Q: “I am 65-years-old, I have been running SCCA Solo II (autocross) since the early 90s. My question is about age. As an older competitor, we lose that edge and can make slight improvements with persistence, practice and coaching, but probably won’t be going head-to-head with younger competition. As we get older our reaction time and ability to handle a car at the limit diminishes, as well as our ability to replay the course in our minds while navigating through it. Is this something as older drivers that we must accept? I recognize there are slight improvements that can be made with persistence, practice and coaching. However, I don’t think it would be enough for me to be competing head-to-head with my son. Your thoughts on this?”

A: I think older drivers can be just as competitive as younger drivers, depending on a few factors.

First, read my response to a question about this at https://speedsecrets.com/q-what-advice-do-you-have-for-drivers-starting-later-in-life-and-how-to-manage-age-related-performance-regressions/. Sure, this had to do with road course driving, but everything still applies.

One of the things about being younger is that expectations don’t get in the way. Younger drivers are naive, and don’t know what they don’t know. They don’t know they shouldn’t do something, so they just do it. With age comes knowledge, and often that leads to thinking that “If I go faster, I’ll spin or go off the course.” It can lead to setting limitations. Not having that in your head makes the single biggest difference.

More so with road course drivers, because of the higher risks of hitting something, some are not willing to take the chances that younger drivers are.

Unless there is some kind of physical reason that is causing a major slowdown of reactions, I really don’t think that’s the reason for being slower. An advantage that we gain with age is being able to predict things more easily, and that often makes up for any minor reduction of reaction time.

Mindset is critical. If you focus on learning, pushing the limits, enjoying being less comfortable (getting comfortable being uncomfortable), you can improve your speed. There are all sorts of research that has come out in the past decade that shows that you can teach an old dog new tricks. It’s called neuroplasticity, and it means that our brains can continue to change and improve with age. Accepting that is the first step — having a growth mindset.

I know I’ve not seen you run an autocross course, but I would bet that you have all the skills necessary to be a couple of seconds faster. Some of that comes down to how willing you are to push to those limits.

Obviously, our eyes change with age, so as long as you’re managing that with glasses or contacts, and even some vision exercises, that should not be an issue.

There you go… my opinion. By the way, I’ve seen many older drivers find much more speed, and actually outperform some younger drivers, so that’s where my thoughts are coming from.

Keep learning and having fun!