Fooling my mind even more
One thing that I noticed over the first few days, even on Day 3, when clicked off a session of nearly 20 laps in a row, was that I wasn’t sweating as much as I usually do when I drive in real-life. One reason might be that usually before I get into a real race car, I get all suited up and then do light plyometric exercises, stretches and even a planned jog to and from the bathroom. 9 times out 10, before I get into the race car, I already have a healthy sweat going.
Right now we live in an apartment, with people above and below us. I am doing my simulator driving between 5:30 and 6am, of which most people are still sleeping, so I haven’t been doing my warm up exercises but what I started were two things:
- Meditating: This is something I’ve taken up over the past 8-10 months, using an app called Headspace. This is for a different post but I can’t be a bigger proponent of meditation and how it’s improved my overall quality of life.
- Wearing a racing suit: I got a new racing suit last year and that meant I had my original racing suit just lying around, so I decided to bring it back into service by wearing a full layer of clothes underneath (to mimic the fire retardant underwear I wear in real life), the suite itself, a pair of karting gloves I got for Christmas and ideally, my original racing shoes (of which I keep forgetting to get out of my RV).
Did it work? Yes, I think but definitely did not hurt.
I think so on a couple levels, first – I was definitely warmer and built up an actual sweat. Not like the sweats I’ve built up in actual iRacing races but enough to know my body is working to stay cool. I can’t say that I felt more or less in the zone but it sure as heck didn’t hurt.
I also decided to strap on the Next Level Racing 4-point harness that came with cockpit and while I don’t love it, the other day I was moving my car on our new property with no seat belt on, and that felt weird. So I can definitely tell when I don’t have a harness on and by putting it on, that is one less variable that might crawl into my brain as I’m driving.
This year the harnesses in my BMW PRO3 car expired, and a new set of Schroth harnesses were installed, so there is a used set that I will eventually install on the rig, along with some metal mounting bars and plates so that it feels the same as in the car and I actually have an old Sparco seat, that I used before getting this cockpit. I am not a huge guy, so it feels like I am not as secure as I am in my racing seat.
Two steps forward: Another .5 second drop!
So how did the actual driving go? My goal was to keep doing the same things I learned in Day 3 and be able to hammer out regular 1:21.xxx lap times, versus the regular 1:22.xxx times I had on Day 2.
Success! Literally, on the first flying lap, I was able to get back near my personal best and then I improved it again, dropping to a 1:20.628, another almost .6 second improvement. HOLY CRAP!!
I didn’t do anything really different, I just decided to apply that technique of braking sooner, lighter and rolling more speed into the corners to all the corners. Here’s where the gains were made:
- Look – no brakes! The first thing is that the s-curves, I found a way to get the car pointed on the downhill section of ‘The Esses’. Huge gain there.
- Less brake, the line? I am actually not sure what happened in the chicane there but I think it might be a combination of just ever so slightly less brakes, more steering input to get the car turned and going. Thoughts?
One step backward: Consistency at the limit
That’s awesome but I took a break after that stint from the excitement, recollected my thoughts and went again to try and just replicate this new 1:20.xxx lap times but it didn’t happen. I was making mistakes all over the place and the worst section was Turn 3. As I was carrying more speed out of turn 1, through 2, I wasn’t getting the car straightened before braking and that caused it to either get sideways at the top of the hill or even worse, to cut the corner too hard on turn 3, which would upset the car horribly.
I tried multiple times and just felt myself getting frustrated, so I decided to call it a day as my hour was up. Tomorrow’s goal? Come in with a cool head, focused and not looking for more time, just a solid run of high 1:20.xxx and low 1:21.xxx lap times.