[The Debrief] Do you have an on-track routine?
What constitutes an on-track routine and how to build your own.
I just finished two days at Thunderhill raceway in Northern California, teaching at a Carters@TheTrack Novice School. It’s a great environment, with two groups of 15-20 students, alternating 45 minutes of classroom theory, then 45 minutes on track, working on the topic we just discussed with instructors keyed into what students are working on. During one of the post session debriefs on the second day, the question was asked, “When riding for myself at a trackday, how do I prioritize the fundamentals and how to I structure my sessions?”
It’s a great question and speaks exactly to the principles underpinning the Order of the Sport. What should I be working on? When can I move to the next thing? How do I know I did it right? Having a clear-cut process and phased progression for improvement also helps with our natural tendency to want to work on everything all at once. To be clear: you are not going to get everything right every corner, every lap. That is true for all riders and drivers, whether novice or pro. I can count on one hand how many “perfect” corners I have achieved! But consistent improvement comes from working on one thing at time, with 100% focus, in order to build the correct technical habits into your subconscious and your muscle memory. Only then, once basic proficiency is established, do we move on to the next item.
This is where building your on-track routine comes in. First, what is a routine and why do we need one? A routine is a sequence of tasks or actions that are built and prioritized according to what it is important at a certain time. Almost all of us have some sort of routine(s) during our day — when we get up in the morning, structuring our workday, before going to bed, etc. We do the things that are important to us at certain points in time and we don’t do the things that aren’t. The cool thing about a routine is that we automatically default to it when it’s appropriate, and we know immediately when something takes us out of it.
An on-track routine serves the same purpose and is a cornerstone for improvement. I cover the topic in-depth in Podcast #69 - Why you need an on-track routine and how to build it. This episode explains how to know what is and what isn’t important in your riding routine, what elements it should include, and in what order. A part two will be coming in the near future (subscribers, leave me any comments or questions that you’d like me to address).
Sir K.H.,
I'm glad to have reached this place in your materials. Sifting thorugh all this valuable content, and being zealous to absorb, it's easy to get lost in the sauce. Overthinking has been a flaw of mine and the balance between preperations, building track routines, focus exercises beta/alpha waves, bike maintenance, tire temps, geo/suspensh settings, and all the energy that I spend on "feeling" my gyroscope and feeling the tires and feeling the tire load-- whoa! lots.
So YESSS I'd love the KH adjustement to my approach- the KH redirect of focus if ya will! How does coach think I should catagorize and distill all this info to my most effecient use? Specifically for a EX competitior that's reborn into just a wannabe track hero. I have the applied experience and success of much of what you're coaching addresses, but I've been gone from the game so long that Im not totally sure what the best things to focus on for me will be especially considering my pivot in goals since I did this last time.
Just for the record, I did train specifically to be on a GP bike for 45 min stints and maintaining 150-165bpm. Was the first time on track after 8 years, was on a totally new racetrack I'd never seen before (parhump) and on a used but new to me RSV4 trackbike, so I spent lots of mental space on 1) feeling the bike and looking for track refrence points. 2) bike prep (cuz its new to me so I tinkered for houuuurs on it. 3) Riding position ( I was kinda uncomfortable mid corner and exit, aware of bar presssure, and peg pressures, head and hip positioning.... kinda clogged me with too much thinking mid corner about myself. 4) thought a tonn about the slowest part of the corner and how to get there smoothest with max grip on the front (and this was before I subscribed to you and heard your content on slowest part of the corner) but I'm not sure I should be thinking about this so much? especially as someone not needing the absolute FAAASTEST LAPtime?
Dispite doing many of these tasks you speak of successfully in the past, my lack of direction in what to work on is forged from the fact that NOW, I'm not longer doing this as a competitor... I don't want to win races anymore-I just wanna be shockingly smooth, technically immaculate, and allow the narcotic strength of focus be the collateral effect that track riding gives back to my regular daily thought. Perhaps this means the routines and things I'm used to thinking/working on that were "win race" could use adjustment. I'nm thinking my race threory approach needs changing, to allow learning the more appropriate things applicable to my current personal "no racin', but go crazy smooth/fast goals"? I'd love a KH track day drill amd focus package from ya!