Episode 191: Is Your Fear Rational?

0:00Hello everyone and welcome to the Lizard Brains podcast. I'm your host DJ Alison Drini. I'm joined by my co-host Tom O'Gorman. Tom? How's it going? Hello. It's okay. It's been kind of gray and cold again this week and windy and stormy and you know you get that little that hit. We've already talked about it once this year but we got that hit of the warmth and the sun and everything. I even got a little sun on my face with my niece and then all of a sudden we're back to this. Yeah. That's about where I'm at. I knew it was going to get cold again. That's why I'm going to Vegas in like two days. So yeah. Smart. I fly out tomorrow which kind of makes me panic a little bit.

1:02I haven't packed at all but I'm sure I'm fine. Elm it and underwear. That's all I need. That's all I need. So now I have two helmets. One's good for auto cross but it's not good for racetracks and then the other one's good for racetracks. I've been like halfway. It's too late now. But I was thinking what if I like shipped it out so I don't have to deal with it. Like you know, UPS ground whatever call the hotel be like is it okay if a package sits there for like two days or whatever. And then I get to Vegas and my helmet's just in a box like behind the hotel desk. That sounds stressful. I think it's a little easier to navigate having it with you all the time. Yeah. But it would get there two days early. It shows up on the other end. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know about that one. It would get there two days early and if it looks like the tracking number is not doing what it should then I just bring like the helmet that I would bring it anyways. And then you have two helmets. I don't know. I see the problem. This is a good good problem solving session but I just don't know if that's the solution.

2:05I got to figure it out because I've only shipped my race gear once. I had to ship my race gear down from whenever whenever I think it was a year and a half ago now that we went to Aruba as a family. Yeah. And I was flying straight to Coda for a race and I shipped my gear to the Holises. That was at least like a tons of lead time and going to a place that I knew. Well, that's what I'm saying. It's just some hotel. Well, maybe I could have shipped it to some other autocrosser in Las Vegas or something but that could work. Yeah. It's too late now but I was just thinking because I have two really nice helmets and one just by the rules that exist in the world is no longer eligible for most of the stuff I do other than autocross. So if I'm traveling for an autocross event, maybe I could figure out a way to not travel with the helmet. Yeah. Well, let me know how that goes. Or I could steal a helmet from the rental cart placed nearby. There you go. Yeah. I think that's actually the best plan so far.

3:06You go to the local K1 and then you see if you can wear the helmet out before anyone notices. Or I just be like, hey, can I rent this and I give you a credit card to have been behind the desk. Here's what we'll do. I'm going to buy a race for right now and then I'm going to buy a race for Sunday night at about 5.30 p.m. I'm going to take the helmet with me between those two but I promise I'll be back for my Sunday race. I swear I'll be back. I swear I'll be back. I'm definitely not stealing this helmet. Yeah. Yeah. No, this plane's falling apart too. There's a way. There's a way. The way. Yeah. I haven't figured it out yet. Where the helmet on the plane? I mean, I could do that but I'm also just bringing the helmet on the plane but it limits like my carry on capacity. I had to... We have to check a bag and I don't know if you've been following like the news at all but apparently airports are like super backed up with like TSA and that like TSA pre checks now you're going to work or whatever. So we're going to have to show up like four hours early and I'm going to have to check

4:07in a bag and I'd rather not check in a bag. I'd rather just carry everything but I'm going to have to check a bag. So that's the annoying. Can I tell an embarrassing story of flying with missing related things? Absolutely. Absolutely. After the event and luckily it was only a trophy. The trophy only fit. I was carrying it so then I looked like a idiot walking on with a giant trophy. And then... Wait. Hold on. Which is the first time I've had to do that either. How big is the trophy? This is such a... This is such a tomagormon problem by the way. It was the grid life trophy from the from the pit race. Oh, that's not that big. And the last year of it. What was it? What was it? It was big. It was like the size of these behind me. Okay, that's a little... Like a smaller more? Yeah, that's a little... So the trophy's right behind Tom. I'm guessing those are a little too big for like a carry on suitcase. Yeah. Whatever happened. I was probably put it in the overhead bid and I wrapped my, I wrapped something around it.

5:07Something I could not worry about because then I forgot it. Got back off the plane. Got all the way home. And some overhead compartment in some Southwest Airlines plane has a third place trophy in it. From what? From, from six months ago. Is it like SRO or like WRL or what was it? I think it was the grid life trophy because I got third at the pit race weekend last year. Okay, okay. It's on one. Eric got second. I think I got third. Yeah, I gotcha. I didn't really see. I don't know why. Why would you fly to Pittsburgh? It's only like three hours away from you. He's not. Someone got a cool trophy. Yep. So, and from Southwest is just, it's on her trophy rack along with all her other forgotten trophies and. Right. Yes. With, with along with the iPad that they have and all that, yeah. We had a fun weekend with our race and then I have, I got to hear your story about VIR too, but we hosted a SIM race this weekend, two hour race, pull off another one. Yeah.

6:08I had so much fun. And first of all, it was clean and it seemed like everyone had a good time, a couple of little incidents here and there, but nothing I racing level. I think it was very tricky. That'd be cool. I think it was very tricky race that we threw at our community and I will say they handled it beautifully. I was, I was really impressed how little boneheaded incidents there were. I think there was like, maybe like two or three that was like, oh, come on, my guy. But like all varying, you know, all varying experience levels in on the SIM rig and in racing in general. And I will say for the most part, it was like, like you guys crushed it, like you guys killed it. Like it was so good. Yep. I did see the thing that you are always worried about happened, which is if there's six classes, you spread the skill out across, excuse me, across all the classes. Yep. And then, you know, you don't end up with class battles like all the time. So there were little laws here and there, but there was also the laws of, I got like, I got like excited shakes and chills three times during the race.

7:09The first one, do you catch the music at the beginning with like the rock music coming in? Yeah. Yeah. You know what I'm from? No. Sorry. Be channel. I've been, I'm in the phase of the winter where I keep getting a ton of old, recommended races. It sounded familiar. World challenge and all this. And I've been, I've been clicking on them and everyone starts with that. I'm like, we should use that for our race. So I, I convinced Kyle to do that. So we started and I'm like, oh, this is so cool because I was like that grew up, that was like racing to me when I was growing up. Like that meant the racing was coming on TV. Yeah. It sounded familiar. And it was like, it was like hitting some like long forgotten pathways in my brain. I was like, I was like, oh, this, I kind of liked it when it was our podcast music, but this is kind of slap into like this is pretty cool. Yep. He did perfect balancing both. And then there was a race, maybe 45, 55 somewhere in the halfway point. There was a battle with like three different class battles that had all overlapped and everyone handled it really well. And I got excited about that.

8:10And then there was one other one, but it was one of the more fun broadcasts I would say from our end. Some of your nerd chills came from when three different classes all had different lines coming out of the bowl and they all row side by side leaving it. Yeah, maybe that was it. And then Kyle absolutely crushed it with like the perfect chopper cam and like captured it. Kyle is like, it's, it's unfortunate that that skill only really lives in eye racing to like have like the perfect, I guess it could exist in real life too. But yeah, it's just the basically what I'm trying to say, sorry, I'm like jumping all over the place. What I'm trying to say is like you won't have that many options of cameras in real life where they're all like perfectly aimed at the things all the time where you could have Kyle just like flip into them because like that would that just wouldn't work in real life. Cause in real life, you have like a producer warning the camera people what they want

9:11them to look at. And because Kyle, Kyle does all that with like buttons. And you know, like interface and in the real world, you don't have that. It's a bunch of people operating the cameras and you need somebody like directing them. Yeah, I gotta say from I've been doing, I picked up two, um, sim race broadcasts a week, ones on Tuesday and ones on Wednesday. Uh, and one of them I get to lead and the other one on the color. So I get to practice both and then we just finished up the Liberty Bell league, which I was leading on the broadcast and you were color. So in, in, I've been like actively trying to practice that skill of like finding my voice with it and not being too cheesy and cliche with how a lead broadcast or talks and blah, blah, blah. In doing more of that recently and then jumping into it with Kyle and knowing on the other end. Like I've seen him do it so much, but it still blows me away that he's managing what we're seeing who we're watching, knowing the battles going on, he's managing the music mixing. He's managing the sound mixing for us and the broadcast like images that he's managing

10:11the like the ticker for the race because that's active all the time and the graphics that can pop up. And he's following the battles to talk about them all the time. Yeah. Which I feel like I just had my first broadcast last night where I kind of like fluidly brought the race all through and it was only one 20 minute race. It was just a quick like, but I told the whole story without having ever gotten lost or like then I'm like, damn, he's doing that for hours at a time. Yeah. And everything else. It's so impressive. It's, but it's a good, it's a good example of how the reps, because he's done it so much. The reps turn into this, because to Kyle, it's, it's not draining. It's not like this huge mental tax to operate all those things. He's doing a lot of that stuff subconsciously because he has so many reps behind it. And that's, and that's like what, what we're trying to turn into like with our driving is to have it as subconscious as possible because then it doesn't take as much energy. You're able to focus on more things.

