AC Schnitzer
Well-Known Member
After 8 years, I'm finally calling it a day and will be ending my Motorsport Chapter in Perth and beginning a new one in Singapore as I relocate back for work.
In the last couple of years I have been competing predominantly in Tarmac Rallies, Hill Climbs, a few Time Attacks, Circuit Racings, Sprints.
I'd like to think of myself as the typical weekend track warrior gone horribly wrong over the years. The photos shall explain for themselves later on.
Motorsport has always been a bitter sweet affair for me. As with the stages of life from infant to teenage to adult, I moved from Anger to Frustration to Perseverance. At the end of the day, I got to know myself a little better and keep pushing my limitations a step at a time.
This was what my car looks like 6 years ago.
Today
Not much has changed externally. Apart from mandatory event sponsor stickers, battery kill switch location stickers, wider profile tyres and front lip, all else remains stock. No fancy GT wings or Carbon Fibre Canards unless I have free access to wind tunnel to test load
I don't recall a Circuit I could call home like Sepang or PG is to people who reside in Singapore. The stages of Tarmac Rallies are scattered mostly South of Western Australia, Often more than 250km from Perth City.
These Stages requires us to spend 3 days at location. Depart on Friday Evenings for a 3 hours drive. Not particularly an enjoyable road trip considering the springs are F12kg R10kg with the less than desirable Australia Road conditions. With speed limits at 110kph (3000rpm), the drone in the cabin isn't forgiving. Ear Plugs are necessary.
Upon arrival, if my back isn't already broken by the Bucket seats with little padding, we would swap from Street to to R comps. Cordless impact wrench is particularly helpful but at $1000aud for a decent one, I decided that this might be a good opportunity work out my under utilised muscles.
Bromance takes places very frequently inbetween stages. This is because it is cheaper for the 3 of us to stay in the 1 motel room to reduce cost. This is Collie Ridge, commonly coined by us as BrokeBack Ridge, a mining town located about 230km South of Perth.
E30 M3 converted to RHD. Owned by a fellow competitor who happened to stay in the same motel. Probably the nicest and most down to earth guy. Unfortunately this car was written off early last year at Busselton. We decided to chip in, spread our baggage evenly amongst 3 cars, give him and his buddies a lift home as we were about 2 hours drive from the City
Unloading rear right on tight hairpins with dips. Photo doesn't seem to show the severity of the dip.
My usual routine involves memorising every corner, gradient, off camber sections, dips, etc.
Thereafter analysing the finer details such as which corners I can or cannot cut. If I can cut, is there a dip in those corners ? if so whats the est. depth in mm and which section of the corner they are located.
Generally you may try to find various sections that gives you the most grip but being a Tarmac Rally, the grip changes all the time from people going off or cutting corners which then throws sand, stones, branches etc.
Identifying your escape zones is crucial. Every year, without fail at the Busselton stage, there will be at least 10-15 crashes. Of those about 2-4 are complete write offs. One of which rolled his GC8, trailer and Landcruiser while on the way home to avoid a Kangaroo. Driver was ok.
On stages that are higher risk where going off means rolling downhill 100ft below till a tree stops you, driving at 8/10 is probably as much as I would push.
Identifying your escape zones allow you to manage your risk and push harder than other sections and depending on layout, sometimes that could translate into few tenth a second in laptimes.
Skid marks at 0:28 belongs to a driver who experienced a tank slapper, spin 360 downhill then stopped by a tree driver side first. Other than a sore knee, he is fine and still competes today
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwxhgRPVSHE[/ame]
Unbelievable as it may seem, there were times I had great difficulties in grabbing the gearknob preparing for downshift. At that speed, your elbows flexes up and down and keeping the steering wheel pointing straight with minor corrections become a struggle, there are Zero G sensations and your neck would've been a few inches shorter if not for the harness strapping you into the seat. At any given time if a tyre went airborne, when it comes in contact with the tarmac, the car twitches ever so slightly to readjust differential in wheel rotational speed relative to ground speed.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxSIOZ5qOlk]Collie Hill Climb‏ - YouTube[/ame]
Saturday is mainly Recce and Practice. Ideally it is a good time to absorb as much track information as you can than analysing them. Getting Co-Driver to write the pacenotes and discuss further when and at what speed and volume you want him to speak.
