mistakes. takes too much time and costs too much money to make our own.

It can also hurt. But

don't worry about missing out on the experience; no matter how diligently you attempt to use
other people's mistakes as a learning springboard, you'll make plenty of your own. And, make no
mistake about it, race driving is something you learn. No matter how much talent and
determination you have been born with, there is a long and difficult learning process involved
before you can even think about making a living at it.
The first major step toward becoming a racing driver is taken when the Acolyte finally realizes
that those wondrous and unique talents for driving racing cars that he always believed God gave
to him alone were also given to just about everyone else on the track. And that he had best forget
about getting any here on unassisted talent.
WHAT DOES IT TAKE?
I am often asked what personal attributes are necessary to make a successful tracing driver. There
are several. We read that the racing driver must have abnormal reflexes, hand-eye coordination
and eyesight; that he can- not have much imagination (or intelligence); that he must be absolutely
fearless and finally that he must be blessed with huge amounts of money. Wrong on all counts!
There have been, are and will be very successful racing drivers who cannot see worth a damn
without corrective lenses. Try the story on Tom Sneva, Bobby Rahal, Paul Tracy, Jacques
Villeneuve or Brian Herta. What is required in the vision department is an exceptional ability to
focus one’s vision on the whole picture rather than on one particular object. This is more than
peripheral vision - it is more on the line of awareness.
Really good racing drivers are acutely aware of everything that is going on around them - just like
really good fighter pilots. You notice it when riding with them on the highway - they see things
that other people do not and not just good-looking ladies. Some of this ability is inborn and some
of it is developed. It is crucial so develop it.
Excellent reflexes and hand-eye coordination are necessary, but they need not be awesome
reflexes and hand-eye coordination cannot hurt and the “great” drivers are blessed with them.
Both can be improved by training. As a matter of fact, good racing drivers pick up things like
juggling and tennis very quickly.
The racing driver's reflexes seem abnormal because like all athletes, they have been trained and
conditioned. The truth of the reflex bit is that the successful racing driver does not react to what
the car does - he anticipates what the car is going to do and makes the car do what the wants it to
do. The driver’s speed comes from anticipation. Reflexes are what saves his anticipation (or the
car) fails.
For some obscure reason we seldom read that the racing driver requires an abnormal sense of
balance. He does. It has been said that the Earnhardt, Ervans, Kinsers, Mears, Prosts, Sennas,
Schumachers, Swinedells, Unsers of the world could walk high wires I don’t doubt it. Good racing
drivers are usually skiers and they can all ride skateboards right away. In the Immortal words of
the late, great Denny Hulme “It’s all a question of balance.”
To my mind “lack of imagination” implies a certain lack of intelligence - and I have never known
a successful racing driver who did not possess a high degree of intelligence (although I have
worked with a few drivers who will probably never believe I made that statement). The (non-
racing) journalists who have propagated this particular old saw seem to feel that a person of
normal imagination is just not going to allow himself to do anything that he, the journalist,
considers to be abnormally dangerous. Again, rubbish! The racing driver, like the fighter pilot,
the downhill skier, the rock climber - or for that matter, the policeman or the surgeon - has simply
trained himself to block out contra productive worry at times when it can serve no useful purpose.
This is a trait that each of us should cultivate. On the other hand, all of these people get a real high
from operating on the edge of fear. There is no doubt in my mind that the successful racing driver,
like the successful fighter pilot, must be a risk taker - but the risks must be calculated ones.
So far as the money end of things goes, this argument is usually advanced by the wannabees, the
could-have-beens and the should-have-beens- those who didn't make it and those who were afraid
to even try. I consider it to be just another form of poor mouthing. Try the argument on Mario
Andretti, Scott Pruett, Brian Till, Jimmy Vasser or, for that matter, Nigel Mansell you, I am not
saying that anyone is going to make is from the relief rolls or that great heaps of money are not
necessary to advance beyond Formula Ford. What I am saying is that, if a driver has the ability,
the discipline, the determination and the political acumen to make it in racing, then he will find a
way.
I don’t think that good drivers are fearless. There are people born without fear. They are,
thankfully, rare, and they don’t last very long in this business. Courage the ability to force yourself
to do something that you know can well and truly frighten you. Since racing, drivers frighten
themselves to varying degrees on daily basis, they possess courage by definition. The great ones
have maybe a little bit further – than the good ones.