11:12Kyle is basically like a drummer and you learn to play the drums one drum at a time and then they all can start mixing in together like slowly over time, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I'm the drummer that gets on the kit and as soon as I introduce my feet, it's just dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, all the at the same time. I can't hit anything, anything other than quarter notes at all four limbs. At nationals this last year, they gave people like drumsticks and if you want nationals, you got to do like a drum solo and I put like air quotes up and oh, it was my solo nationals trophy. Oh, okay. That's what it was from. Okay. Sorry. Go ahead. Yes. Okay. That makes more sense than pit race, which you would just drive to. So wait. So you left your solo net? Was it this year's solo national trophy? You left it in the overhead bin somewhere? Yeah. Oh my god. Can you do it? All right. Hold on. Let's short detour. If that was your first solo national trophy, you would have burned down the world to try

12:15to get that thing. Yes. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. You're lucky. That's like your ninth or whatever, solo national championship. I would I got to say I didn't notice that I forgot it because I didn't go there with it, right? You're in the airport for like a very short little window and then you and then I dropped it in the overhead bin. That I know it sounds like it doesn't that I don't care about it, but it took me a long time to remember that I didn't have it. And then as soon as I realized I don't have it, I got really sad and I haven't gotten like the goal to like call for a new one. Yes. Oh. That's what I do really, really want a new one. You could call for a new one. That's going to be complicated. Yeah. I bet. I wonder how that works. Is there just a bunch of trophies that look exactly like that just like in a displacement? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You just commissioned whatever. I mean, the only bespoke ones that I know of anywhere in racing are the champ car ones that are like the custom car car made like models, which are so cool.

13:15Yeah. Okay. I was talking about something and I don't remember what it was. You were talking about the true solo nationals and the trophy and yeah, the drum solo drum solo. Yeah. So I don't play the drums at all. I'm rock band, you know, the video game a couple times and that's when I learned that drumming is way harder than you actually think it is. And so I had a drum solo and I was more nervous for the drum solo than my runs. I just wanted to do a well executed but don'ts and that so like, but like I have to you have to do hands and feet and and then hit the thing at the right time and like end the the at the like the right interval. And so I was playing this over there like doing the whole ceremony, Tom. And I'm in my head just like, buddh, buddh, buddh, buddh, buddh, like with my hands, I

14:15trying to get the muscle memory down before I went out there and I crushed it. I crushed it, Tom. Here we come. Wow. You visualized it and then you manifested. And I killed it. But you know, to all the rest of the audience going back to the iceberg, I just did a buddh and just walked off stage, they didn't know the amount of preparation necessary to nail it. Love it. Yep. Um, what? Okay. So the race this weekend, that was really fun. Thanks to everyone who did that and then you were coaching VIR but it was a cut a little short. It you have anything from the weekend before we get to our topic, which we actually have this week. Yes. Um, yeah. So I, I was in an interesting scenario where, um, got to VIR, met a new client of mine, got the data and the stuff all set up in the car. And the first session, um, first off, I don't think coaching at a NASA weekend is like a good move. The, all the sessions were way too busy. And me and that client came to that same conclusion, it's like, maybe we should just

15:18do like a track day or some testing or something, like a testing day or something. Uh, and was it, was he in competition or was he in HPD, he was in HPD. So unfortunately, uh, so I set up all the, all the data, everything, uh, uh, video, all that stuff. And I just sent them out in the first session is just a little shake down. Like, you don't need, like, don't, you don't need, we're not even chasing fruit yet. It's just like, just go do laps, have some fun, like, shake the car down. And at some point during his first session, one of the rear caliper bolts fell out or came loose or something and he went down the back straight VAR and hit the brakes and it didn't do it quite exactly what he expected. And you're going like 140, 150 or whatever down the back straight, you have 25% less breaking than normal. You just go off the track and that's what happened and he hit a wall. So we didn't even get to coaching it and, and the car was just like wrecked, uh, which

16:18is just super unfortunate that, you know, he has a wrecked car and then, you know, I, I made the trip out there to do the coaching and I will say this guy was a saint because I, basically, I was like, how about you just cover my travel and we just book again some point in the future and like, we'll, we'll call that even because like the guy, the guy just wrecked his car, right? And it's like, he already has an expensive weekend. Uh, he's like, no, you came out here to, uh, to coach. So he paid me my full, the full day rate and, uh, and I, I was done at like, like nine a.m. or whatever, um, yeah, which was super unfortunate. And I really appreciate the full day rate because I did, I did intend to, to make that money when I went there. Um, but yeah, I've never been in that situation before where the, like, I, you were there to help and either the car breaks or it gets crashed or whatever, like right off the rip to the point where, like, there's not even really anything to talk about. No, I will say I helped, I helped troubleshoot why the crash happened because, um, the

17:25client was originally thinking like, oh, I got like, like, you know, ice mode, um, and then I couldn't, like, I couldn't slow the car down and I watched the video and I was like, the way you got into the brakes, like, because the car was like completely flat straight line. He didn't, the foot speed from the, like, the gas to the brake wasn't like it, didn't look like he, like, jammed it to like really unsettle the car, like, it looked completely fine. There was no, like, there was nothing to coach in there. I was like, I think something on the car broke. So I started looking around the car and that's when I found the caliper bolt and I was like, well, the good news is, is you didn't crash the car with your driving, um, either a caliper bolt failed or you crashed the car with your wrenching. And so like, it's one of them, so damn, I wouldn't even thought of this like a part. Yeah. You might have done that, huh? Well, he said that, uh, that he's like, he's, he's really diligent about that. So he thinks that's something failed. So I'll give him a benefit of the doubt, um, but yeah, it's just, I've never been in that situation where it's like, you're there to do something and then it just ends before, like, it even starts and it's just kind of like, oh, crap.

18:27Like what the hell do we do now? And obviously he was really bombed and like embarrassed, um, but I hope he felt better after we figured out that it was a car failure and not, not a driver failure, which I know as a driver, that would make me feel better if I went out and, uh, and been in the car. Uh, but this, I almost didn't do my rule because he had a test day the whole day before. I said, and I thought the car is probably fine, right? So I almost drove first. I was almost out in that car, Tom, and I would have just like, not had breaks at some point, somewhere on the track, maybe the same spot. And I would have been in the car that crashed and that's never a good look. If you're the coach and you go and crash the car, whether it has a mechanical or not, not everyone's going to know the full story, right? Like you're just in the car and it crashed. Yeah. So normally I always have the owner drive the car first as like a shake down and then I'll, I'll drive the car next, uh, just in case the car is doing anything weird, um,

19:30you know, you have that conversation before, you're like any weird noises, any clunks, any this, like, okay, cool. I had to understand what they expect, uh, but yeah, I almost went out in that car. Um, and it, the car isn't totaled. It's probably like, I don't know, like five to eight thousand dollars with the damage. It's a Corvette. So everything's fiberglass. So, you know, all those panels are expensive, uh, but yeah, it's just, uh, interesting weekend. I went to, uh, uh, uh, go set a lap and, uh, Ryan's car, spicy cat racing and a sponsor of the podcast. And then he stole the key and he wasn't around. And so I'm in the car with all the driver gear, ready to go take it for some laps and I can't start the car. So then I just took off my gear and got my car and started driving home. So it was a little bit of a bus, Tom. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, it's okay. I've been to see everyone, which was nice. Sure. Yeah, that is cool. It's kind of, uh, it's kind of a, uh, cool and also unfortunate thing that we're developing

20:30such a good community in the southeast seven to eight nine hours away. I'm not ideal, but they get better seasons than we do. So I think they're already in the swing of things and our says it started. I was going to say I've been in all of those situations probably with the, like, what do you do as the coach in the car broke? You crash the car, the driver crashed the car. The car maybe broke because the drive, like all of that stuff, I can think of, but it's always awkward. You've gotten more awkward, the more business oriented, you have to be, yeah, uh, which maybe, you know, there's a, there's a difference between being at the track with a couple friends and they offer you to let you drive the car and then X, Y, Z can happen. But then when it's like, I make my living doing this or I'm putting a lot of effort into my side business doing this because I want to do more like you are. Yep. You're like, well, that's kind of the first thing you think of other than as long as they're okay, right? Yeah. But it's like he was obviously okay. He like, yeah, yeah, he found the softest honestly.

