Distractions: The Karting Silent Killer

The slightest wandering of your mind is what creates mistakes. This might cost you a tenth or send you into the wall. Learn how to eliminate all distraction.

Welcome to a free edition of Terence Dove on Racing Drivers. This week, I'm tackling what I believe to be the most important topic I've ever covered. It doesn't matter if you're racing cars, karts or sims; this is the number one factor that determines whether you have a good day at the track, a great session, or a superb race.

The audio above goes into more detail, and video examples are right at the end.

Here’s what you’ll learn this week:

1. The 12 most common distractions that sabotage racing drivers' performance

2. A powerful 3-level hierarchy of purpose to fill your mind and block out distractions

3. How to use your existing corner knowledge to drive with razor-sharp focus

When you make a mistake due to ‘brain fade’ its hard to even explain what happened.

The purpose of this article is to ensure that you never get in a kart again without knowing exactly what you're doing and why. I want to equip you with the tools to lock out distractions, to not even open the door to the possibility of being distracted.

So What is a Distraction?

Warning: the language in this video is full on super swearing BUT its the perfect example of distraction taking down a driver. There’s nothing more illustrative in existence - sorry!

I'd say just about everything when you're driving is a distraction. It's stuff that takes your attention as you go off into that weird state of driving. It's quite a nice, almost meditative state sometimes, but it leaves you very vulnerable to start thinking.

And when your mind wanders off just a little bit, you make mistakes, and that’s deadly if you want to be a great driver!

Here's a list of common distractions:

1. Going out with a blank mind: This is the first way to make yourself vulnerable to distraction. If you hit the track and just say, "Right, I'm just gonna get in and drive, let's see what happens," you're literally keeping an open mind, leaving the door wide open. