Speed Craft is my attempt to identify, understand, document, and share the lessons, skills, and techniques I’ve used to navigate the learning spiral, which took me from being a novice driver to competing with, and often beating, many championship winning drivers.
Before I go any farther, I want to say that I am not a neurologist, or a sports psychologist, or an engineer. Also, I DO NOT CLAIM TO BE AN AUTHORITY ON, OR EXPERT IN, ANY OF THESE DISCIPLINES. I claim to be an expert on only one thing; MY driving.
I also do not claim to be an expert in vehicle dynamics. Speed Craft is about learning to drive, it’s not about vehicle dynamics. In fact, the things I describe relating to tires & vehicle dynamics are not necessarily “right” from a Carroll Smith or Milikin & Milikin perspective. However, my objective is not to be right. Instead, I’m trying to convey how certain things “feel”, what portions of those feelings are important, and how those feelings can be interpreted to improve driving performance. I believe having an idea (even an imperfect idea) about how something you’re trying to learn feels can be very useful for both learning new things, and for breaking through performance plateaus.
I developed most of the Speed Craft core concepts in the early to mid 1980s after lack of funding brought an end to my brief racing “career.” and along with it, my hopes of becoming a professional driver.
At Laguna Seca in 1981, and again in 1983, during the finals of the Jim Russell/British School of Motor Racing North American Formula Ford festival, I had some very unusual ‘altered state’ (or dual consciousness) experiences that provided a glimpse into how my brain was functioning when driving.
After I could no longer afford to race, I became curious about why I was able to learn so quickly, and what the experiences I’d had at Laguna Seca meant, so I started doing some introspection to see if I could figure it out.
By combining the insights I’d had with a retrospective examination of my learning process, from driving school in 1978 through the 1983 racing seasons, I was able to do two things:
- Come up with a theory of what capabilities and systems the brain must have, and how I was using them when racing.
(I knew nothing about the brain at that point, other than I allegedly had one.)
. - Distill my experience into the 5 essential skills that I use when driving, which I call the Spiral to Speed:
- Reduce the Sensation of Speed
- Increase sensitivity to energy flow, loads, traction, and forces
- Getting the tires on a plane (flying on the tires)
- Controlling the polar rotation (where, and how fast, the car rotates in a turn)
- Driving a trajectory on a line
Even distilled to its essence, trying to coherently convey all of the interrelated, interdependent, and interconnected elements is an amazingly complex task (at least for my tiny brain), which is why Speed Craft has been 30 years in the making. Over those 30 years, I have continually reexamined my brain theories (with more current brain research) and the five essential skills, and I believe they are still valid.
I have tried to bring some order to the chaos that is Speed Craft by separating the information these major sections:
- Introduction
.
- Learning
Descriptions of knowledge types, learning stages, and learning strategies for racers
. - My Big Lessons (my spiral to speed)
How I learned to be fast
. - Enlightening experiences
Descriptions of the unusual ‘altered state’ experiences I had at Laguna Seca
. - A racer’s brain
Descriptions of brain functions and systems as they apply to racers
. - The spiral to speed
Descriptions of the five essential skills
. - Techniques
Descriptions of the training and driving techniques I use
. - Application
Real world descriptions of how I apply the information in Speed Craft
Speed Craft will cover a lot of topics, so I hope you’ll find it helpful whether you are trying to:
- Bridge the gap that separates novice and expert drivers
- Get past a plateau on the learning spiral
- Accelerate you pace up the learning spiral
- Understand how you do what comes naturally, if you are already an expert driver, which might help you take your driving to the next level
Failing all that, I hope it inspires you to think about motor racing in different ways and to explore it at deeper levels.
The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson