Quote:
Originally Posted by seningen
What were some of the techniques that made the difference? Mike
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1. Building confidence in me and in the car - at several parts of the track, I was no where near the limits of the car (even though I thought/felt that I was). Call me a wimp if you like, but overcoming that fear or hestitation and trusting the car (and my driving skills) to handle even higher speeds proved to be a significant step forward that I would not have easily made without someone skilled coaching me.
For example, I had alwasy tapped the brakes on entry to the Turn 2 fast sweeper to set the front tires and ease turn in. Well, the car has much more capability there than I was exploiting. What I was really doing was scrubbing off speed to where I was comfortable (about 83-84 mph) and then accelerating through the corner at full throttle.
By the end of the day with coaching, I was entering the corner without touching the brakes at 93mph and holding it at full throttle all the way. This increased my entry, middle, and corner exit speeds accordingly.
2. Corner line and exit speed - we worked on different lines through the corner with the goal of increasing exit corner speed. On several turns, I was able to get +5-7mph. This was especially important on exiting the corners onto the back and front straights and directly increased my max speed down the long straights.
3. Unwind the steering - we worked on unwinding the steering as soon and as quickly as possible. In some cases, turning more quickly and getting the steering back to straight as soon as possible resulted in faster exit speed than doing a more leisurely turn and rolling back to straight (which just scrubbed speed).
4. Relaxing in the car and looking further up the track - both are simple and obvious but I wasn't doing either of them. We experimented with seating position and found that moving the seat closer to the steering wheel allowed my arms to relax which relaxed my shoulders and entire upper body. Also, rather than looking straight out the front, we worked on looking further up the track which smoothed out my immediate driving and better placed the car position for transitioning to the next section.