21:31The crash was quite amazing, Tom, like the level of bandwidth of the driver, because we watched it. Now, I didn't want to watch it without him because he had to like run off and like, because he was an instructor, he had to run off to a student. And I have to go pro and I'm like, I'm not going to watch this without him because like sometimes when people have crashes, it's like a very intimate moment for them. So and I don't, I don't want to see it if they don't want me to see it, right? So, right. So I waited till he came back and then was like, hey, you good? Like we talked about it a little bit. And I was like, do you want to try to figure out why it happened? Because one of the main reasons he hired me to be there is, is part of our topic today, which is rational fear versus irrational fear. And he wanted to understand like what was rational and what was the irrational basically? That's not his words, but that's basically what, what he wanted to happen was I just, he feels like something bad is going to happen every single time he's out on track. And he wants to understand why, why does he feel like that is a way to work past it?

22:34So it's really unfortunate that something bad happened when he went out on track, right? So, so I was like, like part of this conversation that we're having after he got back from instructing a student was, well, do you want to figure out what happened? So you have control over it because if, if, if the thought is, well, sometimes you just crash, then that does sound like you might just be a little bit kind of terrified all the time. If it's just like a sometimes you just crash and there's no control over it and there's no, there's nothing to learn or, you know, there's no takeaways or anything, right? Like that would be, that would be terrifying. This sport would suck if sometimes you just crash. Most of the time, I would say 99.99999 percent of the time, there was a mistake whether, and maybe it wasn't even your mistake. Maybe it was a mistake for somebody else and, or it's like the car got too hot and they thought, oh, I'm going to keep running it and they blew their engine and dumped a bunch of oil and you got

23:36in the oil and you crash, right? That's something that caused it, right? And maybe there was something in your control where you're like, okay, yeah, I saw the smoke down the road and I maybe should have, you know, put two and two together and thought, you know, there might be oil in different places or whatever. There's always a takeaway. You have all the control of what happens when you're on the racetrack. So part of what I wanted from this like footage that we haven't looked at yet was trying to understand why it happened. And so that's why we looked at it and I was like, well, I don't think you're driving cause this. Like I don't understand it. Like we looked at the previous laps and I'm like, you're breaking at the same spot. It's not like you missed a break marker. Looked at the data and it was like, you know, the car was just slowing down less than the other laps. So yeah, so we figured out what it was. It was that caliper bolt. But like the part of it was we needed to figure out the why. Like why did this happen, right?

24:36So he brought me out there to try to figure out the wise of his other fears and we didn't really get to work on that stuff. And that's what kind of sucks. Yeah. Before we go further into that fear idea, I want to give you a scenario that I did. And I want you to tell me if I think I did the right thing or if I shouldn't have done this. So I was coaching somebody and their engine expired while they were on track. And they came back on a tow hook or whatever and the engine was blown. And it was a known the car of it was an FRS. So they are known to like the engines blow up on track sometimes. And I still grab the video right away and the driver was socializing and kind of like looking at the car with the team and all this. And I watched the driver money shifted like a lap prior and then a couple symptoms of money shifted popped up over the lap and then the engine let go. Yeah. And because the driver had had a really good gains weekend and had been running really strong

25:41and didn't see the video. But knew that the car could just blow up sometimes because of whatever. I decided to not tell them or show them the money shift or be like, hey, hey, come look at this. See, this is why it happened. To save face for that driver to not start to think about shifting as like a, oh my god, I don't even want to be nervous about it now. Because they'd never money shifted before. And it was I still grappled to this day. Did I do the right thing? Do you think not? Do you think they didn't know? They had to be remembered. They might have known. And if they knew in the back of the head back of their head that it had happened or something else. And it wasn't regardless of like I just kind of like zoomed out of the moment. And it felt like ultimately the car broke while having a really positive learning experience over the whole weekend and like they had been getting a lot better. And all this yeah, did I do the right thing by not pointing out the their route. They were the root cause of this mechanical failure.

26:44When he should yeah, yeah, yeah, four three instead of four five. But caught it quick. But either way, did I do the right thing? I'm not sure. Yeah, I don't know either. Yeah, I'm like, I would like to think that they know that they money shifted. And that's why the engine blew up because I feel like any time I've money shifted a car, you're like crap. And then you're like looking at all the gauges. You're like, are you okay? Are you okay? You're like, okay, I think I got away with that one. And then like, you know, the one time I didn't, which was which was Mitch's casewaped Miata. I like went through the whole session. I was like, oh, cool. I think I got away with it. And the next session it blew up and was like, oh, crap. I didn't get away with it. Like obviously I had something to do with that. Like it doesn't just blow up the next session for like no reason. Right. Like I remember one time I money shifted a Zackle voice car. And I like texted him because he wasn't there.

27:46That's why that's why I got the driver's car. I texted him and was like, hey, if for some reason you lose an engine and the next couple races, I might owe you one because I money shifted your car during the race. And then he gets sent to me a text back. He goes, oh, I money shift that thing all the time. I'm like, oh, okay. He was like famously the most bulletproof S2000 driveline of all time at the ASM shed because or garage, whatever. He would, I mean, dozens of them, lots of them. Yeah, I felt bad. Okay. So I just thought there was a cool interesting anecdote because I didn't know what to do. So that I also asked one of the team guys that was, he was kind of over my shoulder and I was like, I think they money shifted right before like the lap before. So I tell them and they're like, no, no, no, okay. If you got what's done is done, like they're feeling so confident after not feeling that confident. They had a great weekend. Yeah, okay, all right. Okay, okay. But now I still think back. I'm like, yeah, but what if it actually helped them? So like that's, that's I think where you're like, you're kind of like big brain in it is you're like,

28:47because if any part of knowing about that mistake would help them become a better driver in the future, then you tell them. But if it will actually make them worse, then what's the point in telling them? Because your goal as the coach is just to have them be the best driver that they can be, right? Yeah. Yeah, that's actually. And if it had been like a you're like, you're like 30, 30 prone mischiefs a weekend and then you finally do it in the engine blows. Like we're having the conversation. But it felt like just such an isolated little thing. And I still that you're talking to the driver about it, maybe think of that scenario too. Yeah. But okay, fear, rational and irrational fear. Okay, so interesting topic. Yeah, so that's a topic. And I run across this never in the sim obviously, but I run across it in conversations with people about their driving in the real world at the at the track. And the fear thing is it's a factor for every single person, no matter how freaking amazing you are behind the wheel.

29:50My first session out in that VIR at VIR in the ZR1, I did like a partial lift through the front straight, even though I knew you could just drive through that flat. But I'm going 175, 70 miles an hour through a bend where I need to use all the racetrack. Like there's some fear that exists in there, but I knew I knew that it could make it, especially after the first time. And I like lifted a little bit and was like, okay, I can make it. So then like part of the part of the topic here is irrational, which is fear that exists even though you know it shouldn't exist versus rational fear, which is fear that probably should exist for a reason, right? So if I lifted and then made it through that corner easily, and then I kept lifting even though I knew there was more in the car, or maybe like, and I could even take like baby steps out, and like, okay, I'm just going to do a smaller lift.