A typical Preliminary Pacenotes. Lots of Cancellations and re-writes
Pacenotes are generally provided but does not contain information pertaining to Corners severity, range estimates, etc so I plot my own.
The Pacenotes reflect on this run. We finished 4th due to a car crashing ahead of us.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPZ0fZhP0dQ[/ame]
Base on the above video, not actual. Cars are released at 30 seconds interval. In Tarmac Rallies there are no Re-runs for the drivers who crash or the drivers behind who are affected by that crash. Tough love, but thats Tarmac Rally for you.
From where the wreckage was, the passenger side was directly in line with my braking zone. An error on my part might bankrupt the Co-driver's medical insurer. I made the decision to slow down, made sure they are alright, pass them, continue. That decision cost us about 10 seconds. If there was room for a larger margin for error, I'll push on. At the time, where the wreckage was, based on my judgement the margin for error was very small. I decided that both the driver and myself going home in 1 piece is more important than chasing after 10 secs. Looking back, I don't regret it. As much as I would like to win, this isn't WRC or F1.
While It is easy for one to sit comfortably in a couch and judge, when you are strapped in, adrenalin pumping competing in a 3.91km course full of concrete barriers, dirt, water, changing surface conditions, 0.2mm of rain, blasting out of a blind corner and faced with the above scenario, there is not a whole lot of time you can think about. Decisions are made in split seconds. Right decision gets you rewarded, wrong ones get you punished. Its that simple.
Would the 10 secs have made a difference in our standings ? Yes.
Would we have won ? No. Enough for a 2nd but still miles away from 1st.
When it became apparent that the risk at some of stages were substantially higher where 240kph on surface bumpy enough to airborne the tyres, Sporadic Zero Gs felt. I decided to put in the a full Roll Cage.
Being a bolt in rollcage with the intention of reverting the car back to a road registered car, it by no means do much in a highspeed front cabin intrusion but more so for rollover protection. The rollover protection is much needed when using a 4/6 point harness where unlike factory seat belts, if you're able to slide your body sideways assuming you survive the initial impact when the roof collapse. With shoulder harnesses, it prevents your body from moving side ways and when the roof collapses, your neck shortens a few inches. Some protection is better than none. My next track car if I could even afford one would have a full weld in FIA rollcage.
CAMS approved first aid kit to put your skull together if you survive the crash.
Mandatory 2kilo Fire extinguisher which does sweet f all. Live or Die vs Weight Penalty. You decide
In a Series, there are certain Circuit Racing involved.
This one is at Collie Raceway.
Time Attack at Barbagallo Raceway. Into turn 1 after the straights can be tough on brakes. 1 cooling lap is often insufficient.
The Time Attack series takes place at night. Mostly commencing at 1900hrs. Chances are that in Winter, if you haven't already done a clean lap around 2000hrs depending on weather condtions, you wouldn't be able to get a better laptime because track temp falls from approx 20deg to 12deg by 2000hrs. Planning your best runs and grouping with cars of similar pace will help eliminate traffic and get you clean runs.
2nd Outright. 1st outright goes to a 9 MR.
Just when the stars are aligned in your favour, the welds on your titanium catback decides to enough is enough.
From a Drivers perspective.
I'm not sure if everybody walks the same path I did during their infant motorsport days. I had my dark moments where I would blame everything but myself. There were days when I was angry at competitors not competing in a Category they belong to and taking the win.
When all is said and done, I must say, I've reached a point where all that anger and hatred translate into a simple question, "Why am I slower than others ?"
So you buy a mirror, place it on the table and stare at it all day and ask yourself that same question repeatedly until something magical happens.
We all have mirrors and we look at it everyday. However looking at "it" vs looking at yourself is entirely a different matter. Looking at the mirror without looking at yourself is otherwise a time-wasting exercise if you aren't ready to open up and be receptive and critical of your mistakes.
I did that and realised braking is more than just braking. In the beginning it was slaming the Stop Pedal as hard as you can. Now its about how much you brake, what rate you brake when you brake, what rate you ease the pedal and when. This goes hand in hand with throttle.
Then there are both traction and speed sensing and really paying attention to all your body senses and translating feedback from the steering wheel into information where you determine how traction is available and gauge if you can squeeze that 2-3kph more in corner speed.
