[FUNDAMENTALS] GET UP TO SPEED QUICKLY ON A NEW RACETRACK, PART 2

Homework and objectives that bring speed immediately

Two-time 500cc Grand Prix World Champion Freddie Spencer applied a straightforward and highly effective approach to learning new racetracks: attack corner exits first. He would then bring up corner-entry pace until the exits were compromised. At that point, real speed arrived in just a handful of laps. Sometimes, even quicker.

Scott Russell, the 1993 Superbike World Champion and a Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series race-winner, had the opposite approach: pure chaos. Scott would tear out of pit lane like he was on the final lap of a GP battling for the victory, pushing brake markers to the edge of the precipice. Occasionally, he slipped over the edge and off the track.

Spencer and Russell took two very different paths to finding the limits on an unfamiliar track. So, which method is correct? And more importantly, will focusing on one or the other help you? I’ve spent a lot of time listening to both Spencer and Russell, asking them questions, and even sharing the track with them, studying both cases to fully understand what was happening.

With some time and serious reflection, the answer became clear to me: Both approaches are correct. They are very different, but at the end of the day, they deliver the same information. By decoding each one, I built a repeatable process that delivers clear, actionable objectives that anyone, from novice to pro, can execute immediately and safely.

The process begins with knowledge objectives and a paper track map. Let’s get after it.