30:52I'm going to do a less percentage lift. I'm going to do a shorter duration lift. And at some point, it should just be flat, right? If I know it's flat and I don't go flat, and I'm hitting my marks like I should be, then and I still lift, then the irrational fear is getting the better of me. But the driver I was working with was apexing too early. So they kept lifting because they were scared. If they pushed past that rational fear, then they would have had a different angle into the corner and they would have went off track. Right? Yeah. So how do you identify what is a rational fear, and what is an irrational fear as the driver? Because it's always going to seem rational. Like, not everyone has the benefit of, well, so and so did it, and this is where their turn in point was, and this is where their apex was, and this is what their speed was. And at some point, it's just like a physics problem to figure it out, right?

31:55Yeah. So where, like, how would we figure that out on our own? And I honestly don't know the answer to this. I was hoping that maybe we could, we could game it out a little bit. Yeah. So my first thought is that there are two, two types of like fear that you can't conquer kind of for this specific driving, right? You either know it can be done. For example, if you're driving flat out through a corner and someone else is not, and you can tell them and show them on data and on the camera, and through conversation, it can be done. And the driver is afraid of what might happen and they can't push through that. That's a different type of fear than what you or I would feel in a no reference point no one else has done it. No one else is like you don't have somebody next to you at the at the at the track telling you the ZR1 can go flat out down that front straight. You're on your own to figure that out. Yep. Or whether condition, whatever, like we'll talk with that. But you don't have that like someone else told you it can be done.

32:56So there's like the the pressure on the outside or the information coming from the outside that it can be done. You have to push through it or there's the like you just don't know. And I think it's totally it's it's it's hold on different in conversation. Like go ahead. Can I stop you? So yeah, even if a corner can be done flat, maybe you don't have the understanding enough to do it flat. Maybe you're apexing in a different spot. Maybe maybe your turn in is a little too lazy. So you're not at the limit until you get to the very inside of the racetrack. So then you're going to run out of racetrack. Yep. The lack of understanding to me is rational fear. It's when you understand all the moving pieces and how to put it together is where it becomes irrational. Yeah. So my my anecdote is always when I bought my first race car. I had a previous owner from that track. Tell me turn one was flat. My ITC car middle-high old turn one was flat at like 89 miles an hour. Maybe 88. I don't know.

33:57That's high. No, like 82 miles an hour. Just flat out turn in whatever middle-high old and yeah, the previous owner told me flat out through turn one. Previous owners of other cars like identical to mine told me flat out in turn one. And other people in my class with other cars from me also said yeah, we were flat out in turn one. But it was my first time to that track in that corner and I did the whole first practice session lifting and probably started with braking and then lifting. And I was deep into the qualifying session and I had not done it flat yet. And I had all of this data telling me that I could do it flat. And I remember like deciding I'm going to do it flat this next lap and coming out of the carousel with a pit in my stomach and I didn't really like analyze what would happen. I just said like I'm going to do it flat. And the first time it was like basically fine. Maybe they got a little slide through the apex or something and then every single time out beyond that. Like mindlessly not even thinking about it. Yeah, dude, I remember the hold on. The first time I had my Honda fit out on at middle-high old turn one. I lifted, right? First couple laps I lift and then the first time I do it flat I went,

34:59why did that take me a couple laps to do that? Because there was some, but like the whole lead up to it you're like, I don't know, I don't know because the mirror lift made it more unstable than just like keeping the power down. That's like the tricky part of that. But anyways, yeah. So I use that anecdote all the time with coaching if somebody needs to do basically that. Like we just haven't done, you know that it can be done and you haven't done it yet. Here's my story about that. Here's how I felt when it happened and it worked out okay. But then I also tried to do the analysis that I hadn't done when I was 22, three, whatever, that if I turn into early, this is what might happen. If I get loose at the apex, this is where I need to know that I have to bail. Like there's like a couple options that you can start to set somebody up for expectation-wise. And I try to give them those thoughts like if it's a go flat through the corner type thing. I try to tell them if you feel uncomfortable at this point in the track, consider bailing and then think about why you needed to bail. Yeah. You know, just giving them a little bit of information to think about so that they don't just go do it

36:02blindly and end up with a accident or something. When I'm doing it for myself, now I think I do do that situational analysis more in real time. Like if I'm going to take a risk and I don't know what's going to happen, then I try to think through if this happens, if the car understeers, this is where I go. If I oversteer, this is where the, and I don't literally think these words, but I do think I'm doing that analysis when I'm starting to take bigger risks. You're preemptively thinking about what, and the unknown. What the bail would look like? Where would you, what's the out? Yeah, where's the out? So it's not like you try to do the thing. Like you're asking the question, can you do this thing? And then the answer is not the answer you're expecting. You have already figured out what your outs are. Like there's runoff over here or the grass here is an option. Like you've already figured out where you're going to go. Right. Because you can take risks if you plan your out. Yeah. Way more than if you've never thought about it,

37:04that's where people get in over their heads. I also advise drivers as a little on the same topic, but especially at drivers meetings for track night and stuff. I always point out the airing on the side of caution with signals from your car. That's one thought, but then the more the more important thought to them is always work from underneath up to the limit. So if you know that you can break at the start finish line, because the corner is literally on the other side of the racetrack, you know, if you're even if you're at road America, and you know you can break at the start finish line to make yourself comfortable for turn one, start there and know that's where you started. And then push it into a new reference point, push it into a new reference point, push it into a new reference point, and chip away at that as fast as you're comfortable, rather than guessing and then trying to figure out where you guessed. Yeah. I would always say that in novice meetings, and I think that was helpful for them. But I'm trying to think, do you have any specific ideas off of those? Like, well, so some of the stuff, all of that, I just said. Yeah, some of the comments in the chat,

38:05so Devon from Hooked on Driving, he says, how do you walk up to that fear? I'm thinking you need consistency prior to conquering that fear, so you can increase the percentage of pucker within controlled constraints. And I do think that the consistency does help, but how are you supposed to judge how consistent you are as a driver to know what like what small changes you should make that will turn into a different result, whether the small change is breaking a little bit later or turning in a little bit earlier or later or whatever, like these small changes that will affect the output of where the car ends up on an exit. Yeah, I don't know, that's kind of tricky. Like, how would you gauge, I think? I think like the more in tune with what your current skill level is, I see it go both ways. Some drivers think they're way better than they are, but I would say the vast majority of drivers aren't as

39:09they're better than they think they are. And so a lot of times when I'm coaching somebody, I'll see them consistently down to a couple inches, they're a half a car with from the edge of the racetrack on exit. And the car's right up to the limit, right up to that point and they have that buffer. And I bet at one point in their driving that half a car length was super important because they could be off by that half a car length or a whole car length or whatever. And we should have that margin baked in to whatever our accuracy and consistency is, right? At some point you have to realize I'm putting the car in the same foot, the same inch, the same whatever, consistently. So I can adjust what my margin is. And I think that's another same realm of whatever your resolution is for the changes on the input to affect where the car ends up on corner exit.

40:14So you kind of have to judge it based on like your perceived accuracy in the car. And some days you'll be better than others, and you have to adjust that margin accordingly. Yeah, I think I followed most of what you said, but I'm thinking of, I want to add more words to the top of that. You said, most drivers are better than they think they are. I think it's that most people's instincts kick in more than they think they than they then they do. So some people are some people are worse drivers than they think they are. And most people are better drivers than they think they are is what you said. And I tend to agree with that. But I think it's because people's instincts kick in more than they realize for the most part, whether it's whether it's why do you think that happened? That instinct took, I don't know, I just think people are, they're uncomfortable with putting themselves in that position on purpose. But if the car slides and you catch it, you don't even think about it almost. Like people, that kind of instinct kicks in more than you realize.

41:15So the more, the more you dip your toes into, into those uncomfortable moments and the more you win at that, like the better you, the more comfortable you become, more confident you become. Yeah, I think, but I don't think it's fair. I don't know, I'm just stuck on, I don't think it's fair to say, most people are better drivers than they think. I just think more people can rely on their instincts if they just think of, instead of thinking about, I'm getting two in the weeds here, but I'm worried about breaking a little bit later because I'm worried it'll spin through the apex. Like if you just break a little bit later and then maybe also have my, my advice of like if you get to the apex and you need to bail, bail, but just put yourself in the position and see if your instincts kick in almost. Yeah, so that's, that's what I was going to say is, uh, is if you aren't pushing these things, at least a little bit within your own comfort level and having a plan to bail, then you're not quoting yourself in positions where you learn what that is like.

