I agree, most will benefit from reading the books or being mentored by someone with experience. For someone just starting it is likely not immediately obvious the difference in line for low horsepower and high horsepower vehicles. Coming from cars someone may not appreciate how backwards setup for karts is compared to cars. Then seat time, seat time, seat time. Then read some more. There is surely nuances to the book missed until you have spent some seat time. Books are a source of theory. The track is the real world. It helps to have some source of theory before to try to implement in the real world, but practice, practice, practice is usually the only way to successfully turn the theory to results
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That’s actually literally what I’m NOT saying.
If you go out and you drive around 100 laps but you missed every apex and screwed up your braking for every corner, that wouldn’t be a good day’s work. Unless you understood that you were making mistakes and were able to work on that and improve next time. If you don’t even know you’re making mistakes, you’re just going to drive around and miss the apexes until someone tells you you’re doing it wrong or you read up and learn some things.
Here’s MY anecdote. Just like you, I also won the club championship in cadet in my first full season of racing, out of the back of a pick-up. Then I moved up to junior and realized I actually had no idea what I was doing behind the wheel, we had no idea how we were supposed to tune the kart, and we barely understood how gearing worked. We were totally lost in junior, and going to the track a practicing every week wasn’t helping us. Then I got some coaching, read some books, scoured the EKN forums, asked questions etc. and learned a lot and understood what lessons I needed to start applying. Then I started winning races again. Then I went to regional racing and got my ass kicked all over again. Asked more questions, read more stuff, got more coaching, understood again what I needed to change, and started winning regional races and national races. And even now, I look at my data every race day, break down what worked and what didn’t, applied knowledge gained, and went out and adjusted my driving or the kart based on that data.
I am in the seat 3-5 times a year the past few years. That’s it. I’ve done probably two practice days in the past two years. Anything I learned was definitely NOT from seat time, since I don’t have any. It’s been from reading, learning, and analyzing my own data.
So no, I’m not saying seat time is useless at all. I’m saying seat time is incredibly useful, under the condition that you’re working on the proper things and not just getting in the kart to get in the kart.
A baseball pitcher who throws for hours a day, but isn’t gripping the ball right isn’t going to improve his curveball. If his pitching coach comes along and says, “you need to hold the ball this way” and he practices for hours throwing with the correct grip, that’s useful. Otherwise he’s just wearing out his arm.
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Anecdote re seat time and I’m gonna be boring and talk sim again.
The whole point of sim is seat time. I run at least 100-200 laps a day.
If seat time were all that really mattered, my progression would likely be consistent and “time based”. And, to a certain extent, it is. I work my way up the leaderboard by virtue of seat time (rather than thinking about it).
But, there inevitably comes the wall. Without fail, something significant puts up a mental/physical roadblock that I have to push through.
And that’s when I have to think, ask etc. I refer to all the stuff Warren and TJ shared with me to try to understand how to get fast. Pavles recent thoughts opened up a whole new t1 at Avenger for me, for example.
And, when I am shown the way (or figure it out), it becomes a permanent part of my driving language. It becomes mine in a very real way.
Specifically, once I acheive whatever it is that I had been unable to do, I mentally absorb it, accept it, and stop questioning wether I can do it, and just do it from then on.
Learning is mental.
All things are old. Nothing is new. All art refers to past art, for example. We don’t exist in a vacuum and the march of progress is one that is collective. Individual brilliance will make the big intuitive leaps. But, even the natural and intuitive driver benefits from collective wisdom and experience. It provides him with the context to learn and grow and also provides a valuable way to leapfrog the bits where you are stuck.
Getting stuck is real. I spent 3 weeks trying to shave 1/10 to drop sub 45 on AMP. Three weeks of thinking/working on S1.
Now that I am past that hurdle, new hurdles have come up and the thinner the air, the less talent I have… I need all the help I can get.
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Maybe reading isn’t your thing. Maybe you don’t absorb info well that way. Some folks are more “show me”.
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