Speed Secrets: Getting Ready for Your First Race

Preparation is not just one thing, it’s everything.

Let’s say you’ve been participating in HPDE and track day events for a few years now, and you’ve decided to tackle wheel-to-wheel racing. So, now... how do you prepare for this step? What should you expect?

I look at racing this way: there are three main skills that you have to learn.

1. How to drive your car fast

2. How to drive the specific track you’re on

3. How to race with other cars, wheel-to-wheel

If you add up all of the HPDE and track day events you’ve done, you’re likely pretty good at number one on the list: how to drive your car fast. Learning how to drive specific tracks is a moving target as you move to new ones, and go back to the old ones you’ve driven in the past.

It’s this last area — racecraft — that takes time to adapt to.

Rather than just jump right into this huge topic (more than can be covered in just this article, so I’ll come back to it at a later date), let’s look at a few things you should consider and be prepared for as you transition to wheel-to-wheel racing.

To begin, consider the risk levels. Driving by yourself on a track is relatively less risky than racing other drivers, if only because there’s one thing you can’t control: the decisions of others. As you make the transition, you need to accept this extra risk. This increase in risk is very much dependent on where you race, what the other drivers are like, the type of car you’re racing, and how competitive you want to be. But it is there and you need to be aware of it and accept it — or not.

When you start out, you may run toward to the back of the pack (don’t be surprised by this, no matter how fast you think you already are). If there are enough cars in the class, you’ll have others just in front of you that you can chase and learn from. Once you’re running in the middle of the pack, then you can chase and learn from the top drivers. Of course, when you get towards the pointy end of the grid, the competition gets tougher, and you’ll continue to learn.

One thing most drivers learn is that the racing — the wheel-to-wheel racecraft — gets easier in some ways once you’re at the front of the pack. Towards the back of the pack, drivers tend to be less predictable, and less skilled (not always, as sometimes it’s a matter of how competitive their cars are). That makes them harder to race closely. But you learn from every driver you’ll ever race against, so don’t discount the value of this experience. All I’m saying is that as you move towards the very front, you may actually find some of this easier.

Having said that, the drivers who run at the front are there for a reason. They’re fast, and they know how to race wheel-to-wheel.