42:20And so you, like, so the, the more you live in the space of, this is the limit of the car, this is what it can do. This is how I can manipulate the corner, shape, like entry, exit, all this stuff. Like these are all the tools that I can use and I'm using them actively. The more you're actively using all of those tools and the more the car, you know, the more often the car is at the limit, the more you're learning about the behavior of the car, yourself, everything, but you, you have to, you have to be pushing yourself the correct amount. Like, obviously, we all know people that push themselves too much and then they're just kind of like writing off cars. You have to like, find the balance of, blast them. Um, you, you have to find the balance of, of, I am, I am pushing my own understanding of this, uh, to the point where I'm learning and actively getting better to, uh, I, I bid off too

43:25much and maybe I should just like call it a session and like come in while the car's still shiny. Sure. Uh, okay. Let me give you some scenarios. So let's, let me give you some scenarios and then we'll play out like what we do with it. Yeah. If you're in the position, not that everyone in your data and your video and your coach, I'll say you can do that thing. But in the scenario, like it's X and I don't know what to expect and I'm a little afraid. Here's what we'll do. Okay. So the first one, like speed related, fear, either I don't know if I can go faster, I don't know if I can go through there flat. I'm afraid because I'm doing 170 miles an hour, like speed related fear. How do you tackle that? Are we talking about a breaking or a corner? Because I feel like it's too difficult. Okay. So my, my different ideas were there's like the speed slash like high speed breaking fear that all of us will face. Yeah. There's like sightline related fear. You can't see where you're going. So I'm afraid I don't know what's going to happen. Yeah. Condition related fear. Okay. It's pouring rain. It's cold, the tire, whatever. Yeah. Those are the

44:29first three I thought of and I thought we could go through like what would we do if we were afraid of those things. But now we know what we know. Okay. Well, I think to like kind of make it and then we can dive in deeper. But I think the thing that like we'll make it a maybe a little too simplified is we have to open up the input windows at high speeds. So what I mean by that is if it's, let's say we're coming into a really fast breaking zone, we have a little bit of a lift and maybe a little bit of a soft initial press into the break earlier. So we so we we open up that input window of like exactly what when like how we're getting in the breaks when we're getting in the breaks and then we can like shrink down that input window as we get more comfortable. Does that make sense? It does. Okay. And then it would be the same thing for a corner. You can start with and well, you can start with the way to that. Go ahead. The only part of that that I think of is important to understand is you're slowing the weight transfer down longitudinally. So the car will do things way more slowly and it's not you're not going to have anything like crazy high speed

45:32happen. Yes. So you by by softening up that input you're talking about giving yourself a bigger window. You're slowing the weight down, which makes everything better at high speed. Correct. Yeah. And and we you know, we run the risk of breaking too early, which like look, I know all of us have break too early from here here and there and it it really does happen to all of us. But that's that's way better than breaking too late, right? So when we're like for example, if we are when we're going to 188 miles an hour in this year or one, the input window is very small to like actually hit the brakes at the right spot where we have the appropriate amount of momentum by the time we get to the corner, right? Because you're going so you're going so fast that the time in between each break marker is very very small. It's a very small amount of time. So you open up the input window by maybe getting into the brakes a little bit softer. If you know that you can absolutely just be like bam into the brakes at the three and a half, maybe you get softly into

46:34the brakes at the four and a half and then you're fully in the brakes by like the three, right? Because that opens up the input window of like what happened. And then if you get to the corner and you don't have the appropriate amount of momentum, then we can we can like move it up a little bit. We can shrink down when we start getting into the brakes when we expect the car to be fully loaded stuff like that. Yep. Yeah, I think the opening up the input window is the perfect way to put that. For the most part, anything, if you whether there's braking or not, whether there's if it's if it's high speed related fear, another one that comes to mind recently for me was when we went to hedge hollow, there's that back straight away. And in Celil's Porsche, we were doing like almost 160, I think, or even maybe 150, but it's like this blind, yeah, overbrow into braking zone into decreasing radius, second gear, hairpin sequence. That was like holy shit, this is going to feel scary. And the first time it was, but you're right, I just kind of softly rolled out of

47:37the throttle when I started to feel uncomfortable, but I didn't lift or break, right? You can't you can't give away your opportunity to learn what happens at whatever speed you're at. And there's money around to back it down to like a neutral throttle when I started to feel the fear. And then I actually think I got to like feed the throttle back in a little when I could see where I was going because there's blind talk about that too. And then the next lap, it was like, okay, everything was fine when I got to where I could see. So I'm going to I'm only going to lift the same amount of like soft pedaling when I get to where I can see. And then I pushed it beyond that like, okay, now I didn't actually have to break until that point after I could see. So I'm going to go flat out. And then when I get to that point, I'm going to see that point. And that's where I'm, you know, I kind of could do that that check box assessment that helps you get more comfortable at higher speeds. So the fear at first was rational because you don't know what to expect. But what you're doing, and this is, this is what everyone can take away. What Tom's doing there is he is asking a question and then getting an answer. And he's using that answer for the next time he sees the element. And so he had just that again, with the known answer that he had,

48:42which was like the first time he came through, you're like, okay, too slow. I can, I can, you know, like that input window was huge. I can shrink up that input window. Like I can move everything closer to the corner because I still had plenty of ability to not like go flying off the race track, right? So Tom's asking a question. He's getting the answer. He's applying that to his next lap. That is how we have the, like the, the baby steps, or maybe some, sometimes when you're way off, you're like, okay, this is, this is more than baby step. Maybe this is a teenager step. And we're going to like move a little bit closer, right? So, uh, yeah. So that's, that's what, so Tom just perfectly, uh, like put into words like his process of like working up to like this blind, really fast, uh, crest, where you don't know where you're going. And, uh, especially with Hedge Hollow, since there's a one lap track, oh, you, you went and did an HPD either. So like, you had a little some, some reps on it. Correct. Correct. Yeah. Um, but yeah, that's, like, that's part of the

49:43process. Ask the question, get the answer, apply the answer for the next lap. Yep. Okay. So, uh, sightline related. You don't know where you're going to end up. You can't see where you're going to end up. Is that, is it any different? I think it's a little different. It's a little different. Because a lot of times you can, you can see where you're going to be on exit, like as you're turning into the corner, but if it's a, a blind corner, like a deception at NCM or a lot of the corners at mid Ohio or, you know, there's a, think of your favorite blind corner. And then this is the one we're talking about. Uh, like, I understand the, the fear there, to me, I have to take special note of where I turn in and what my angle at apex is. And then where do I end up, on the other side of, of this corner? And obviously, I'll start off with a later apex, right? Because then that gives me less chance of going off. And let's say I start off with a late apex

50:48where I'm like mid track and I'm like full throttle. I apex tour or too late, right? So now I'm going to change the angle of the apex, uh, which might change where I turn in. It might change where I hit the brakes before. It just kind of depends on what the shape of the corners kind of, um, basically calling for, right? And I don't know if we dive into that because I realized that it's not going to make a hundred percent sense. Um, but to me, the angle at the apex is really important. If there are external things that we can look at, like, for example, turn the right hand or turning into Thunder Valley at mid Ohio, there's a gap in the trees that you can aim for. And if you're, if you're aimed at that by the time you get to the crest of the hill, so you can see it coming as you're like turning the car in and you're like, there's the gap in the trees and there's the crest of the hill. And if you're aimed at that by the time you get to the crest of the hill, you will have enough race track. Not every track has like a nice convenient

51:52gap in the trees, but there's probably something. Right. Yeah, I'm not, I'm not nearly as methodical as what you just described. I think one of my strengths is that I'm pretty, pretty good at, like, the mental image of a corner or a space. Um, that's always been super helpful in auto-cross and it's always been a way that I've learned the tracks quickly, but that's just a natural, I think that's, that's what someone would maybe call talent, right? Like, I just have a strong mental image of the space, but I can't do math at all, right? Yeah, that's like part of the thing. So I rely on my, my, I try to build muscle memory quickly and I rely on my instincts with the mental image that I'm pretty good at picturing pretty quickly. Yeah. And I think a lot of people are actually pretty good at this thing. So like, if you think you can picture the mental image of the corner and just kind of start to wrap muscle memory, you're with me. Uh, or I'm with you. Then if I start to develop a muscle memory that ends up with a negative, like, more often than not,

