SPACED CADETS

Tony your incite into the feeling we experience when in that groove that you spoke of in your race report reminded me of a book I once read. Back in the early 80’s when my life goals were fluxuating between my career in art and engineering I came across the book, “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain”. Of course there is a web site covering it now.
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The premise was based on the then new understandings of how the brain works and the split between how the human brain process information. In most brains the left side deals with symbols and the right with spatial input. One of my favorite exercises from the book when introducing people to drawing was to copy a line drawing by Picasso of a man sitting in a chair, the idea was to draw the picture upside down. This would remove the left brain tenancy to draw with symbols. The typical drawing of a stick figure, a circle as a head and ellipse for eyes etc. and let the right hand side take over and force you to draw the lines as they are related to each other in space. After reading the book the first time I tried it with my youngest son who was 8 at the time and much to a father’s ego a not very talented artist. When we compared our drawings it was amazing how he had suddenly appeared to have acquired a skill level of a trained artist. Thought his line work was tentative his composition was accurate.
The point the author and I are trying to make is that we can train ourselves into utilizing both sides of our brain. Over the last thirty years much has been discovered about the functions of the brain and this fact has been well documented. So with a bit of awareness training we can put ourselves into the spatial realm of which you spoke of, at will.
In a previous post someone mentioned that when we make one error on track it is usually followed by another shortly after. This is caused by allowing our left hemisphere to start informing us in symbolic terms as to the cause and possible corrections we will need to perform to prevent the mistake from happening again. In fact we loose the spatial realm we require to race.
I was thinking of this exact problem last night while trying to catch up to Richards time on the Green Hell in the 997. I figured all I had to do was collect about a second a kilometer each lap. Thinking and driving do not mix well with me and I was actually losing time and driving a lot more raggedly than before.
Well that’s a bit of fluff for the day.
Stay loose Space Cadets :lol!:

yes, this post speaks volumes to me...

once I was able to settle in and get in a rhythm, I seemed to manage consistent times (taking traffic into account ofcourse), but wasn't particulary aware of doing so (the minimum input or thinking part). I think the repetition can set a mechanism in motion that maybe delegates the tasks between the two parts of the brain..to lessen the load on one side...

This point is very relevant..to me anyway..because I try to visualize the car in motion...try to fit it into space. the computer screen is 2 dimensional, so your eyes are reporting to the brain with limited info, and it is inturn guessing where the car is.., this is where you need to rely on your brain to map out the spatial area that the screen can't provide. I remember once a reading something from Michael Schumacher saying that while driving, he endeavors to visualize the circuit some 3 or even 4 corners ahead of where he is at any given time....always trying to place the car on the track, where he wants it to be at that second and the second to follow. Meanwhile, the hands and feet are working in the 'here and now', working in the present or recent past if you are sliding, braking, etc....

I think when all the thought processes are working together, you hit this plateau of cognition...a collection of cognitive processes

Definition of COGNITIVE

1: of, relating to, being, or involving conscious intellectual activity (as thinking, reasoning, or remembering) <cognitive impairment>
2: based on or capable of being reduced to empirical factual knowledge

anyway, it goes on and on...

but don't believe Jeremy Clarkson when he says that the Stig is a thick moron, you have to stretch your brain to be good at this I think.


Auto racing, bull fighting, and mountain climbing are the only real sports… all the others are games. – Ernest Hemingway

to me this quote identifies three sports that need an acute understanding of spatial perception.