Tag Archives: confidence

Jul 06 2016
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driving, JQ Europe Tour, Race Reports, THECar Advice

Euros 2016 – Seeding Practice

Today was seeding practice. In the morning we had a 5 minute free practice run, and then after that two 10 minute seeding rounds, where they took the 3 best consecutive laps. I really suck at the 3 laps thing, and don’t like it at all. But at least in 10 minutes you can just run your pace and you will have 3 good laps somewhere.

I stuck with my plan, and didn’t get psyched out by what others are doing. Run this tyre, this guy did that and was fast, etc etc. I don’t care, I know what I need, and I am doing that, I don’t care what anyone else does. Maybe I don’t have their driving style, or talent, so I worry about myself, not them. I have only run LW Medium Impacts. Nothing else. I tried some different wheels today, as they were harder, and liked that. I changed my gearing, going to a 48t main gear from the 47. I am running the smooth gearing here, (43/13) as it has more punch, and it’s needed here accelerating uphill for example.

The only setup change I did was before the first run today, I lowered the front link in order to get more steering that’s it. So total changes at this race are thinner front swaybar, 2.2 from 2.3, 48t main gear from 47t, and front link bottom hole on tower from middle. All changes I have done before and know exactly what they do.

One thing I forgot to mention yesterday, was that one thing I am focusing on with my driving, is accelerating straight. On this track there are many places where I tend to still have the wheels turned when accelerating. You can flow around the track this way, but squaring up early and accelerating with the wheels straight is quite a bit faster. That’s one of the things I need to improve on, along with maintaining my speed better in the tighter corners. I also need to be a bit more safe in the places with no marshal, there are a couple of places where you will loose 10 seconds if you crash, and it’s not worth risking it there.

I hope I can keep this going now for qualifying. I seeded 10th and my 5 minute pace is better than that. Let’s see how my head is, and my confidence. My car is very very good. The slower I go, the faster I am, it really is easy to drive, and I just need to not make mistakes and I will be good. Tomorrow we have a short practice in the morning, where I won’t try anything lol, and then 3 rounds of 5 minute qualifying.

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Apr 03 2016
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#Inspiration, Thoughts on Work

Confidence

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This guy is either suitably confident in his abilities or stupidly ambitious

To have confidence in your own abilities in racing is key. Being confident actually improves you as a racer. It’s a balancing act, some drivers are too confident, and make stupid mistakes because they think they are invincible. But more common is the lack of confidence, this is the racer that is afraid of making a mistake, and because of that makes a mistake, like me at neo for example. I think it’s different to choking, like some people enjoyed making fun of me for. I didn’t choke, which is basically stopping autopilot and beginning to think about everything you do, which leads to a complete collapse of whatever you were doing. Next time you are walking, start thinking about every muscle you use and don’t do anything on autopilot, you will find that you can’t even walk. No, I didn’t choke, I made one mistake in the last 5 minutes of the race, but I would argue I made it because I lack confidence. I should have been thinking yes, I just caught and passed Savoya, fuck that guy I’m gonna make the main now, and then just kept on focusing on driving. Instead, I though, wow I’m bumping up now, I have to avoid messing this up, Savoya is pretty fast, and I proceeded to be afraid of making a mistake while driving.  No confidence = no luck.

Repetition fuels confidence, if you are doing something for the first time, you can’t be very confident, but if you have done something over and over hundreds of thousands of times successfully, you should be quite confident in getting it right. But that’s not it. You also need success. You need success to build up your confidence, specially if you are not naturally a confident person.

What confidence does for you is it eliminates doubt, and reduces the risk of mistakes. You simply do your best, hit the gas with confidence and go for it. It makes a huge difference. My best race is usually the main, and the reason is that in the main I am confident. I made it in, I’m happy, I just do my best. If I want to improve in the future I need to build up my confidence, which has been decimated over the past few years. It’s almost like I need to mentally trick myself into being confident, sort of tell myself “I got this”, even though in reality I know I don’t, I need to get myself to think I do.

How many people know that in 2004 I TQed 2 rounds of qualifying at the Euros, 2006 I had a 7 second lead in the Worlds semi final, 2007 I had the fastest lap of the race at the Euros, I guarantee I would have been 3rd without my fucking bodyshell falling off, 2008 I began making my own car…I was making my way up there, so why can’t I do it again now?

So, talent we already covered, not got any of that, I need skills and confidence, what else?

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