Thoughts from my notes over the 2024 season.
I'm still not smooth enough with some turns. Need to watch for multiple input changes during sweeping turns. Good place to try a cue word like smooth (breathe, eyes up, increase gas, smooth turn input).
I've plateaued a lot and need to force myself to get some help from other drivers.
Overdriving; going too hard pushes me off the line and a few times into a spin out.
AM sessions are almost always faster than PM sessions. So, what we need to dig into is how to optimize for the entire day.
By May, I was in better overall physical condition; food was working, pacing my output during the day was helping. I just wasn't going fast enough; not attacking, just driving.
By September, slalom study and practice was paying off. I was able to accelerate in the last two cones into the next element. I was able to get through boxes by treating them as slaloms. Being early and staying tighter is working. 180's are still a problem; they need better precision on the entry and braking to get a setup for the correct exit. I actually had adrenaline shakes after a couple of runs.
Had a number of days where my data collection tools didn't quite work. I found that with the narrow tracks, we need to be careful about setting the start/finish points and making sure they are sized down and accurately pointed to trigger the software.
By October, I upgraded some gear so I could watch my hands and see if I was making silly mistakes. Mostly they look good but one example of this was taking my foot off the gas about 20' from the finish; data worked that time. duh
I got some coaching from Connie that day; my best lap was 2 seconds faster with her and I hit 2 cones.
One of my most consistent issues is simply not attacking and getting to more throttle at every possible point in a course.
Tire pressure for the RT660's works well at 32. Wear looks pretty consistent.
Self-coaching. When I talk aloud to myself, I have had better runs. I need to start looking at how to improve my self-coaching. Trigger words may be one option we'll learn through surf coaching.
Last event. I've been working on improving slalom by watching a couple of videos and doing some exercises to get myself closer to the cones and reducing my times. In these videos, I've attached a GoPro to each side of the car to make sure my "rights" are getting in close and that the angle of the car is not parallel to the cone but rather in an arc to the next cone.
Towards the end of the season, my standard deviation went way up. I'd been very consistent in the first few events of the season (.210, .298) by the last two events (.983, .875). So, that needs more thought. I was hitting 1 cone per event in the first few events, had a couple of events with no cones and one event with 4 cones.
At the end of the season, I'm thinking about the relative importance of this hobby vs. surfing and how I can continue to be increasing proficiency with only 1 event per month and 8-10 1 minute runs per event. That's maybe 10 minutes per month. The only way to get more seat time is to do more events or find other practice (sim racing, studying video, books) methods
In order to get better, we have to eliminate poor habits and use spoken trigger words to get psyched up.
Drivers view
Passenger view
Side by side comparison