I can't stress this enough but time you spend on anger and hatred is time not spent on recognising those mistakes, finding a solution to those mistakes and develop a positive learning curve towards ridding those mistakes. Generally mistakes that I am unable rid soon becomes a habit which is comparable with falling down a well. It is hard to get back up.
Here are some Facts that I've come to realised in my Experience. Perhaps some may disagree with me.
A proper mindset is very important to begin with.
Starting off with what do I wish to Achieve:
If you intend to track the car for the thrill of it. Okay.
If you intend to do more, what do you wish to achieve ? Be a better driver or Compete in F1 or Compete in the upper echelon of entry level motorsport ? Set some Goals and Objectives and make sure you accomplish them. Some people set and forget like most coffee machines. And I ask, Whats the point ?
How committed are you to learning?
Are you genuine about wanting to learn ? Willing to sell off a Kidney to raise money for motorsport or do what it takes to be quicker.
For people who goes to the track for the thrill of it or socialise, Okay.
For people who are genuine about learning, its more than just go for a few hot laps, come into the pits, get out of the car and go, hee hee haa haa about who did what, who went where and go to the bar with your mates.
Memorising what you intend to do on your next heat is important. This means at any given time, when asked what you're going to do in your next heat, you're able to tell us Corners A,B,C this and that mistake, here's what I'm going to do to improve and actually going out there to sort out those mistakes.
Assuming the level of attention in value terms at any given time is 100%. If there are 10 corners, the level of attention you are able to assign to each corner is 10%. Unless you inherit some form of super memory, you're not going to resolve all your mistakes in one go. Concentrate on 2 corners and breaking your level of attention into 50% to each corner can sometimes be a good thing. This not only helps with memory retention but also helps alleviate possibilities of making the same errors at a later stage.
Example.
1st Heat: Turns 1, 2, 3, 4 Mistakes Identified
2nd Heat: Turns 1 & 2 Mistakes eliminated, continue to focus on Turns 3 & 4
3rd Heat: Turns 3 & 4 Mistakes eliminated, Turns 1 & 2 same mistakes occur.
Positive learning curve is important for a driver to move on. There are days where my learning curve flatlines all day. Generally I try to take a break and think of other things. I try not to drive any further because some of these mistakes can translate into habits and habits are hard to get out of. Every driver is different, find out what works for you.
Exercise & Food Intake
Have an exercise regime. If this is a weekend track affair, Its Okay.
If you want to achieve more, you need to be physically fit. Fatigue greatly affects your ability to drive well. Struggling to finish a stint just isn't fun. Your mind succumbs to fatigue and you spend less time focusing on driving and more time on conserving strength. This is indicative when I did a 3 hour endurance go kart race where laptimes fall consistently across the board.
Its good to have an overall exercise regime that focuses on the whole body. Paying more attention to neck and back muscles can be a good thing as lateral Gs can place quite a bit of strain.
Some people dislike eating before a race for fear of vomitting. Regardless what reasons there may be, it is important to plan your meals well. Generally consuming food about 2 hours before a race is a rough guide if your race falls during meal times, Eg. 0800, 1200, 1800hrs.
Generally I drink lots of water about 2hrs before the race. Inbetween races I get some sugar in my system. This may be in form of a chocolate bars or some biscuits with high carbohydrate and rehydrate with sips of water very regularly inbetween. Just remember, you need energy to drive.
Lastly, Don't be afraid to step out of your Comfort Zones.
There are people who drive lap after lap getting consistent times within tenth of a second of each laps which is great. But do not be afraid to try new methods or lines and look for that thousandth of a second.
Lap 24 & 38 are driver changes. Apart from a few traffic, otherwise it was a clean run. I was quite happy with my 59s and didn't want to push further. We qualfied 2nd, led the first lap in 1st position only to spin at the Chicane. Regulations dictate a driver change is mandatory in any spins. This put us in last at 8th. Hence we wanted to play it safe and be consistent since it was at the very beginning part of the race.
Near the finish, it was my turn to take the kart to the chequered flag. We were sitting comfortably in 3rd even though we started from last place. There was a particular hairpin which had a massive pool of water at the apex extending about 2.5m into the centre of the track.
I was fighting tooth and nail for grip in that Section and the China Spec tyres they put on these things did not help. Even on the damp section, you go from grip to disney on ice in under 1 second.