Determination, combined with discipline, is that enables one to drive the racing car to the limit of
one’s
Determination, combined with discipline, is what enables one to drive the racing carto the limit
of one’s ability, after one has just succeeded in well and truly frightening (or even injuring) one’s
self. And those to me are the definitive words in describing the successful racing driver - discipline
and determination. What is required is a level of discipline usually found only in Saints - which
is admirable - together with a level of self-confidence usually found only in very good con men-
which is only partially admirable - and an inner selfishness that, in many ways, is not very
admirable at all. In order to be successful at his chosen profession, the racing driver must be a
truly selfish human being willing to subordinate and sacrifice anything and anybody to further his
career. The saving grace is that he must be at least as selfish with himself as with everyone else.
I am not saying that racing drivers do not make good and loyal friends - they do. Most of my
friends are or have been racing drivers. They even make good and loyal mates. It is just that the
racing driver’s friends and mates must realize, going in, that the driver will sell them down the
river for a chance at a better ride. They may regret doing it, fleetingly, but do it they will - and
they will not expect the act to materially affect the friendship. This is a way of life in which hard
cuts soft.
Whether through cause or effect, successful drivers are very hard men. Their friends and lovers
who are new to racing sometimes have a lot of trouble understanding their single-minded behavior
at the track - friends and lovers are left out of that part of their lives. The rest of us are fully aware
of it, we joke about it all the time. This factor does not bother me. It never has. If it ever does, it
will be time for me to leave.
The bottom line here is that exceptional talent, by itself, won’t get it done. What will get it done
is perseverance and a bottomless determination to succeed-an absolute refusal to quit or to be
beaten. There have been lots of young drivers with the God given driving talents of Prost, or
Senna, or Schumacher, or Unser. There have been very few with the mental toughness, dedication,
determination and perseverance. The driver whose proudest claim is that he used to beat the
current champion when they were both in Formula Fords is a “might have been”. He is also a
loser.
THE GOOD BOOKS
There have been dozens of books written purporting to describe the art of driving racing cars.
Most of them are simple biographies and, while entertaining, are of little value to the aspiring
driver. Those that are of value are of enormous value and should be read and re-read-preferably
before you read this one. They include, more or less in order of merit:
THE RACING DRIVER by Denis Jenkinson
A TWIST OF THE WRIST and THE SOFT SCIENCE
OF MOTORCYCLE ROAD RACING by Keith Code
TECHNIQUES OF MOTOR CYCLE ROAD RACING
by Kenny Roberts
THE ART OF MOTOR RACING by Emerson Fittipaldi and Gordon Kirby
AYRTON SENNA’S PRINCIPLES OF RACE DRIVING
by Ayrton Senna
COMPETITION DRIVING by Alain Prost and Pierre Francois Rousselot
THE ART AND SCIENCE OF GRAND PRIX DRIVING
by Niki Lauda
THE ACE FACTOR by Mike Spick
THE ART OF WINNING by Dennis Conner
Many of these books are available at your local library. All except the last two are available from
my good friends at Motor books International (see the Appendix).
None of these books will teach you how to drive a racing car - or to race. As Wilbur Wright once
said: “Sitting on a fence and watching birds doesn’t teach you a thing about learning how to fly;
you’ve got to get in there and do it.”
In each case what the author has to say about the physical act of driving the car is of nowhere near
as much value as what he has to say - either directly or between the lines - about the discipline,
dedication and attitude required to win motor races at the highest level of the sport. Without
exception, the champions take their racing very seriously indeed. Also, virtually without
exception, they gave up most of the normal “good things in life” for a period of several years in
order to get there.
THE FACTS OF LIFE
One of things that I point out to the legion of aspiring driver who approach me every year is that
in order to get to the top in motor racing, except for brief moments, you have to be willing to give
up almost everything else in life, until you have advanced to the point at which a living can be
made driving.
If you are uncomfortable with this concept, it is time to seriously reconsider your career options.
The second thing that I stress is that speed, by itself, is not enough. Even speed combined with
consistency and intelligence is not enough. You must win!
