Quote:
Originally Posted by Sirref
@ Misti when you say to draw the track do you mean draw the line or do you mean to actually draw the corners and what you see from your turn in point like a landscape
I have done the former a few times and have noticed it's effect since it helped me focus more on my overall plan around the track and focus on the bigger picture. I was talking with TPM's Glen Goldman yesterday about sacrificing a little speed in one of the fastest corners at njmp to get a better entry into the following corner (only on the little bikes) because the little bikes don't have the power to get drive out of that corner the extra entry speed is needed.
1. I made it a point in practice yesterday to break off line. Breaking off line helped a lot with my comfort in understanding how my entries affected my exits, it also helped me a lot in the race to have comfort to ride out the corners and more understanding of when I could get on the throttle if I made a slight error in my entry due to pushing.
I had a coach follow me around and his synopsis of my riding was simply that I needed to break out of my comfort zone and trust myself more. Still working on that but focusing on just doing a little better each lap has helped quite a bit already
2. Reaffirming focus on reference points is the remedy, this allows for your peripheral vision to locate the other riders and also prevents you from being swallowed up into their rhythm, while breaking your own
@cc_cowboy I'm talking both, it's actually easier for me to pass while racing since I'm in a mental state of needing to get around them rather than kind of wanting to during a track day session
also thank you for the reminder, it helped out a lot to consider my exits as I decided how I wanted to enter each corner.
I learned a lot yesterday from playing around with my line choice rather than riding with my normal lines which I would typically never deviate from |
This sounds great!!! When I say draw the track I mean get out a blank piece of paper and without looking at a track map, draw the entire track from memory and then add any reference points that you have (apex markers, brake markers, trees or skid marks or bridges or signs or whatever YOU use to get yourself around). From there you can usually see a pattern. The areas on your map that you have a lot of solid reference points are typically the ones that you feel the most comfortable with while the other areas are usually more vague.
I'm really happy to hear that changing up your lines helped you feel more confident. This is HUGE and is something I even did during my AMA racing, so that I KNEW exactly how I had to alter my riding if I passed up the inside of a corner, or if I was pushed out wide....
Now, as for trusting yourself more and breaking out of your comfort zone....it's not usually something you can just do...it comes from improving specific things so that you DO feel more confident.
Think about it this way, if you KNEW exactly where you wanted to be and exactly where you wanted to go on the track, do you think you would trust yourself more to be able to get there? IF you had exact braking markers and points to aim for would you feel more confident carrying more speed? IF you had excellent vision that remained wide and didn't narrow down or succumb to tunnel vision, would you be able to go fast without even feeling like you were going faster?
See where I'm heading with this?