I tried to take the outside line, the grip felt higher the kart was more willing to trace the line and I was able to get on the gas earlier with lesser slip angle than before.
At the time, I did not know I broke the Team's PB as we did not have fancy military spec communication equipments. With traffic out of the way, this translated into Personal Best for myself and the team which I only found out at the end of the race.
Had I stepped out of my comfort zone and be adventurous, I may be able to achieve more consistent times in 58s. Bearing in mind the PB was set at around 2130hrs. Temperatures were below 10 deg that night. Had this taken place earlier in the race where temperates were warmer, there should be another hundredth of a second in there somewhere.
Would it have made any difference in our standings that night ? No.
But with any kind of competition particularly endurance races, anything can happen and you'll just have to keep pushing and finish the race.
In the end lessons were learnt. If you don't step out of your comfort zone and cross boundaries, you won't know what you can achieve.
I think this is as far as I'll write for now.
Overall, I learnt some lessons the hard way. There were angers and frustrations but thats life. Its important to learn to let go and continue to persevere. I was glad to have put those chapters behind me and move on. Motorsport is so much more enjoyable that way.
Looking back, I was glad I didn't hold back when others questioned what I did.
I'm not sure if I would be able to do this all again in Singapore as car ownership is expensive.
Perhaps I'll compete in Gokart which is more affordable or buy a cheap race car in Malaysia and compete in S1K, MSS or Saturday Night Fever races.
I would like to achieve more if I could and would certainly like to contribute to the local motorsport community. We'll see how it goes at the end of August.
I hope this write up will help anyone who is keen in entering motorsport but plague with doubts.
Feel free to share your humble beginnings in Motorsport.
PS* These are just my own personal experience during my early days in motorsports. My thoughts and lessons learnt are from my own perspective and may not even be right, so please do not treat it as gospels.
In the last couple of years I have been competing predominantly in Tarmac Rallies, Hill Climbs, a few Time Attacks, Circuit Racings, Sprints.
I'd like to think of myself as the typical weekend track warrior gone horribly wrong over the years. The photos shall explain for themselves later on.
Motorsport has always been a bitter sweet affair for me. As with the stages of life from infant to teenage to adult, I moved from Anger to Frustration to Perseverance. At the end of the day, I got to know myself a little better and keep pushing my limitations a step at a time.
This was what my car looks like 6 years ago.
Today
Not much has changed externally. Apart from mandatory event sponsor stickers, battery kill switch location stickers, wider profile tyres and front lip, all else remains stock. No fancy GT wings or Carbon Fibre Canards unless I have free access to wind tunnel to test load
I don't recall a Circuit I could call home like Sepang or PG is to people who reside in Singapore. The stages of Tarmac Rallies are scattered mostly South of Western Australia, Often more than 250km from Perth City.
These Stages requires us to spend 3 days at location. Depart on Friday Evenings for a 3 hours drive. Not particularly an enjoyable road trip considering the springs are F12kg R10kg with the less than desirable Australia Road conditions. With speed limits at 110kph (3000rpm), the drone in the cabin isn't forgiving. Ear Plugs are necessary.
Upon arrival, if my back isn't already broken by the Bucket seats with little padding, we would swap from Street to to R comps. Cordless impact wrench is particularly helpful but at $1000aud for a decent one, I decided that this might be a good opportunity work out my under utilised muscles.
Bromance takes places very frequently inbetween stages. This is because it is cheaper for the 3 of us to stay in the 1 motel room to reduce cost. This is Collie Ridge, commonly coined by us as BrokeBack Ridge, a mining town located about 230km South of Perth.
E30 M3 converted to RHD. Owned by a fellow competitor who happened to stay in the same motel. Probably the nicest and most down to earth guy. Unfortunately this car was written off early last year at Busselton. We decided to chip in, spread our baggage evenly amongst 3 cars, give him and his buddies a lift home as we were about 2 hours drive from the City
Unloading rear right on tight hairpins with dips. Photo doesn't seem to show the severity of the dip.
My usual routine involves memorising every corner, gradient, off camber sections, dips, etc.
Thereafter analysing the finer details such as which corners I can or cannot cut. If I can cut, is there a dip in those corners ? if so whats the est. depth in mm and which section of the corner they are located.