Niki Lauda once pointed out that all of the good drivers, given the same car, would produce very
similar lap times. But only a few drivers in each series, from Club Formula Ford to Formula One,
honestly win races. Odd, isn't it? What's more, with a few exceptions, most of the "winning"
drivers started winning very early in their careers and continued winning as they moved up.
The third thing that I point out on this subject is that winning races, by itself, will not necessarily
advance your career. I have just returned from the last CART race of 1995. There were at least
three drivers with proven winning records wandering around on foot while several others who
have never won a race and who show no sign of ever winning one were being paid to drive Indy
Cars – as well as several more wo will never win another one. We all start out firmly believing
that if we win enough races, the Big Time will come and find us. It will not. You have to go and
find it. The inescapable fact of racing life is that the driver himself must get out there and find the
rides/sponsorship that will advance his career.
The last thing I point out is that the business is so demanding and the competition so fierce that
you can-not afford to give anything away.
This means no drugs whatsoever. The long- and short-term effects of even "recreational usage"
of drugs as supposedly benign as marijuana on the workings of the brain are medical fact, not
conjecture. For the same rea-son it means damned little if any alcohol.
It also means getting yourself into peak physical condition and keeping yourself there. This, by
the way, is not because driving the racing car takes much in the way of strength - it is because of
two of the basic facts of driving.
The first is that the driver spends his working life in a very debilitating environment - even in
open cock-pit, mid-engined racing cars, it is hot, debilitatingly hot. Even the air you breathe is
hot. To compound this, the driver is encased in at least three layers of Nomex. What we need is
physical and mental endurance, not physical strength.
The second fact is that, as we become physically tired, our brain slows down, and our decision-
making capacity deteriorates. The racing driver needs none of this. The driver needs an optimum
diet and an optimum training program - more about this later.
My attitude towards all this is the same as that of every professional racing team manager (as
opposed to the rent-a-ride team manager, who is liable to have different standards and to be after
different results).I am simply not interested in any driver who doesn't care enough (or isn't
intelligent enough) to get himself in shape. Except at the end of a long day of testing I do not ever
want to hear a driver say, "because I was (or am) tired". I will not hear it three times from the
same driver.
Sometimes I feel my attitude toward many of the young drivers in our sport is at least approaching
that of a crusty old curmudgeon. I have been accused, frequently, of demanding too much. I don't,
most of the time, think that either of the above is valid. I make the same demands of the drivers I
work with that I always have - and that I make of myself and of every member of the team. Those
who have whatever it is that it takes to climb to the top of the heap have never said that my
demands on them were excessive - quite the opposite in fact.
I don't mind seeing mt drivers at the cocktail par-ties or in the bar but they had better be drinking
what they are chasing - virgin Marys.
My point is simple. If you can be happy without driving racing cars, then you should not drive
them. However, if drive them you must, then you might as well learn to do it properly. As George
Harrison once said, "If you're going to be born and be in a rock band, you may as well be in the
Beatles."
THE RISE OF TECHNOLOGY
For some years we have been reading that advancing technology has changed everything in motor
racing and, specifically, has reduced the driver's role virtually to that of a spectator. To this I say;
"Rubbish, the driver has always been somewhere between 60% and 80%of the performance
equation - and he always will be! They don't pay Berger, Earnhardt, Mansell, Schumacher, and
Unser that kind of money because they like them".
I will also say that, should this ever change, I will leave the sport. Motor racing, as I have lived
it, is meant to be a contest between men in machines, not between the machines themselves. The
machines are merely tools for the men. The way that I look at it, the racing car is to the racing
driver as the hammer is to the carpenter. The difference is that the carpenter buys his hammer
while the racing driver develops his racing car.
That statement leads us to what actually has changed in the last decade or so. What has changed
is the driver's role in the great scheme of things. Once upon a time - when I was young and for
the sixty odd years of motor racing before that time - very little on the racing car was adjustable.
The driver pretty much drove what the team gave him and there wasn't much sense in bitching
about the car because there wasn't much that could be done about it.
As late as the legendary Mercedes domination of Grand Prix racing in the Fifties, Ing. Uhlenhaut
was astonished (and pleased, I am glad to say) that Fangio and Moss were able to drive the W
196 hard enough to both find and utilize the final oversteer characteristic he had designed into the
car. It wasn't until Cooper, Chapman, Broadley and Tauranac made everything on the car
adjustable in the 1960s that the "whinging driver" syndrome came into being.
