That first time the grid worker waves you out on track can be an anxious moment. The day before, you were just a normal person, and today, you’re rolling your car out onto an honest-to-goodness race track, where you’ll be going faster than you probably ever have in your life.Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!
Yeah, it can be a little intimidating.
1. Your eyes are your most important tool. When you’re out on track, there’s a lot of stimuli to take in, and most of it is visual. So your eyes–where they’re going, how long they’re spending in any one place and how fast they’re moving from place to place–are paramount.
The first thing to remember is that the action is not just taking place in front of you but 360° around you. While your primary focus should be on where you want to go (notice I didn’t say “where you are going”–more on that shortly), remember that you’re out there with other cars, most of which are probably faster than you at this point.
And that’s fine. No one is expecting you to set any lap records your first time out. In fact, they’re going to be much more impressed with your courtesy than your cornering prowess. Learning to drive well on track starts with learning to negotiate traffic, which starts with 360° awareness of the progression of that traffic.
So develop a rhythm of scanning all around the car at regular intervals, and keep up this habit. Use your mirrors, get comfortable with what your mirrors cover and what they don’t, and learn how to access those blind areas when you need to.
If you’re wearing a head-and-neck restraint–and you should be–swiveling your head to its natural limit may not always be an option, so you may have to glance at a mirror at a certain point within a corner to get the angle necessary to cover the whole view behind you. Get comfortable with what you need to do to have a 360° view of what’s going on around you.
2. Avoid target fixation. While most of your focus should be where you want to go, remember not to get locked into one single view. And I’m saying “where you want to go” and not “where you’re going” because it’s an important distinction.
At higher speeds and higher cornering levels, you’re naturally going to be covering distances quicker, which means you’re going to need to focus farther and farther ahead. And your focus point in the future should always be changing. Essentially, you’re always looking at where you’re going to be a couple seconds from now, but since “now” is constantly shifting, so should your focus point.
In general, you tend to go where your eyes are pointed, so lingering too long on a single point does you no favors and robs you of information, turning your well-planned lap into a messy improvisation.
This is doubly important when you start driving hard enough to develop some slip angle or, heaven forbid, you get into a situation where you have to gather up a sliding car. Always focusing on a safe exit will help you develop the plan to get there, especially if you have to do it in real time.
3. Breathe and relax. That first time on track can be intimidating to the point of overwhelming, so it’s important to stay relaxed behind the wheel.
The skill you want to focus on when you leave the pits for the first time is not braking or cornering, but information processing, because there’s going to be a lot of it. And the best way to process information is with a clear head and a calm brain.
So take a moment to de-psych yourself before you roll out, and remember to stay chill and loose during your session. Tension leads to jerky movements, and jerky movements lead to cars behaving badly–and that’s the last thing you want to deal with.
Even in the car, remind yourself to stay relaxed, take some breaths on the straights and consciously relax your hands, arms, shoulders and hips, as those will likely be the tensest parts of your body (along with everything else, but concentrate on those first). Developing good habits and a good feel for a car’s limits starts with a brain and muscles that aren’t in fight-or-flight mode.
4. Check your ego. You know what’s going to impress everyone at your first track day? Like, literally the thing they’ll congratulate you for at the end of the day and post about on social media? Being aware of traffic and never holding anyone else up.
People notice that and love it–way, waaaay more than how fast you were or how much you nailed that apex of Turn 5 on lap 16.
So if you really want to impress someone at your first track day, do so by being a courteous team player on track and not by trying to impress the many, many IMSA, WEC and IndyCar scouts in the crowd. Actually, they’ll probably be impressed by your situational awareness as well.
Look, I get that probably your ultimate goal is to go fast, but trying to reach a long-term goal of being fast by starting out with a lack of situational awareness and an overabundance of aggression ain’t it, sport.
Speed comes through knowledge of the flow of the entire track, and that knowledge starts with being dialed in to everything around you. The driver who contributes the least to everyone else’s frustration is the most popular person in the paddock. Plus, you’ll be learning valuable skills that will pay off big when it’s time to start cranking up the speed.
5. A little fear is good and normal. Panic is dangerous. A race track is a naturally high-risk environment.
It’s completely healthy to feel a little amped up before you roll out for your first session. But do your best to channel that adrenaline toward skills like heightened awareness, increased sensitivity and sharper vision and not twitchy inputs and darty eyes.
Smoothness will always pay dividends. And don’t think of smoothness merely in terms of steering and brake inputs, either. Your eye movements–you’re looking around regularly, right?–should transition smoothly from one focus point to the next. Your hand should move smoothly from the wheel to the shifter and back.
If you ever feel yourself fumbling for a control, or glancing too long at one spot, or being too short to see what you’re looking at, or feeling overwhelmed by the data stream flowing into all five of your senses, no one is going to judge you for pulling into the pits to take a moment to gather yourself.
There’s a lot of information hitting you when you’re on track, but it should always feel manageable. If it gets overwhelming, take a break.
Your first trip out of track should be a memorable experience, but for positive, satisfying reasons, not because you freaked out and did something insane.
Approach the day with respect and calmness, and your reward will be progress–to the point where this activity that felt like too many things were happening too fast will eventually feel normal. The fun of novelty will get replaced with the fun of familiarity, and that’s where the real fun can begin.
