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Gary Boss Says...
I’ve been asked to write a few things and offer a few tips from what I’ve learned with my experiences in club racing. My comments on driving and racecar prep are my opinions, not law, they can be argued, rejected or accepted, but they worked for me.
The PCA has a wide range of drivers, those who are very good at competition driving and all the way down to those who simply enjoy driving DE events. Those who are happy only driving DE events are probably more well adjusted than the competition racing guys and that’s good, but these articles will focus mainly on those who thrive on competition driving. We will touch on drivers, the car and the line. In subsequent articles we will get into more detail on the car and the line.
The Driver.
There are many fast drivers but fast drivers don’t necessarily make successful racecar drivers. The fast driver only has to focus on lap times during a DE event with free corners and he only has to be focused for 3 or 4 laps to achieve his goal. The good racecar driver must focus his vision on the whole picture rather than just a good line. This includes constant peripheral vision and acute awareness during every second of the entire 30 to 90 minute race. This mental focus of instant optimum decisions and extreme concentration requires top physical fitness. Even though you may not feel tired because of adrenaline, your body is fatigued and you cannot be mentally acute while physically tired. I’ve raced against talented drivers who were not in shape and after about 20 minutes, if they were in front of me, I could see the slight errors beginning to unfold. It didn’t take more than a lap or two before I could take unfair advantage. Excellent reflexes and hand-eye coordination are important, but the successful racecar driver anticipates rather than reacts to what the car is going to do and makes the car do what he wants it to do. How do you get to this point?… Lots of seat time in a well set-up car is a good start.
The Car.
Car set-up is critically important. Average drivers in a well set-up car can win, good drivers in a poorly set-up car will lose. A car well set-up is predictable and will give you the confidence to push it to the limit and of course the limit is significantly higher than the average car. The following story illustrates the point: I had a good friend and excellent driver who asked me if he could follow me through turn one at IRP to get “my line” down. The front straight at IRP is part of a drag strip and there are cones at the end of the road course straight to direct you into turn one. Well, we went out on the track and warmed up the tires on a couple of laps. I then went into turn one flat out, looked in my mirror at track out and saw cones flying all over with my friend sailing though them. I asked him after the session why he didn’t follow me and he said “there was no way in hell I was going to make that turn at that speed.” Did I out drive him? No, my car was set-up significantly better than his. I drove his car at the next event for a couple of laps and came in. I told him, “I can’t drive this car, it scares me to death.” Well, we made a few set-up changes and he took seconds of his lap times.
The Line.
The driver’s school line is a good, safe and fun line, but it’s not the fast line and we will be talking more about this later on. However, I want to be clear that when a person is learning to drive the track, the driver’s school line is one of the most important things you can learn. It is safe and allows you to get the feel of the car and understand the dynamics of braking and cornering. In fact, I would recommend a full year of seat time on this type of driving before progressing into anything else.