Time was that the driver's job was mainly done on Sundays. Testing and practice were for
determining final drive ratio (for the straight(s), not the corners – that option wasn't there)
optimum tires and pressures for the circuit, how much front toe-in to run and what jets to put in
the carburetors. Now, if the driver does his job properly during testing and practice, Sunday is
liable to come as a reward.
Not only is everything on the car adjustable, but the day when a superior driver could carry a
mediocre car on his shoulders into the winner's circle are long gone (except on street circuits in
the lower classes of professional racing, about which more later). Not only can the superior driver
not carry a mediocre car into the winner's circle, unless the car is pretty close to right, he cannot
even push it onto the podium.
With all of the electronic data gathering equipment- both on board and telemetered - in use, the
most sensitive and accurate data gathering device at our com-mand is still the racing driver. In all
probability this will always be so. The driver is the only instrument which can feel the "balance"
of the racing car under the endless variety of track and traffic conditions – and relate what he feels
to us poor engineers in some com-prehensible form.
An often overlooked aspect of on board data gathering is that unless the driver involved is able to
drive the car to its limits - and to do so consistently - the da-ta gathered will only serve to confuse
everyone concerned.
So what has actually changed is not the driver's importance in the performance equation, but part
of his role in it. He is now almost as much of a data gatherer/filter/interpreter as he is a racer.
Mind you, the best and most sensitive test driver in the world would be useless unless he were
also a highly skilled, aggressive and intelligent racing driver. This is why Prost and Senna got the
big bucks - they, more than anyone in this generation, combined the at-tributes of test driver and
racing driver into one man. Between the two of them they won 92 Grands Prix.
On the other hand, Mansell, World Champion, winningest Brit of all time and a less than brilliant
development driver, dominated CART - for one year. Some people can seemingly break the rules
- but only with a very experienced team who employ a good development driver (Andretti Sr. -
awesome).
McLaren's 1989 mistake was not in choosing Senna over Prost, but in allowing Prost to revitalize
Ferrari. They should have either shot him or paid him the national debt to go to CART!
Fortunately for the Brits, Enzo Ferrari died and the traditional Italian disorganizational genius did
the rest.
Further, while I decry the arrival of such techno-logical marvels as active suspension, anti-lock
brakes, active differentials and automatic mechanical gearboxes, their advent was inevitable and
they will not change the driver contribution to the equation. The genius driver will merely have
fewer distractions (housekeeping chores someone called them) and more time to de-vote to his
art.
Anyway, while this book has a lot to do with the driving of the racing car, it has as much to do
with the relationship between the racing driver, the racing car, the engineer, the crew, the sponsors
and the road to the top.
STARTING OUT
I get a lot of questioning (as well as questionable) letters. I also get a lot of questioning phone
calls and a lot of in-person questions. The technical questions are fun. They get my brain working
and lead to a certain amount of consulting work. Unfortunately, the most popular question has no
real answer. Every aspiring driver in the world seems to feel that there is some sort of yellow
brick road that leads to the opportunity to drive some-one else's racing car(s). Further, a large
percentage of these worthies seem to think that I am the custodian of the road map. I am not.
As a point of interest, I also do not hold the key to entry level racing car design jobs. My answer
there has always been, "Fly to England; hang a digitizer pick around your neck and start knocking
on doors." Both of the young engineers who took that advice were hired within two weeks of their
arrival.
So far as the race track engineer position is concerned, the entry level job is data geek and
electronics guy - both in CART and IMSA. One friend got hired by a leading CART team by the
simple expedient of asking Pi Research to train him in England. Clever man, Barry O'Toole - well
done!
The question that I hear most is, "I don't have the money to buy and run a car, but I know that I
have the talent and the determination to succeed - how do I get started?"
You get started, my friend, any way that you can. Itis highly unlikely that you are going to earn
enough money to finance your racing while you are young enough to still have a career in racing.
This leaves convincing someone to provide either a ride or a car and the money to run it, selling
the family whatever, robbing a bank or renting your sister/girlfriend/wife by the hour, day, week
or month. Again, if you are not comfortable with this concept, reconsider your career options.
