Keys to success: visualize your goal, see it, feel it and it will happen
What do you know, it happened! It wasn’t automatic as in the first stint, I did go off and just barely touched a wall (for real, I promise!) so I reset the session. Turns 2 and 3 were absolutely killing me.
That is not exactly what consistency looks like. 🙁
That second session though ended up being 19 laps of clean laps, several with one wheel dropping, usually on the exit of 5 and even saving some super sideways action but, the great thing is that I didn’t make any contact and I felt like these were laps that would have been deemed clean in the real world.
Next best thing: A new personal best – 1:20.110!
So what happened? I’m not exactly sure but the way I am thinking about it is that by trying to establish a new normal, the things that happen at mid and high 1:20 lap times weren’t as startling and thus, I had the mental capacity to see opportunities for gains. Here are a couple:
Turn 1: Towards the end of the stint, I knew I was going to run low on fuel which would end the session but the last 4 – 5 laps, I found significant amounts of time entering turn 1 with just the lightest of brake application, getting the car turned to the apex and getting back on throttle. At it’s best, this was giving me a .3xx second advantage over my personal best.
Turn 10a and 10b – the chicane: I also found, though not able to consistently do this, just the right amount of braking needed to not over-slow and still hit the rumble strips on the apex of 10a and the right timing of lifting and turning to get to the rumble strips (often referred to as FIA curbing) for 10b. This would allow me to be on throttle right before or on the apex and full throttle the rest of the way.
In the end, those last few laps I had several predicted lap times in the 1:19.xxx range but just couldn’t put it together.
Now we’re talking! Well, except for the still getting sideways into turn 2!
I’m incredibly happy about this because again, I want my virtual racing driving to translate well into my real world driving. So if I can’t put down more than 10 laps without crashing, that doesn’t bode well for the real world. The next few days I will be at Pacific Raceways, in Kent, WA – just outside of Seattle. With a Test and Tune on Friday, practice, qualifying and a 1 hour endurance race on Saturday and final qualifying and the main race for the PRO3 championship on Sunday.
The weather looks awesome and looking forward to seeing how the training so far translates to the real world.
Loading up Thursday night for a weekend of racing at Pacific Raceways!
So yesterday, I made some massive improvements but after taking a break to calm down and try to establish a ‘new normal’ of high 1:20.xxx and low 1:21.xxx lap times, I failed miserably. I wasn’t able to keep the car balanced through a couple key corners, as I found more speed. So my goal today was to not care about going faster but just be able to easily produce lap times in that range.
The first stint, I just loaded up the car and went on my way and in the third lap, was able to hit a 1:21.040 and then a 1:21.077 and then a 1:20.877… SWEET! I’m doing this! I forget exactly what threw me off but I got a little sideways and touched a wall so I decided to get out, take a deep breath, visualize and go at it again. When I exited, I checked the data quickly on Virtual Racing School and I realized I hadn’t loaded the same setup as the rabbit I’m chasing, which is a good amount different AND I was running on 30 gallons of fuel to start.
Lap times for the first stint – not bad!
I loaded the right setup and went off… no, literally. I went off on the out-laps. Twice and had to restart. It didn’t bother me much at the time or at least I didn’t let it get to me but I really don’t like doing that. The goal is to simulate the real world conditions as much as possible and if this were the real world, there’d be a lot of repairs to do and I’d be drowning in debt to pay for them.
Final stint – let’s put get a good run in!
With my hour winding down, I went for one last stint. Breath, look ahead, visualize balance and go for it! I strapped in and on lap 1: 1:20.310 – new personal best!
Stay calm, remember – the goal is not to go faster but rather be able to knock out 1:20.xxx lap times like it’s nothing.
Lap 1: 1:20.310
Lap 2: 1:20.964 – dirty lap but barely
Lap 3: 1:20.680 – another dirty lap but barely again
Lap 4: 1:20.170 – dang it! Barely dropped a tire somewhere but would be fine in the real world.
