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Phil Wilkes joins me to talk about car racing and flying – but not at the same time. We’re talking racing, track driving, and piloting planes. Oh, and simulators, self-coaching, and the mental game of driving and piloting.
Q: “I am very comfortable using left-foot-braking and have found many situations where it seems to be an advantage, but other than lap times, how can I know if I’m really using left foot braking too often or too much? I switch between right and left foot, depending on the corner, and sometimes I feel that I over-slow the car when braking with my left foot.”
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Simon Kirkby joins me to talk about Lime Rock Park, the Lime Rock Driver’s Club, Skip Barber, and what he’s learned through decades of working with the icon of driver training. Along the way, Simon shares stories about Terry Earwood, Dorsey Schroeder, Simona de Silvestro and others. Oh, and he talks about 3 different ways to get through the Left-Hander at Lime Rock fast!
Q: “The brain takes 1/4 second to process and recognize visual images from the eye. At 100 mph you’re traveling at 146 feet per second, or 37 feet per 1/4 second. What you “see” is 1/4 second in the past. So, at 100 mph, when you “see” your tire at the apex, you are actually 37 feet past the apex. We are essentially driving in the future. This doesn’t take into account the time to send a signal from the brain to body to control the car, around another 1/4 second. There is something going on here rather mysterious to me. Experiments show brain wave activity occurs prior to consciousness and movement. When we look ahead at where the car is going maybe we provide input to allow the mental calculations of position. Maybe when we are in the zone, groove, rhythm, we are in some predictive state allowing driving in the future. So do we need to look 1/2 second ahead?”
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Sam Smith joins me to talk about writing for Road & Track, how he got his start working on and writing about cars, his own racing, fellow Editor-at-Large Peter Egan, driving a NASCAR Cup car with Boris Said, Jack Baruth, hanging out with Kimi Raikkonen at Fiorano, having a day at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with 5 historic Indy car… well, you get the idea – amazing stories!