GUTS-Get Up To Speed, FAST!

Be proactive and purposeful in getting your tires, your mind and your butt gyro up to speed quickly. It can make a BIG difference!

For the last twenty years, my motto has been that “the driver is the greatest performance variable.”

While environmental conditions may not be under your control and while it’s always possible to improve the car, huge variations exist between drivers in how quickly they get up to speed.

Steven Johnson, one of the most intense and successful drivers in the incredibly close and competitive class of prototype racing car that I race, was the first to tell me that this ability to come up to speed fast is part of the best execution of fundamental skills.

Johnson said to be successful, practice how you race, concentrate on “driving every corner, every lap, the best you can and as fast as the car will go.”

Now, he didn’t mean doing this irresponsibly, certainly not beyond the point where a driver’s reach might not equal their grasp!

He meant that most drivers drive well under the “limit,” until they go over it. Mostly, they work up to THEIR limit VERY slowly, relying on what they perceive is the available grip they feel in the FIRST corner of the out lap, FOR THE REST OF THE LAP OR MORE.

Learning to calibrate your butt to a rapidly CHANGING level of grip in as short a time and distance as possible pays dividends.

The stickier the tire, the more the delta (difference) between the cold and operating temp performance, often the difference between success (or not) in competitive classes of racing.

This is why Ross Bentley’s Sensory Input Sessions, where a driver deliberately and incrementally pushes the level of grip to the point where the car “pushes back” is so important.

To manage risk in adopting Johnson’s approach, this has to happen AFTER a driver develops the experience to SENSE not only the available grip, but how that level of grip CHANGES as the tires warm to optimal temperature and reach optimal pressures.

Typically, most drivers will find that one end of the car takes longer to “grip up” than the other. As long as the driver knows which end and what rate the balance improves to get to a stable and confidence inspiring platform, they can really develop a huge advantage over others, especially in a competitive environment.

This progressive increase in grip can be linear or more likely exponential but can almost always be done in ONE lap on soft, purpose-built racing tires and slicks. Accomplished and successful time-trial, hill climb or autocross drivers develop this sense and try their best to exploit it. They do this because they have to.

Track day and HPDE drivers should develop this sensory perception to more fully utilize grip as it increases, sooner in the session or lap, because it makes the entire platform more stable and secure. This in turn allows the driver to gain more confidence, which translates into commitment, enhancing performance.

In competitive club-level racing, eventual performance of different drivers (once the tires come up to optimal temperatures and pressures) may be very close, but few invest the time and energy to master this critical, fundamental skill.

If Driver A’s first green-flag lap is two, three or four seconds slower than Driver B in the same spec/class car, it doesn’t matter that Driver A may eventually edge Driver B’s fastest lap by tenths or even seconds. Driver A has ALREADY handicapped themselves by two, three or four seconds relative to Driver B. This deficit in time and most importantly, car position, is very hard to recover from. Especially in a competitive class of racing.

There’s a big difference in commitment and performance between
”pros",” those for whom the sport is a vocation, and “ams” or those for whom this sport is an avocation. Nowhere is this more evident in how quickly they get up to speed, needing few laps to extract the maximum performance from themselves and their car.

Due to high levels of seat time and variety of cars most “pros” drive, these drivers will intentionally drive SLIGHTLY over the edge, especially at corner entry, slowing down time and approaching that edge over enough time to be able to sense and recover from big errors, without going off the track or crashing.

Most avocational drivers have NOT divided increments of speed into small enough pieces to be able to approach the limit in a measured way and with enough margin to correct a big error. As a result, they approach the edge of adhesion TOO FAST to respond incrementally and appropriately. The resulting incident can damage driver confidence and can take a long time to recover from.

Track day and HPDE drivers generally drive UNDER the limit, until they drive OVER it. To manage risk, drivers naturally have to fight the tendency to blindly “send it.” To improve, they need to be targeted and focused on small gains, gaining experience to be in a “conversation with the car” such that they know what the car will do BEFORE it does it! But then, they need to push the car until it pushes back, as soon as they can.

Build a plan to get going as quickly as you can, as soon as you can. That plan should be evident the moment the driver exits pit lane. As an observer, I can see it and most importantly, hear it.

By doing so, the benefits are twofold. First, a massive increase in grip in short order and second, generating an immeasurable level of driver confidence to be able to COMMIT with throttle, steering and brakes, KNOWING the grip would increase throughout.

The most successful drivers master the skill to carefully and in a calculated way, “bull their way” through the DYNAMIC lack of grip AS they leave the pits in qualifying, time-trials, the first green flag lap or restart of a race, until the tires grip up and reach optimal pressures and temperatures.

I say dynamic because that’s what it is, a rapidly changing and variable level of grip that is capable of changing from corner to corner, lap to lap. For the BEST drivers, it’s the ability to both proactively KNOW the car will not be stuck to the track but ALSO to DRIVE the car with enough controlled aggression to accelerate the warm-up phase and GET to the optimal temps as soon as possible.

The need to drive the car HARD enough to generate the heat needed to “switch on” the grip is counterintuitive, especially when the car is sliding around a lot more than it does later in the session. This is the paradox and a great challenge for many recreational drivers, but one that is very satisfying when done right.

This is your task, as a driver, to develop. See you next time!