Lap 5: Crash… hard.
That will not buff out.
I had to call it quits here because the hour was up and my wife and son were running around asking me to be a dad, of which I love! 🙂
Lesson learned: I know what it feels like to do these lap times, just need to hard-code them into my mind and body
We’re starting to get into some pretty decent and competitive lap times and at the traction limit more and more. This is near the territory of what separates the Pro’s versus the Joe’s who play a Pro on the weekends. I need to realize that it will take time and backing off a little to be more consistent. Yes, I improved my personal best but it doesn’t mean as much if I can’t consistently get near that or drive more than 5 laps without crashing. That’s not even good enough for a 20 minute sprint race.
The goal remains the same for tomorrow, don’t worry about going faster, just be able to drive consistently and stay out of the walls.
One thing that I noticed over the first few days, even on Day 3, when clicked off a session of nearly 20 laps in a row, was that I wasn’t sweating as much as I usually do when I drive in real-life. One reason might be that usually before I get into a real race car, I get all suited up and then do light plyometric exercises, stretches and even a planned jog to and from the bathroom. 9 times out 10, before I get into the race car, I already have a healthy sweat going.
Right now we live in an apartment, with people above and below us. I am doing my simulator driving between 5:30 and 6am, of which most people are still sleeping, so I haven’t been doing my warm up exercises but what I started were two things:
Meditating: This is something I’ve taken up over the past 8-10 months, using an app called Headspace. This is for a different post but I can’t be a bigger proponent of meditation and how it’s improved my overall quality of life.
Wearing a racing suit: I got a new racing suit last year and that meant I had my original racing suit just lying around, so I decided to bring it back into service by wearing a full layer of clothes underneath (to mimic the fire retardant underwear I wear in real life), the suite itself, a pair of karting gloves I got for Christmas and ideally, my original racing shoes (of which I keep forgetting to get out of my RV).
Did it work? Yes, I think but definitely did not hurt.
I think so on a couple levels, first – I was definitely warmer and built up an actual sweat. Not like the sweats I’ve built up in actual iRacing races but enough to know my body is working to stay cool. I can’t say that I felt more or less in the zone but it sure as heck didn’t hurt.
I also decided to strap on the Next Level Racing 4-point harness that came with cockpit and while I don’t love it, the other day I was moving my car on our new property with no seat belt on, and that felt weird. So I can definitely tell when I don’t have a harness on and by putting it on, that is one less variable that might crawl into my brain as I’m driving.
This year the harnesses in my BMW PRO3 car expired, and a new set of Schroth harnesses were installed, so there is a used set that I will eventually install on the rig, along with some metal mounting bars and plates so that it feels the same as in the car and I actually have an old Sparco seat, that I used before getting this cockpit. I am not a huge guy, so it feels like I am not as secure as I am in my racing seat.
Two steps forward: Another .5 second drop!
So how did the actual driving go? My goal was to keep doing the same things I learned in Day 3 and be able to hammer out regular 1:21.xxx lap times, versus the regular 1:22.xxx times I had on Day 2.
Success! Literally, on the first flying lap, I was able to get back near my personal best and then I improved it again, dropping to a 1:20.628, another almost .6 second improvement. HOLY CRAP!!
Another big improvement and only the last lap was a ‘dirty’ lap, where I crashed. 🙁
I didn’t do anything really different, I just decided to apply that technique of braking sooner, lighter and rolling more speed into the corners to all the corners. Here’s where the gains were made:
See the highlighted areas to understand the story.
Look – no brakes! The first thing is that the s-curves, I found a way to get the car pointed on the downhill section of ‘The Esses’. Huge gain there.
Less brake, the line? I am actually not sure what happened in the chicane there but I think it might be a combination of just ever so slightly less brakes, more steering input to get the car turned and going. Thoughts?
