Q: “What’s your favorite way to stop over-analyzing and just drive? I’ve heard you talk about this on your podcast and webinars, but please tell me again how I can drive faster by not thinking so much.”
Q: “How do you stop falling asleep on the grid? I’ve been racing for years, and I find myself falling asleep on the grid often, so what can I do to deal with this?”
Q: “Some drivers plateau and I often find that they are going to the same track over and over and over again. What are the benefits you’ve seen for those drivers that get out of their comfort zone and go to a completely new track? Why is this good or bad? Should this occur as part of every track season or once every few years for a bucket list track/road trip?”
Q: “There is one thing that I have wanted to know, but I never found anyone whom I thought would be able to answer my question correctly – until now. How do you save tires? How do you abuse tires on the track? Oops, that’s two questions. The second question may seem obvious, but drivers do many things with their cars that we are not aware of, or assume to be the right thing to do.”
Q: “Now that sim racing has become more popular and I’ve done quite a lot of it during lockdown, I find myself with some bad habits. Braking and brake feel for instance is much different on my sim rig compared to real life. It can take me hours in real life to find the right amount of trail braking after doing it on the sim one way for so long. Also, I have the problem of thinking I’m going faster the more g’s I pull which isn’t always true now that I can feel g-forces again. How do I quickly adjust from sim racing to real life racing?”
Q: “I had a quick question with regards to tire squeal and using it as a gauge for performance driving. Recently, I took part in a driver training program and was reintroduced to the saying “a squealing tire is a happy tire.” My previous belief was that tire squeal occurred in the frictional region after the point where a tire has peaked in the force vs. slip angle curve, not approaching or at the peak. Obviously, every compound, construction, and even batch of tires act differently, however have you found a general trend in your experience? Also, does the same apply for racing slicks? In my limited experience with driving on slicks, I can’t say that I have ever gotten them to the onset of tire squeal before I’ve had to catch the slide.”