52:52for example, I'm always a little bit too early on the apex. I'm always a little bit too wide at the whatever, you know, insert a problem. Then, then I use whatever my muscle memory is to then tweak the one thing and then that becomes my new routine. What do you, what do you, it'll turn into something simple, like, I just need to turn it a little bit later or I need to, like, once the muscle memory is down and the one problem is showed up, then I can diagnose that problem, the way you diagnose anything. But for the sightline problem, I genuinely think just some reps is where I start. That's my whole point is I just start with a bunch of reps as many as I get and then I rely on my natural instincts while doing those reps to then if it highlights the problem that I need to fix, it will, but it just takes time. Now is it that's my approach? Yeah. So let me ask you a question. Is it when you're making that adjustment to turn in a little bit later? Is it you're, you know, where you normally turn in and you're just turning in just past that? So now you have a new reference or because I find myself doing this sometimes where I turn in a little bit later, I couldn't exactly tell you where I turn in,

53:53I just know it feels a little bit later. There's like a, like, and one in my head. Yeah, where it's like, like, normally I turn in too early on this corner. So I'm going to turn in where it feels like I'm going to turn in a little bit late. So it's like, and it's, and I realize, I realize to try to help somebody along the way and you just say you just got to, it just has to feel like you're turning a little bit late. That like, that is not helping anybody, right? It can though. I, that's why I'm trying to be honest about like, how do I deal with these types of things? And I, I'm picturing most sport turned two and I went there and learned it in my B spec car. Yeah. Once again, ironically, basically a flat out corner. So I'm coming in there at like 90 some miles an hour and it's no way that I have to just basically just like partially lift to 50% throttle and then go right back to throttle. And I don't know where I can, where I, like, I don't, I don't see anything. I literally don't think I developed much past the like, I'm going to start doing my little, you know, bitch in my blood lifts at X point. And then I've gotten past the point where like, I know

54:56how fast I can be going. I just don't, I can't see where I'm going. Yeah. I just relied on muscle memory to build the, to build or I relied on the instinct to build the muscle memory. And then I tweaked the muscle memory on that. What you're saying? Just like, I'm going to turn in a little later. There's not a reference point. And honestly, the reference points I come up with more often than not are in hindsight. I already know what I'm looking for. And I can maybe like, okay, this person struggling with X spot. What am I thinking about there? Can I line it up for them maybe? But I don't honestly think everybody learns that. Well, so I think, I think part of the reason why it feels like it's like instinct on your level. Because I feel, I feel that too. But then I, I try to dive in. I'm like, well, I know, I know I'm looking at something. Like, what the hell am I looking at? And I think part of the reason why you think it's possible that your mental image is your primary thing in your mind? Yeah, but like, my mental image includes things that I'm like looking for or should be looking for or the, and let me explain is, I think the the process

55:56of finding references and having the angle at the apex and visually, visually or mentally seeing the exit of the corner. Like, as we're coming up to the corner, I think at some point, all those things are so subconscious that you're picking up things and you're not even noticing that you're picking them up because your subconscious brain is just like, this is the way I, this is the way I execute this corner because of the like the reps that you've gotten and because of your mental image of the corner. So then somebody asks you, hey, are where are you breaking there or what, what is your, what are you looking for on turn in or, or this stuff? And we are looking at those things, but it might be happening so subconsciously that you're like, I know I'm looking at something, but I couldn't tell you what it is and tell you like, go to the video and you're like, you have the like, the bandwidth to like, watch yourself do the thing and you're like, oh, yeah, this is what I'm doing. This is what I'm thinking about or looking at or whatever. But in the moment, it's,

57:01doesn't, it's not like in my head, I'm like, I'm, I'm turning in where the grass starts to feed back in toward the edge of the pavement. It's just, you're not thinking that. It's just something that you're doing because on the subconscious level, your brain doesn't think in words or pictures or ideas or whatever. It just does the thing that's part of being subconscious. It's like, it's, it's, it doesn't even get to the front told lobe to have any kind of, and maybe I'm sounding like a hippie right now, but like, it doesn't get to the front to lobe to turn into thoughts that we would recognize as human, right? Namaste. Okay. Yeah, I know you're, so you're, you're making sense in what you're trying to describe, but I just don't, I don't learn that way. So I want to be honest with like, this is, this is kind of how I approach. If there's a fear from, I don't know where I'm going to end up because I can't see it. I think I rely pretty heavily on my mental image and then instincts and then that builds a muscle memory. And if someone else

58:05is needing something else, then I rely on my like, well, what would I be looking for? I guess, you know, I don't, I don't relate to the, when you told me that gap in the trees thing at middle high, I was like, what? Oh, you don't know about that. And then you were right. I've been there for 10 hours, never heard about that or learned that or whatever, but now it's a thing in my tool belt. Yeah, I stole it from you. But that's one of those things like, I think I came up with that ever. I think I heard that for somebody. You were the first person that said it to me. Yeah. I think I, I think I saw that. I mean, Jackie's kind of right. She said, DJ likes tangible references. Tom used his abstract references. Yeah. I think I think we are on a spectrum of both. Yes, I was going to say, I'm not 100% like, there's nothing on the racetrack. I don't know where to go. Like, or like, like, I think auto cross is like a great example of this. You have like almost no references and auto cross. Maybe when the weight transfers around you is a reference. When you get on the brakes is a reference that bump over there is a reference that little just a little bit of a bump. You can be so creative all the way to the end of whatever you need to work. Exactly. Yeah. Or like a

59:06cadence of like, like, you know, a cadence of time in between two corners. And depending on where you end up is it's going to adjust like the rhythm in between two corners. All these things can be references, right? Yep. I don't know if that's a super helpful fear-based discussion. But either way, that's how we handle it. Okay. You have conditions-based fear. It's wet. New tires. It's cold. It's dark. We'll just say a lot of unknowns, right? Like, there's a lot of unknowns, right? So how do you- But you are a lot of information. It's just different conditions now than you're scared. Yes. Well, if it's wet, why are you scared? The information, because there's unknowns, right? I think an unknown is a rational fear. I think the unknowns are rational fears. But it's not like you've never driven a car before. It's also like you've never, like, you've driven down the road and it's wet. You know what I mean? Like, it's not like you're

1:00:08completely without information. It's just now you have a little less knowns than you would otherwise if it was just dry, right? And especially if you don't have a lot of experience in the wet, because now you have even more unknowns. But to me, the thing that's going to solve that, that rational fear of just, I don't know what will happen is you have to experiment around to figure out what can happen, what will happen. Because if you run that outside of the corner and you have plenty of grip, the next lap around, it's still going to be the same thing. Unless like the conditions have like wildly changed. But you'll notice that you'll have that information. If it was running a little bit, now all of a sudden it's a torrential downpour, well, now you've got some unknowns again, right? Where's it puddling? We can see it. You can see the shyness of like the dry line. You do have information. And as you get more and more comfortable with the rain driving or just

1:01:13more experienced with it, you'll have less unknowns. And so in theory, we should have less rational fears. And because we have more of an understanding of what is happening, we shouldn't be, we should just be more comfortable. Tom, I remember when I first started driving on the racetrack, I was, I just like my coaching client this last weekend, I was just convinced something bad was going to happen at any moment. And as you get wraps in, you start to realize nothing just randomly bad has happened. Like, yeah, like a mechanical, I could have seen it coming. It was making that weird noise, this, that, whatever. There's always something to take away. I went off track in the wet. Yeah, I kind of, I broke on the dry line that time and the other times I was breaking on the not the dry line. So then I had momentum when I came into the corner. Okay, yeah, all right,

1:02:15I'm going to have to take that one away and just be like, all right, it's really important that I don't muscle memory into the dry line when I'm driving in the wet, right? And over time, that takes up less mental bandwidth of, of like the concentration required to drive in the wet. So then you have more bandwidth for other things. And I don't know, how, how would you work up to a bunch of unknowns on a wet racetrack, Tom? Yeah, the, the main thing I think I've had time removing what I already know, but I guess it's fair. Let me just restart. Okay, so I think when I'm on a new track and it's wet, the things that I know are, there's more likely to be more grip on the outside than the inside, but there's more likely to be more grip off the normal driving line than there is on the normal driving line. Yep. I know that the braking zones are likely to be the most slippery initially. And then obviously some of the corners, I know that puddles will make the car float. I know that standing water. I know what that feels like from hydroplaning on the highway.