One step backward: Consistency at the limit
That’s awesome but I took a break after that stint from the excitement, recollected my thoughts and went again to try and just replicate this new 1:20.xxx lap times but it didn’t happen. I was making mistakes all over the place and the worst section was Turn 3. As I was carrying more speed out of turn 1, through 2, I wasn’t getting the car straightened before braking and that caused it to either get sideways at the top of the hill or even worse, to cut the corner too hard on turn 3, which would upset the car horribly.
Ugh… 6 of 7 laps were dirty and a crash. That’s not good or cheap. Glad I’m in the virtual world.
I tried multiple times and just felt myself getting frustrated, so I decided to call it a day as my hour was up. Tomorrow’s goal? Come in with a cool head, focused and not looking for more time, just a solid run of high 1:20.xxx and low 1:21.xxx lap times.
The corner that leads to the longest straight away. Why? Because any speed lost coming out of that corner, is magnified by the length and amount of time you spend accelerating or at top speed.
The scariest corner or section of the track. Why? It’s scary. 🙂 If it is scary, than there is a higher probability that most sane people will want to check up and give themselves some room and time to correct for mistakes (and not crash). If you can be less scared or ignore your bodies natural urges to be physically safe and/or alive, you can have an edge! Easy, right?
Sector 6 is not particularly scary and has plenty of run-off AND we’re in the virtual world, so there is less of a fear for life. This is a plain, #1 scenario – it is a long straight away, so don’t screw it up or you’ll pay.
A track map of Road Atlanta, in Braselton, GA
The approach I took
Most of my preparations for this change were mental as I didn’t drive much on Sunday. In fact, we lost track of time in the AM and missed church. 🙁 So I just realized that in my braking for Turn 6, according to the Virtual Racing School data trace, I was using near 100% of the braking force, when I actually needed to brake more like 50% and trail the braking in longer and a similar situation on Turn 7.
Look at the differences in the brake pressure used. I am the red dotted line. Good-ness!
So I visualized applying the brake more gently, and holding it longer, anticipating the rear end to come around and being able to get on the throttle. I visualized the same for Turn 7 and long behold – literally, on the very first flying lap, made it work! ON THE VERY FIRST LAP! Unfortunately it was a dirty lap because I dropped a tire elsewhere. iRacing is pretty strict in terms of clean versus dirty laps. Even dropping one tire can have a lap not count or worse, count against you in a race. I’m glad that officials in real world racing aren’t as strict.
A little too excited. Change the setup and carry on.
I’ll admit – I got a little excited and screwed some laps because of how I excited I was at the progress and then realized I hadn’t even changed the setup on the car to the same setup from the reference lap on VRS. So I took a break to collect myself and load the setup. In doing this, I realized I didn’t know how to do this. I was able to easily download the setup file (.sto) but I had no idea how to load it.
After taking a few breaths to chill out, I got back out on track and proceeded to hammer out a string of 1:21.xxx laps and one point even having a 1:20.8xx lap going. I screwed it up by over-slowing for the chicane but I felt like ‘I got it’ and there’s still room for improvement. My new fastest lap time is 1:21.382, almost one whole second faster than the day prior.
New fastest lap time! 1:21.382 and room to grow!
Tomorrow – more of the same.
My goal tomorrow and possibly the next day is to be able to make this new way of driving the norm. I am going to try to do 30 minutes or more of 1:21.xxx lap times. If I can be within .5 seconds of that fastest lap time, consistently – I will feel confident that I’ve adopted these learnings and then can transition to another segment of the track. I love data (and video)!
Alright, so after getting all the updates installed, it was time to drive for the first time on this 30 day challenge.
Three, two…. [FREEZE] …one, go!
Well, it didn’t get off to a great start. Almost immediately as I loaded up the Mercedes AMG GT3 and Road Atlanta, I noticed that it took a long time for the server to connect and the actual sim environment to load. Alright, no worries – it’s early for me too, maybe the internet needs some coffee.
Once I got into the car and started heading out, within the first 30 seconds of a lap, I got a freeze/stuttering experience but the car would come back and I could keep going. Ok, that sucks but let’s stay focused and keep going.