Generally you may try to find various sections that gives you the most grip but being a Tarmac Rally, the grip changes all the time from people going off or cutting corners which then throws sand, stones, branches etc.
Identifying your escape zones is crucial. Every year, without fail at the Busselton stage, there will be at least 10-15 crashes. Of those about 2-4 are complete write offs. One of which rolled his GC8, trailer and Landcruiser while on the way home to avoid a Kangaroo. Driver was ok.
On stages that are higher risk where going off means rolling downhill 100ft below till a tree stops you, driving at 8/10 is probably as much as I would push.
Identifying your escape zones allow you to manage your risk and push harder than other sections and depending on layout, sometimes that could translate into few tenth a second in laptimes.
Skid marks at 0:28 belongs to a driver who experienced a tank slapper, spin 360 downhill then stopped by a tree driver side first. Other than a sore knee, he is fine and still competes today
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwxhgRPVSHE[/ame]
Unbelievable as it may seem, there were times I had great difficulties in grabbing the gearknob preparing for downshift. At that speed, your elbows flexes up and down and keeping the steering wheel pointing straight with minor corrections become a struggle, there are Zero G sensations and your neck would've been a few inches shorter if not for the harness strapping you into the seat. At any given time if a tyre went airborne, when it comes in contact with the tarmac, the car twitches ever so slightly to readjust differential in wheel rotational speed relative to ground speed.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxSIOZ5qOlk]Collie Hill Climb‏ - YouTube[/ame]
Saturday is mainly Recce and Practice. Ideally it is a good time to absorb as much track information as you can than analysing them. Getting Co-Driver to write the pacenotes and discuss further when and at what speed and volume you want him to speak.
A typical Preliminary Pacenotes. Lots of Cancellations and re-writes
Pacenotes are generally provided but does not contain information pertaining to Corners severity, range estimates, etc so I plot my own.
The Pacenotes reflect on this run. We finished 4th due to a car crashing ahead of us.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPZ0fZhP0dQ[/ame]
Base on the above video, not actual. Cars are released at 30 seconds interval. In Tarmac Rallies there are no Re-runs for the drivers who crash or the drivers behind who are affected by that crash. Tough love, but thats Tarmac Rally for you.
From where the wreckage was, the passenger side was directly in line with my braking zone. An error on my part might bankrupt the Co-driver's medical insurer. I made the decision to slow down, made sure they are alright, pass them, continue. That decision cost us about 10 seconds. If there was room for a larger margin for error, I'll push on. At the time, where the wreckage was, based on my judgement the margin for error was very small. I decided that both the driver and myself going home in 1 piece is more important than chasing after 10 secs. Looking back, I don't regret it. As much as I would like to win, this isn't WRC or F1.
While It is easy for one to sit comfortably in a couch and judge, when you are strapped in, adrenalin pumping competing in a 3.91km course full of concrete barriers, dirt, water, changing surface conditions, 0.2mm of rain, blasting out of a blind corner and faced with the above scenario, there is not a whole lot of time you can think about. Decisions are made in split seconds. Right decision gets you rewarded, wrong ones get you punished. Its that simple.
Would the 10 secs have made a difference in our standings ? Yes.
Would we have won ? No. Enough for a 2nd but still miles away from 1st.
When it became apparent that the risk at some of stages were substantially higher where 240kph on surface bumpy enough to airborne the tyres, Sporadic Zero Gs felt. I decided to put in the a full Roll Cage.
Being a bolt in rollcage with the intention of reverting the car back to a road registered car, it by no means do much in a highspeed front cabin intrusion but more so for rollover protection. The rollover protection is much needed when using a 4/6 point harness where unlike factory seat belts, if you're able to slide your body sideways assuming you survive the initial impact when the roof collapse. With shoulder harnesses, it prevents your body from moving side ways and when the roof collapses, your neck shortens a few inches. Some protection is better than none. My next track car if I could even afford one would have a full weld in FIA rollcage.
CAMS approved first aid kit to put your skull together if you survive the crash.
Mandatory 2kilo Fire extinguisher which does sweet f all. Live or Die vs Weight Penalty. You decide
In a Series, there are certain Circuit Racing involved.
This one is at Collie Raceway.