1:03:16I know what the sound of it hitting the fender wells sounds like. Yep. Yep. Good. Good. So these are all knowns that are like, I can, I can know that going in. And then I try to like apply those knowns to whatever the scenario is at this racetrack. So say it's a brand new track and I can see the puddle. Obviously, you don't just hit the puddle. I default to maybe starting with braking in the middle of the racetrack. Honestly, I kind of default to that pretty quickly. And if I see someone else getting away with something else, then I pivot back. Yeah. But I don't, I don't test the waters on the braking zones very much because you can fade back across the braking zone and hit the normal turn in point. But I really don't want to find out that I'm going to hit the brakes at the four at 120 and not get breaks. Yes. I default to running outside and I move in a car with every single time. I mean, we've talked in depth about what you can expect for raid driving in that rain episode. So think like go educate yourself on that and then apply what you know to the unknown. Yeah. I do think to me that's a more tangible process. I do think the our episode of, I

1:04:17forget what episode number it is if somebody in the chat wants to help. But it's the title of it is the actual are of driving in the rain. And I do know that the feedback on that one was really positive because it gave people that understanding of what they should be looking for, what they should be experimenting with, what they should be doing when it's wet. Yeah. And that understanding got rid of a lot of fear. So we've talked about all this rational, like getting rid of rational fear, right? What if it stays irrational? That one's hard. Yeah. I haven't figured that one out. Like, how do you convince somebody that they're like, we know the car can break at the whatever. Why are we still breaking two markers before that or a marker before that or whatever? I know that they have the the skill to blend the brakes toward the apex. So it's not like they're on

1:05:22the brakes and then they pop off and get on throttle. And that's why they're that's why they feel like they have to break earlier is because they they're not managing the weight of the vehicle correctly. Yeah. What do you do when I'm on this go ahead? When I'm in this position, I've had very few people that I can't think of anybody who never got there. But I can think of people who were in this process somewhere. Yeah. And it mostly boiled down to either getting to a deep enough breaking point to make a new gain or to go flat out through a sequence of corners, most like usually to get a gain or to stay flat in a key corner that gets a gain. I try to give it I try to give them the most simple task and then tell them that nothing else matters. For example, I'm scared of breaking at the two. I'm breaking at the three or two and a half all the time and I'm too scared to go to the two. I tell them unequivocally, your only job is to go break at the two. Yeah. I don't care. I literally don't care if you stay on the brakes all the way to this to you till you come to a stop. But before

1:06:27you can just go break at the two, we will not see a gain. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. I try to this like that that tells them I don't have to do anything. I don't have to make the corner. I don't have to do a new lap time. I don't have to do better. Like I have to just go break that fear. I have to get over this. Yes. Yeah. And similar with the with the the breaking points usually pretty easy. That's a very, very like new driver thing. The staying flat through a key corner. Like I'm thinking summit point through the whole S's in a lower powered car through the uphill S's at VIR and a mid powered car stuff that's like my instincts are to get halfway through it and then just kind of roll out of the throttle and stay comfortable. Yeah. It's a very similar thing, but I try to give them way more information about what they could what where their outs are basically. Yeah. Because I can say go hit the go hit the two and come to a stop. Corners are a little bit trickier through that, but corners are harder. Corners are a bit trickier because you have just more variables in what could happen. Like the

1:07:27turn in point is the car like at the limit where we lazy on our turn in all these things that can add like some rationality to that to the fear, right? Yeah. But I don't I try not to even give them any words like that. Like don't be thinking about whether you turn into late. Don't be thinking like I don't want to put that thought into their brain because I want them thinking I need to go through here flat. And then mate, like the best case scenario is that I've given them the information of what they feel and they either know that it's okay or they're willing to risk feeling that feeling, right? Like if you get to that point in the corner and the car starts to rotate, it's going to feel like it's going to rotate underneath you for a split second, but then it's going to come back and you're fine. So just have soft hands and no matter what, if you get to that point where it rotated and then it doesn't come back, both feet in and stop, right? Like the car flat, you're going to go this direction. You know, kind of like you can you can spit all that because I think that's all fair to talk about like the outs, but I don't I never say

1:08:33to somebody as long as just make sure you're not turning into late and then you'll go flat. Well, because then I think all they're going to be thinking about is like, yeah, yeah, you know, well, okay. So I think like turn one middle higher and a Honda fit is a pretty good example of like just go do it flat because by the time they like you can turn in, you have a huge window of like input to where you end up and you're still like on the surface and like everything's fine, right? Right. So in that example, I would say on the left side curb, if you're past the left side curb and you're still flat, but now you're still scared, now you're allowed to just like straighten the wheel up and and slow the car down gently. Don't do any sudden moves, but at least get past the inside curb and that's two thirds of the way through the corner and they're going to get to the end of it and be like, oh, yeah, that's fine. You know, like I kind of know that, but I still give on that little bit of like if you get past that because then they're maybe thinking about I just have to stay flat all the way to the end of the curb. And then that's two thirds of the job, but it's not don't turn into late. Don't turn into late. Don't turn into

1:09:37late. So you see what my difference. Yeah. Yeah. So you're it's basically like, hey, Tom, don't think of pink elephants. And now like you just thought of a pink elephant, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's instead of like don't do this, don't do that. So it but okay, what if you substitute that with like we're turning in at this point, we need this angle apex. If we don't have that, then we have to bail. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. So yeah, it's it's tricky. I'm I'm curious the the the listeners. If they've came across like a similar situation like what where's the situation where you realize some fear that you had in terms of driving was irrational and how did you get over that or is realizing that it's irrational like the thing that you need. There was a they're talking a bunch. I'm trying to find there was some people sharing examples of this. I'm just talking away from the mic for a while. Yeah,

1:10:42you're sorry if I was. Okay. Phil said the CMP king is the first one that comes to mind. Devon said the last corner at AMP out of the front straight deception at NCM. Those are good examples. I guess no one was really saying this is what I did to help myself. Yeah, people are just like these are scary corners. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I will say I'm rock the downhill. Yeah. One for me is the first two corners of the upper S's at VIR and like an actual fast car. I don't feel like my first initial turn of the wheel to the left to get my angle on that first curve and then the flick to the right to like fly over like that that crest that you first go over. In a fast car, it's I find it tough to be have the car like floating on in and then get like a twist for the when I when I turn right to like have the car like like you know like in a slalom the

1:11:46cars like float float float float float right. It should in theory be the same thing in in these these upper S's. But that first left that first left right on the upper S's is tough because and I think part of why like I leave margin there is I don't trust my accuracy. Sure. I don't never live that one in real life yet. Oh, in a fast fast car. Yeah. Yeah, I just um in I'm racing. It's like it's kind of easy. But all those cars are basically just flat up the S's. It's never like in these really fast recars. It's not just flat up the S's. There's like a very narrow window between the first left which is like you make just after the you drive under the bridge that comes into the racetrack and then the right and if you don't get the cadence of that correctly, you just go off the track to the left. Correct. And there's like

1:12:47that one stuff. There's like a ditch there. I think there's actually a point for okay, so how's that maybe this is an interesting like N thought when something stays a bit scary but it's no longer a place for gains. Yes. For example, I was coaching a driver who was terrified of the entry at turn one of Heartland Park RIP. You would come over this blind crest bending to the left and then you would bend right at the top of the crest but continue to bend right into the braking zone or maybe the braking zone started right before the crest and he was like I'm just terrified of this corner and I was looking at data compared it to someone else's data and he had zero opportunity for gains there. And all I was like you can go faster and turn six and turn 10 but turn one's not an opportunity. So if it's scary, you're doing it fine. Just keep doing that the way it is. Yeah, you don't have to do it eventually, I guess. I kind of think that's what the the reality of that fast car into the lower Ss is or upper Ss is, right? You turn to it most sport was that for me. Like it stayed scary but I hit this point because we're basically not lifting into it, right? When

