Speed Secrets: Just 5 Seconds

A long review of what you do quickly, in just one corner.

Recently, I was looking at some data, specifically about five seconds of one particular corner of one particular lap. That made me think about what was going on during those five seconds. That led to writing for a couple of hours, which turned into what you’re reading now — and will likely take you more than five minutes to read, think about, and turn into something you can use.

Using the data graph above, pretend you’re approaching a corner, at speed, at full throttle. The top line on the graph is speed (in MPH), the second one down is throttle position (from 0 to 100%), third line down is brake pressure, and the bottom trace is steering angle.

This illustrates the time just before you begin braking to a little after the exit or track-out point; it takes approximately five seconds. That’s what I’m writing about here — just five seconds.

So, just before you brake, where are you looking? When you reach the turn-in point, how do you turn the steering wheel? As you turn in, what do you do with the brakes? When do you begin accelerating? And what do you do with the steering wheel when you do apply the throttle?

Let’s dig in and find out....

At full throttle on the straight, notice in the data graph that there is no gap between when you lifted off the throttle, and when you applied the brakes. No coasting here!

Before you even thought about lifting off the throttle and applying the brakes, you looked in towards the turn, past the turn-in point, to the EoB (End-of-Braking) point — that area of the track where your foot has come completely off the brake pedal. It’s somewhere between the turn-in point and apex. Using the EoB to judge when you begin braking (the BoB, or Begin-of- Braking) forces you to look further ahead, but more importantly, it provides your brain with the information it needs to know for when and how hard to apply the brakes.

Let’s stay with your vision for a moment. Approaching the turn-in point, your vision is moving from the point you use to reference where you initiate turning the steering to the apex, to the track-out or exit point, and scanning everything in between. Your vision is not a static thing, nor is it focused on one point, then another, then another, then another... in a steplike fashion. No, it flows forward and backward, and in between, in a smooth movement.

A reference point is not a point that you must do something at. You don’t have to have an exact point where you begin turning the steering into a corner. You might initiate your turn one car length after the end of some curbing, and in this case, the reference point is the end of the curbing, even though you don’t turn exactly at it. You reference off it. Or, as my friend Peter Krause says, you “index” off it.

Describing what you do with your eyes and where you’re looking is difficult, as it’s a constant movement. Look at the turn-in point; now, look at the apex; now, back to the turn-in point; through the apex and towards the end of the corner, or exit reference point; back to just in front of you to check your progress towards the apex; at the apex; to the exit point; at the apex again; behind the exit point; at the exit point; check line from apex to exit point; down the following straightaway; at the exit point; down the straight.... While that’s a general guide, understand that you’re constantly adapting it, and it’s not a connect-the-dots exercise. It’s a flowing scan of your vision. Your eyes move from what you’re glancing ahead towards, back to the reference point, glancing ahead, reference, glance, etc. — constantly scanning back and forth.

And that’s just what you do with your vision!