High Performance & Race Driving Tips

Use your street driving to make you a better track driver – legally! Program the “right” techniques on the street. Practice.

Practice how you plan to race, & then you’ll race like you practiced. If you practice driving slow, you’ll race slow.

Don’t set expectations (like lap times) – focus on the possibilities & your potential. Lap times often limit your performance.

Ensure that you have no more than 3 very specific objectives to work each time you head onto the track – less is better.

The slower the corner, the later the apex, and the quicker & crisper you need to turn the steering wheel; & vice versa.

If a change in setup doesn’t work the 1st time, re-think & try again; your technique may need to adapt to the faster speed.

Want to drive faster? Whether you’re a performance driver, race driver, or HPDE student, you can improve your ability to sense the limits of the car – and that will enable you to consistently drive faster. I explain how in this Speed Secrets Quick Tip.

Balance between being smart & knowing when to shut off your brain & just drive.

Whether to use right- or left-foot-braking in your performance or racing driving is not an easy decision. There are pros and cons to each, and I talk about the challenges of left-foot-braking in this Speed Secrets Quick Tip.

A key to improving your driving is how you approach your practice time – whether you’re a performance driver, race driver, club racer, HPDE student, track day driver, or HPDE instructor. In this Speed Secrets Quick Tip, I talk about taking a strategic approach to practice, to maximize your learning opportunity.

Being fast is important to winning races, but not as important as your racecraft. Being strong on starts, passing, and even knowing how to minimize what you lose when being passed is as much about your mindset as it is any technique, and that’s what I talk about in this Speed Secrets Quick Tip.

Many drivers use visualization to learn new tracks and practice driving techniques, but few use the process as effectively as they could. In this Speed Secrets Quick Tip I explain how to get the most from it, in a way that will make you a faster performance or race driver.

Everyone (including me) will tell you “Smooth is fast.” But why? Understanding why will make you a faster driver, whether you’re a race driver, track day driver, just starting out, or an old pro, as I explain in this Speed Secrets Quick Tip.

Eliminating mistakes shouldn’t be your focus. Learning from them should be. Feeling the pressure of not making a mistake actually increases your chance of making more, as I talk about in this Speed Secrets Quick Tip. It’s a big part of the mental game of performance driving, race driving, and HPDE.

Early apexes are always bad, right? Not really. In this video I talk about two different drivers who turn the same lap time, and yet one turns in and apexes earlier than the other (in fact, this driver was slightly faster). Where you apex, and get back to power is all in how you rotate the car on the entry of the turn, and that’s what I’m talking about here.

Which is the most important corner on a race track? Most performance and race drivers of all levels simply follow the “corner leading onto the longest straight” guideline – and they often get beaten by drivers who focus on different corners. Which ones? I share my thoughts in this Speed Secrets Quick Tip.

Are you comfortable being uncomfortable? Whether you’re a track day driver, club or pro racer, or even just starting in HPDE, managing your comfort level is critical to being fast. In this Speed Secrets Quick Tip, I talk about what being comfortable being uncomfortable is all about, and how that can become an advantage.

The “rule” says that you should either be on the brakes, or on the throttle – but never coasting. Well, there’s an exception to every rule, and that’s what I talk about in this Speed Secrets Quick Tip – when and where coasting will actually make you faster.

The key to speed is when and how you release the brake pedal as you enter the corners, as I explain in this Speed Secrets Quick Tip. For performance drivers, race drivers, and HPDE instructors, this may be the most important driving tip ever.