1:13:49in that car the first time I learned it. I just know I know I know it's my like my understanding of driving. If I had the car more at the limit from the first twist of the left on the wheel and then like transferred it being at the limit now to the left side tires when I'm turning right. It would be a couple of tents at least. It's just hard to bring myself to do that because I don't know, maybe I would need more examples of how I am actually that accurate with the car going 140, 150 or whatever. And I don't have enough, I've asked that question, I've gotten the answer in spots where the there is no bail, right? Because we've talked about having like an out. And in that section there is no out, right? So like asking the question there. And even like the the baby steps, I never really get that many laps and when I do drive fast cars

1:14:51at VI or to like get the reps to do those small baby steps where like not having a bail is fine because I've asked enough small questions to get enough small answers to understand the input output there. So I just bring that up as an example of somewhere where I know and maybe it is maybe it is rational or maybe it's irrational. I think I'm at the point in that like journey with that one section on this one race track where I don't know. I don't know if it's rational or rational and I bet I bet a lot of people are dealing with that. Yeah. Yeah, interesting topic. Jackie said in I use data as references in relating to something like staying flat for example. And in real time, if the car doesn't get to the exit curb on its own, I know I can go faster. You use that analogy a lot like the car should take itself there. It should, yeah. And if you have to lift to stay on the racetrack, then we need to change we need to change our angle at apex. However, however,

1:15:53you need to make that happen. You would do a later apex, but however you need to get to the later apex, I realized that like people are like, wait, I need to change the angle and they might like they might not put together exactly where my brain just connected and then moved on. So Yeah. Edo said his personal method is to basically use brute force logic to overcome an emotional fear. For example, if I know it can hit a certain mark, I force myself to do it. Reasonable. Yeah, I feel like I kind of do the same actually. I think I sort of do as well, but I don't I don't love that verbalization. Also because you've you've been too off quite a bit trying to do those things, you know, but I think that's more the car has been such a pile for a little while. Sorry, bud. You know literally says I blame the car. He knows he knows. Yeah. So yeah, I mean that we didn't even go into the mechanical side. Anthony said, by the way, the like mechanical fear something on something mechanical is making me afraid to

1:16:54and like that's just like short little stints with wraps to go check nuts and bolts. Yeah, maybe that's a different window than you and I even end up in maybe once like someday something will fail on the car that gave me zero warning and I had no inklinging that it was a possibility. And then I'll have just this like baseline mechanical fear like living in the background because I know it's possible. But anytime something has mechanically failed in the car, there was there was warning signs. I'm like, that's weird. And then it breaks like there's or like hopefully that holds together. And then it breaks like it's never been like, oh my god, what happened? Yep. Yeah. I always like this line when I was working the Dodge ride and drive events. We were doing this SRT track experience. And one of the guys, John Hammer. I don't know if Hammer would listen to this, but what? I think Edo sums up why we're not scared of that. And I think it's really healthy. Edo says, I don't worry about mechanical failures because it's not something I can

1:17:58control. Yeah. Yeah, that works for me. To an extent. Okay. Anyways, you were talking about anyway. So he would do the driver's meetings for the drivers before they would go out on the track. And one of his lines was something, something about people who are concerned when they get on a racetrack or when they go too fast that all the sudden the car is just gonna flip. No one has ever crashed a car and said, oh man, the car just flipped. That was just one of his hits. I like yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, any closing thoughts on irrational versus rational fear? The topic. Yeah, I what I really want is I want people to send in questions or stories into the podcast because I want I. This is just me and Tom having this discussion. I want to see what this discussion looks like for other people because I personally I want ideas and how this can be conquered or identified

1:19:02or something, right? Like I I want to understand how other people experience this part of motor sports that not a lot of people talk about, but everyone experiences. Agreed. Did you win that race on the background yet? Hold on. Almost DJ has his in car of the lizard brains podcast to our club and cup running background. Just do it this weekend. Oh, go ahead. Tell us about what you're doing this weekend. Tomorrow I'm getting on a plane to Las Vegas and I'm doing the Las Vegas pro solo. Awesome. In a second. Jen twin. Yep. I'm driving with reunion. Similar car to Peter's identical. It should be like pretty close to same. It's got the Lou God shocks on it. It has a diff. It has all the power stuff. I know nothing about the car. If it's tough to drive, the owner said that

1:20:05I'll have full rain to adjust it as we can. But if it has quality parts on it, I think they're single adjustable shocks. So it's not like they can be like that incorrectly set. It's probably fine. So it has the car has all the stuff. The biggest thing that's going to be the issue, Tom, is I'm short. The owner is tall, which is not normally an issue because I drive with Peter's norm most of the time. And he's very tall. Actually, when I go to look for Peter, when I get to an event, I just scan the course because I know he's out there walking. I just look for the tallest person. That's Peter. Yep. And this guy's taller. No, this guy is probably just as tall, but it's a it's a fixed seat. And I think it's like mounted to the floor. Oh, so I have to part of the reason I have to check a bag is to bring a bunch of pads and stuff. So hopefully I've fit in the car.

1:21:08But sometimes, and I've had this happen, especially like when I drive Erica Teal's car, I have to put so many things in the car. So I can fit into it that I no longer have bolstering because I'm outside of the seat, basically, to drive the stupid car. So hopefully that doesn't happen because that always makes it a little tricky to try to drive the car when you're flapping all over the place. Yeah, it's also tough when all the padding you have is pretty soft. Yes. And you end up like rolling and mushing around under the belts in the seat. Yeah. And not ideal. If I have to, I'll go to like Home Depot and like, I don't know, put wood on the bottom of the seat or something like I'll just I'll like I'll figure something out. So hopefully I can get fitted into the car on Friday. And then that way, if I have to make any adjustments, I'll take some measurements and like go to Home Depot and have them cut me some wood or like plywood or something and like wrapping foam or something. Make you your own race seat. I get fitted for the seat. Yeah. To fit in someone else's race seat. I like that idea. Racing Depot, isn't that what

1:22:08people call it? Yeah. Home Depot Speed Shop. Yeah. So that's that's what I'm doing. And then I'll spend the whole week in Vegas and me and Tom have to figure out how we're going to record an episode next week. We'll figure that out when we end the episode. And yeah, what are you doing, Tom? Cool. Good luck. This is my last weekend of no motorsports travel because I finally get to travel next week for a commentary gig. I'm going to Sonoma with SRO. So I don't know what races I'm commentating yet, but I've been trying to start studying. I'm probably I'm going to guess I'm ending up on probably TC America and probably GR Cup and maybe the McLaren trophy. Are you are you? But I doubt they're going to put me on the GT3 or GT4 races. Are you going to be are you going to be commentating, Matan? I bet so. I think so. Okay. Do you know if Matan's going to be at this race? I don't know what Matan schedule look like. As far as I know, I think Matan's doing a whole season. Okay. That would be cool. That would be kind of neat. Yeah. Yeah. And if I get on GT4,

1:23:12I know Kenton is in the race and Alan Patton's in the race. There's a bunch of people I know it. I'm going to be I'm probably going to be like I don't remember how many people I know with that event. Yeah. We'll find out. Anyway, so I've been starting to study that a little bit this weekend. I got nothing going on. Yeah. When I come out to Vegas. I'm good. No. Okay. I don't think so. All right. Fine. I don't know how I would. I mean, I don't think I can make that happen in a day and a half. Now, probably not airplane tickets apparently are way more expensive than when I booked this. So yeah. Yeah. I had to book my own flights for Sonoma and I was like, this is so crazy. What are you doing? I'm assuming they're reimbursing you, right? They are, but I just I hadn't shot for flight. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You got to open up that flight credit card or whatever. Get all those points. Yeah. For sure. Okay. That would be the show. I'm coaching in one minute. So Tom, if you want to take it away. Guys, I need to end on this thought. I recently found out that Danny

1:24:13Capatric believes in lizard people in the Galactic Federation. And I don't think we're talking about that enough, but I love your hair and I hope you win.