But then it happened again, and again, and again. Time for evasive actions.
Step 1: Check video quality settings
I remember at one point last month, a big Windows update wiped out my settings and driver stuff for the NVIDIA graphics card and in my attempt to fix stuff, I made a bunch of changes in the iRacing graphics settings. So I reset them all to somewhat default settings, while still allowing for three monitors.
Went back to racing and… still had issues. No perceived change. Frustration level: 4
Step 2: Check background processes and other things that could be using up the internet connection
I shut down iRacing and checked out what other processes were happening that might be using internet bandwidth:
OneDrive – it was syncing 9GB of stuff, of which I should just not sync anything on this computer since I only use it for iRacing. Sigh.
Other browser windows – there were a couple other browser windows, like Virtual Racing School, so I closed those down.
Steam console – it was connected and I tried to close it but it kept popping back up. 🙁
Result? A somewhat perceivable difference so I decided to keep going and just get as much seat time in as I had already burned through 40 minutes of my hour.
Result: Limited quality track time
This was really frustrating. I got about 6 or 7 clean laps and most were ruined by the stuttering. My son was awake and I decided to figure it out later and at least see if my data was being logged by the Virtual Racing School system and while the lap times sucked, at least that worked.
Aha! Found the culprit!
Just as I was about to get out of the sim rig, I decided to search on the web for other people who have had this issue. Pages were loading slowly but loading and then suddenly, everything stopped loading. WTF? Did my internet go down? Checked networked status and no, packets are still being sent and received. I was about to get up to reset the router and modem when I looked over and saw my phone that I had used to record the part 1 of this day 1 video blog and it was uploading the HD video to YouTube.
I paused the upload, turned off the WiFi on the phone and looked at the PC. Suddenly, the pages were loading again. Then literally a few seconds later, I see a pop up from Windows that it was getting ready to install the Windows 10 Creators Update. Great. So two big upload and downloads were essentially eating up the internet connection.
Lesson learned? Make sure your internet connection is clear and prioritized for your iRacing. Having someone else uploading something, streaming a movie, having a Skype video chat, will not do you any favors.
I’ve seen several articles on taking on a new thing by doing that thing for 30 days in a row, such as running a marathon (30 marathons in 30 days), stretching 10 minutes a day for thirty days, meditating, doing 15 burpees per day for thirty days and so on.
Why?
Usually it’s help start a new habit, kick a habit or accelerate development in something. No difference here, I’m doing this to get faster and have fun!
The goal: 1 hour of racing per day, everyday, for 30 days.
While I wish I could race a real, physical race car each day, I don’t have that kind of scratch or logistics setup but I do have a pretty sweet sim racing setup and iRacing.
So everyday, usually in the early AM’s, I’m going to practice and/or race on iRacing. Through the next 30 days, I’ll also have at least 2 full race weekends where I’ll be racing in the real world. So for those days, I won’t be on the simulator but instead on a race track, in my race car! Yeah!
What do I expect to happen?
I’m not exactly sure but I am at least hoping to get noticeably faster in the virtual world, hammer out details on my sim setup and be better at learning to get fast.
To stay focused and reduce variables, I am going to focus on just one car and one track. The Mercedes AMG GT3 and Road Atlanta. Why? Having a rabbit to chase. I’m a huge believer and advocate in the power of data + video.
Literally thousands of virtual laps of this track but have yet to actually drive it.
Here is a good review of the car, right before it was released by the crew at Inside Sim Racing.
There is a new service that recently launched, Virtual Racing School, and while I’m new to it also, I am in love with the premise and potential of what they are doing. With a simple download and activation, VRS logs all of your iRacing data and video and saves it to your profile. No downloading, uploading or anything to deal with. Just install, activate, drive and you’re all set.
As part of the service, they also have data packs for certain cars and track combinations and even setups, that you can automatically use as a reference point to work towards. This is massive! Having someone else who is much faster than you, in the same car, same track and similar conditions is one of the best ways to learn and learn fast.