I don't think that I have changed much in the past 40 years. I am certain that there has been no
fundamental change in the nature of motor racing. What I believe has happened, however, is that
changes in our society have brought into motor racing (and into the world in general) a previously
unthinkable amount of money - along with a generation of relatively affluent young people, many
of whom are unfamiliar with the concepts of 'struggle', 'determination', 'dedication' and 'earn your
way'.
I am not talking here about personal wealth. World-wide, the top ranks of road racing have always
contained a healthy percentage of men born to wealth -and they always will. The kind of hunger
that gets a man to the top is not physical.
The percentage of drivers on a Grand Prix grid who are being paid, bringing sponsorship money
with them or paying for the ride has been remarkably constant for almost a century. There has
never, however, been a time when wealth - by itself or even combined with natural talent - could
get one to the top of professional motor racing. That takes enormous amounts of ruthless de-
termination and single-minded dedication.
It must be admitted, of course, that, given the requisite amounts of talent, dedication and
determination, dollars accelerate the learning curve a whole lot. Again, the basic thing to
remember here is the old rule that, no matter what aspect of engineering or of human performance
is being discussed, hard cuts soft - every time.
This is a brutally competitive business which must be played with other people's money. It takes
a hardman to get to the apex of the pyramid. He will use people to get where he wants to go - but
he will be as hard on himself as he is on anyone else or he will simply not get there. Period. End
of story.
One last time: if you are not comfortable with this concept, reconsider your choice of profession.
Of course, the old saying that, "You had better be nice to people on your way up because you are
going to meet the same people on your way back down" is absolutely true. Itis not necessary to
be anal to get ahead. So far as I know, Dan Gurney and Phil Hill still have all of their surviving
old friends. If we were to query the top twenty professional road racing drivers in the world at
any given time, we would find that they got to where they are by twenty different routes. The
routes would have a lot in common (Karts, Formula Ford, Formula Three or Atlantic and conning
people out of money/rides). What's worse, getting started is only the beginning. The better you
get at it, the more you develop whatever talent and determination you turn out to have, the more
it is going to cost to keep going - let alone to advance your career.
No matter how much talent you may have and no matter how many races you may win, there are
damned few free rides in the minor leagues and, with the exception of a few all-too-rare patrons
of the sport, no one is going to pay you to drive a road racing car until you get to the big time.
This is one of the great problems with motor racing - you don't get paid at all until you get to the
big leagues.
Worldwide, two basic problems face the masses of young people who think that they are ready to
kill in or-der to become professional road racing drivers:
1) There are maybe 1000 people in the world making any kind of a decent living driving any kind
of racing car. There are maybe 100 doing so in road racing cars. There are at least hundreds of
thou-sands who think that they both want to and can. Each and every one of the hundreds of
thousands is absolutely convinced that he (she) has the talent and determination required to reach
the top.
2) The capital outlay required to reach the level of skill and experience where someone might be
willing to pay you to drive any racing car is silly. That required to get you to the point where
someone might pay you to drive a road racing car in the USA is awesome.
In the United States of America these problems are com-pounded by the simple fact that there
exists no logical road to professional status. It's not like the stick and ball games where the
progression from the sand lot to the big leagues is almost as formalized as the progression from
grammar school to a University degree. With the exception of Skip Barber's munificent $100,000
bonus to the winner of the Barber/Dodge series (which is still not enough to move up with), there
are no scholar-ships for students of motor racing, no matter how worthy or how needy they may
be.
In Europe, Japan, and even in Canada, the road to Formula One or Indianapolis, for the determined
few, leads from Sprint Karts to Formula Ford (or Formula Renault or Formula Fiat) through
Vauxhall/Lotus to Formula Three or 3000. Any of the steps along the way may be skipped
(Formula 3000, supposedly the last hurdle before Fl, is often bypassed) but the path is there.
Corporations, national sanctioning bodies and racing teams are actually looking for outstanding
talent. In many cases they are willing and able - assuming that the talent is matched by at least
equal amounts of political and business acumen - to nurture and, to some extent, to financially
support outstanding talent. As an example, in 1993 there were four drivers being paid to drive
Toyota Formula Atlantic cars in the US and Canada. All four were Canadians, sponsored by
Canadian corporations. Just to make things more emphatic, the opening CART, Indy Lights and
Formula Atlantic races of 1995 were all won by Canadians