displeasure or pain) for future happiness. We makeRead More →

This all began, as most things do, with failure. A few years ago, I was frustrated with my lack of success at national level autocross. Sure, I was doing reasonably well, winning a Pro Solo event here and there and placing high up in the trophies at the national championships. But I felt like my progress was slowing, and there seemed to be a performance glass ceiling I was struggling to break through. Admitting that we are not performing as well as we would like is hard for a lot of us. It certainly was hard for me. It is a vulnerable feeling, and atRead More →