Getting ready
So I decided to start the journey, one day ahead and get my day 1 as smooth as possible. I booted up my computer, installed updates to Windows, iRacing and NVIDIA. My goal was to be able to simply wake up the next morning, do my morning routine and be up and running, in a race car within 15 minutes of getting out of bed.
I’ll create a post later on with the details on my current sim setup, so you all can get the full details then but at a high level, here is the setup:
Custom built PC – my first.
About a decent level up from minimum specs to be able to handle Oculus virtual reality.
Intel i5 processor (can’t remember the exact model)
Logitech 5.1 surround system but I can only get 2.1 to work. 🙁
3 AOC 24″ Monitors – got them on Best Buy on sale. They’re pretty good but the back sucks for mounting them to a triple monitor stand. More on that in a separate post.
So, while I technically have a motion simulator and I have an Oculus and have used them for iRacing, I will most likely not use them very often over these 30 days. Main reason: we live in a tiny apartment and I’ll be doing most of my daily racing in the early AM, while my wife and 2 year are asleep, 15 and 40 feet away, respectively. The motion simulator isn’t super loud but it makes noise and my wife has complained about it before.
The Oculus is AWESOME but I sweat easily and have found that when I’ve worn it for 20 minutes plus of intense driving, I sweat pretty bad and the lenses start fogging up. So I’ll be using the triple monitors and headphones, without motion.
What: Motorsports is exactly that, a sport that revolves around motors. It is a sport, thus health and fitness is important. Road racing works your heart (and lungs) like if you were running a marathon. A healthy heart is critical!
If I knew then, what I know now: Have a healthy mix of aerobic, anaerobic and strength training to your work out program. Too much of anything is not good. I’ll cover this in a separate post.
Bodyglide Anti-Chafe Balm – nipple chafing and bleeding is real and no joke. Depending on the shirt I am wearing, if I am running more than 4 miles, it’s required.
Foundational truths
Before we dive into what should be done, let’s all get on the same page about what happens when you’re driving and especially when you’re competing.
Your heart is important: This is not a question or an opinion. It is important for you to not only live but to handle stressful situations. While most of us enjoy putting a car, motorcycle, kart or boat through it’s paces, the fact that your heart rate goes up, means that it is a stressful situation, where your body and heart (and lungs) specifically, work harder.
Oh yeah, the lungs: The lungs are the things that bring oxygen into the bloodstream, of which then the heart pumps all that good, nutrient and oxygen rich goodness all over the body. Then the various body parts use that goodness to power themselves, such as the brain, eyes, muscles, literally everything in your body.
Maximum Heart Rate (MHR)
Per above, as we get older, this goes down. See below and find your age.
Find your age and see what the estimated ranges are for you.
I am currently 33 (less than a month from 34) and what this says is that my maximum heart rate is around 185 Beats Per Minute (bpm). If I were to get my heart going above that OR near that level for too long, I’d probably end up in a hospital unless I explicitly trained my heart for those situations.
It’s been documented in several articles, studies and my own personal data collection (below) that for a racing car driver, the heart rate can range from 120 – 160bpm, throughout a race.
Below is an example from a race, in August this past summer as I was wearing an Apple Watch and collected heart rate data (note – I did not start a workout session and thus why it didn’t collect data every 1 second). Note that you can see when I started doing warm up exercises before getting into the car and my heart rate picking up as we got into the thick of the race. If I remember correctly, the race started ~4:35pm and was a 1-hour race.
Heart Rate data from my Apple Watch during a 1-hour endurance race.
Update: When I was originally writing this post, I looked everywhere for this screenshot below. This was taken using a Fitbit Surge, during a day of three races and near 100 degree heat. That is some serious heat, sweat and elevated heart rate. Racing is no joke!
Heart rate logs from one day of intense racing in nearly 100F.