Time Attack at Barbagallo Raceway. Into turn 1 after the straights can be tough on brakes. 1 cooling lap is often insufficient.
The Time Attack series takes place at night. Mostly commencing at 1900hrs. Chances are that in Winter, if you haven't already done a clean lap around 2000hrs depending on weather condtions, you wouldn't be able to get a better laptime because track temp falls from approx 20deg to 12deg by 2000hrs. Planning your best runs and grouping with cars of similar pace will help eliminate traffic and get you clean runs.
2nd Outright. 1st outright goes to a 9 MR.
Just when the stars are aligned in your favour, the welds on your titanium catback decides to enough is enough.
From a Drivers perspective.
I'm not sure if everybody walks the same path I did during their infant motorsport days. I had my dark moments where I would blame everything but myself. There were days when I was angry at competitors not competing in a Category they belong to and taking the win.
When all is said and done, I must say, I've reached a point where all that anger and hatred translate into a simple question, "Why am I slower than others ?"
So you buy a mirror, place it on the table and stare at it all day and ask yourself that same question repeatedly until something magical happens.
We all have mirrors and we look at it everyday. However looking at "it" vs looking at yourself is entirely a different matter. Looking at the mirror without looking at yourself is otherwise a time-wasting exercise if you aren't ready to open up and be receptive and critical of your mistakes.
I did that and realised braking is more than just braking. In the beginning it was slaming the Stop Pedal as hard as you can. Now its about how much you brake, what rate you brake when you brake, what rate you ease the pedal and when. This goes hand in hand with throttle.
Then there are both traction and speed sensing and really paying attention to all your body senses and translating feedback from the steering wheel into information where you determine how traction is available and gauge if you can squeeze that 2-3kph more in corner speed.
I can't stress this enough but time you spend on anger and hatred is time not spent on recognising those mistakes, finding a solution to those mistakes and develop a positive learning curve towards ridding those mistakes. Generally mistakes that I am unable rid soon becomes a habit which is comparable with falling down a well. It is hard to get back up.
Here are some Facts that I've come to realised in my Experience. Perhaps some may disagree with me.
- More time you spend blaming the car, less time you have in correcting your mistakes.
- Money you spend to make your car go faster is just bandaid solution. It does not make the driver any quicker.
- There will always be someone else quicker than you be it in terms of driving talent or money.
- Trying to replicate what other drivers are doing gets you nowhere in 2 different cars with different set up in different conditions.
- More Horsepower doesn't make the car any easier to handle.
- You can complain about the car's set up all you want and not win the race, Or, you can change your driving style to suit the car and maybe win the race. Make do with what you have, complain later.
- My car is better than your car mentality is going to get you hurt some day.
A proper mindset is very important to begin with.
Starting off with what do I wish to Achieve:
If you intend to track the car for the thrill of it. Okay.
If you intend to do more, what do you wish to achieve ? Be a better driver or Compete in F1 or Compete in the upper echelon of entry level motorsport ? Set some Goals and Objectives and make sure you accomplish them. Some people set and forget like most coffee machines. And I ask, Whats the point ?
How committed are you to learning?
Are you genuine about wanting to learn ? Willing to sell off a Kidney to raise money for motorsport or do what it takes to be quicker.
For people who goes to the track for the thrill of it or socialise, Okay.
For people who are genuine about learning, its more than just go for a few hot laps, come into the pits, get out of the car and go, hee hee haa haa about who did what, who went where and go to the bar with your mates.
- Identify your Mistakes quickly.
Memorising what you intend to do on your next heat is important. This means at any given time, when asked what you're going to do in your next heat, you're able to tell us Corners A,B,C this and that mistake, here's what I'm going to do to improve and actually going out there to sort out those mistakes.
- Managing your Mistakes
Assuming the level of attention in value terms at any given time is 100%. If there are 10 corners, the level of attention you are able to assign to each corner is 10%. Unless you inherit some form of super memory, you're not going to resolve all your mistakes in one go. Concentrate on 2 corners and breaking your level of attention into 50% to each corner can sometimes be a good thing. This not only helps with memory retention but also helps alleviate possibilities of making the same errors at a later stage.
- Develop a Positive Learning Curve.
Example.