Now, here is a screenshot from a 4+ mile run I did recently as well at a ~9:00 minute mile pace. Not super fast but not a slouch by most measures.
August 2017 ~6 mile run using Endomondo and a Polar Heart Rate monitor
What does this tell us? Driving at even 7/10’s in a track day or racing session for ~20 minutes is the equivalent, cardiovascularly, as going for a relatively intense run. So you are sitting in a hot race car, covered head to toe with fire-resistant material and your heart and lungs are working like if you were running a half-marathon.
Ok, healthy heart and lungs are important, but why again?
Like everything else on this site, it’s about helping you be a better driver. A driver who makes good decisions, usually, ends up being a faster and more consistent driver than someone who doesn’t make good decisions. Several things can lead to someone making bad decisions behind the wheel (on-track that is):
Being nervous or confused (which usually elevates the heart rate)
Being scared (which usually elevates the heart rate)
Being angry aka the red mist! (also elevates the heart rate)
Being tired (I won’t repeat again)
It gets more difficult to make good decisions, quickly, when you are tired, sweaty and out of breath. So the goal here is to condition your heart and lungs in a way, that you’re comfortable being in the stamina & endurance zones, and can make good decisions.
I personally felt like my overall athletic and aerobic endurance was and is a competitive advantage in most races, as I felt just as fresh at the start of a race, as I did at the beginning. Start strong and finish just as strong! This was even more pronounced on the 1 hour or longer races and especially when it was over 90 degrees Fahrenheit.
What should you do?
Disclaimer: We are not doctors, nor play them on TV. Consider consulting your doctor before taking on a new exercise program.
We will cover other types of exercise for different benefits in future posts but for here, we will focus on cardio health. The goal is to do exercises, that have you for the most part, in the stamina & endurance zones. It’s ok to peak every once in a while into the conditioning zone or drop momentarily into the weigh loss zone.
Most of my driving sessions are 20 or 30 minutes and sometimes 60 minutes long. So I target conditioning myself to be able to easily handle 30 minutes by exercising for 45-60 minutes and having regular (about every other week) 60-75 minute workout sessions, usually 6+ mile runs. This is grounded in a theory from playing football and Taekwondo. Practice should be harder than the actual competition (most of the time) so that at least from a conditioning standpoint, the competition will be a relative breeze or you at least have plenty of reserves to go harder.
Here are some top exercises and plans to consider:
Running: It’s pretty much free. I found it the best to sign up for a race that forces you to build up to a goal, set a schedule and stick to it. Better yet, do a race with a friend or two, so you have support and accountability for when you’re too lazy to run in the rain.
Highly suggest downloading an app like Endomondo, Nike Run Club or MyRunKeeper. They all have some kind of functionality where you can state your goal (like run a 10k), the pace you want to have and when your race will be held. They come up with a personalized training program to build up your performance, you just run! Sometimes these are in premium memberships but you can easily find training plans online and just track them manually.
Here is the training plan I am using to run a half-marathon in September.
I’ve also used running on days while I am at the track to do track walks, after the track has gone cold for the day.
Cycling: One downside to running is the repetitive joint impact throughout the body, especially toes, ankles, knees, hips and back. Cycling is a great alternative to running for cardiovascular performance. I personally bought a used Bianchi road bike and over the past few years have used it off and on as an alternative to running.
Same plan though – whatever time you were planning to run, get on a bike in the gym or on a trail and cycle up a storm.
Swimming: Admittedly, I am the least experienced here as I rarely get in a pool but I know it is great for aerobic exercise, working the body overall, core development and joint relief. If you have access to a pool, get on it!
Conclusion
Cardiovascular health and performance are not just important to live but they can give you a significant performance edge in driving. There is a reason you see several top professional drivers all over the world, also spend significant amounts of time doing the exercises above and in examples like Jenson Button, competing in Iron Man and Triathlon competitions.
Consider regular cardiovascular exercise to be part of keeping yourself healthier and it has a big potential upside to your driving.