1st Heat: Turns 1, 2, 3, 4 Mistakes Identified
2nd Heat: Turns 1 & 2 Mistakes eliminated, continue to focus on Turns 3 & 4
3rd Heat: Turns 3 & 4 Mistakes eliminated, Turns 1 & 2 same mistakes occur.
Positive learning curve is important for a driver to move on. There are days where my learning curve flatlines all day. Generally I try to take a break and think of other things. I try not to drive any further because some of these mistakes can translate into habits and habits are hard to get out of. Every driver is different, find out what works for you.
Exercise & Food Intake
Have an exercise regime. If this is a weekend track affair, Its Okay.
If you want to achieve more, you need to be physically fit. Fatigue greatly affects your ability to drive well. Struggling to finish a stint just isn't fun. Your mind succumbs to fatigue and you spend less time focusing on driving and more time on conserving strength. This is indicative when I did a 3 hour endurance go kart race where laptimes fall consistently across the board.
Its good to have an overall exercise regime that focuses on the whole body. Paying more attention to neck and back muscles can be a good thing as lateral Gs can place quite a bit of strain.
Some people dislike eating before a race for fear of vomitting. Regardless what reasons there may be, it is important to plan your meals well. Generally consuming food about 2 hours before a race is a rough guide if your race falls during meal times, Eg. 0800, 1200, 1800hrs.
Generally I drink lots of water about 2hrs before the race. Inbetween races I get some sugar in my system. This may be in form of a chocolate bars or some biscuits with high carbohydrate and rehydrate with sips of water very regularly inbetween. Just remember, you need energy to drive.
Lastly, Don't be afraid to step out of your Comfort Zones.
There are people who drive lap after lap getting consistent times within tenth of a second of each laps which is great. But do not be afraid to try new methods or lines and look for that thousandth of a second.
Lap 24 & 38 are driver changes. Apart from a few traffic, otherwise it was a clean run. I was quite happy with my 59s and didn't want to push further. We qualfied 2nd, led the first lap in 1st position only to spin at the Chicane. Regulations dictate a driver change is mandatory in any spins. This put us in last at 8th. Hence we wanted to play it safe and be consistent since it was at the very beginning part of the race.
Near the finish, it was my turn to take the kart to the chequered flag. We were sitting comfortably in 3rd even though we started from last place. There was a particular hairpin which had a massive pool of water at the apex extending about 2.5m into the centre of the track.
I was fighting tooth and nail for grip in that Section and the China Spec tyres they put on these things did not help. Even on the damp section, you go from grip to disney on ice in under 1 second.
I tried to take the outside line, the grip felt higher the kart was more willing to trace the line and I was able to get on the gas earlier with lesser slip angle than before.
At the time, I did not know I broke the Team's PB as we did not have fancy military spec communication equipments. With traffic out of the way, this translated into Personal Best for myself and the team which I only found out at the end of the race.
Had I stepped out of my comfort zone and be adventurous, I may be able to achieve more consistent times in 58s. Bearing in mind the PB was set at around 2130hrs. Temperatures were below 10 deg that night. Had this taken place earlier in the race where temperates were warmer, there should be another hundredth of a second in there somewhere.
Would it have made any difference in our standings that night ? No.
But with any kind of competition particularly endurance races, anything can happen and you'll just have to keep pushing and finish the race.
In the end lessons were learnt. If you don't step out of your comfort zone and cross boundaries, you won't know what you can achieve.
I think this is as far as I'll write for now.
Overall, I learnt some lessons the hard way. There were angers and frustrations but thats life. Its important to learn to let go and continue to persevere. I was glad to have put those chapters behind me and move on. Motorsport is so much more enjoyable that way.
Looking back, I was glad I didn't hold back when others questioned what I did.
I'm not sure if I would be able to do this all again in Singapore as car ownership is expensive.
Perhaps I'll compete in Gokart which is more affordable or buy a cheap race car in Malaysia and compete in S1K, MSS or Saturday Night Fever races.
I would like to achieve more if I could and would certainly like to contribute to the local motorsport community. We'll see how it goes at the end of August.
I hope this write up will help anyone who is keen in entering motorsport but plague with doubts.
Feel free to share your humble beginnings in Motorsport.
PS* These are just my own personal experience during my early days in motorsports. My thoughts and lessons learnt are from my own perspective and may not even be right, so please do not treat it as gospels.
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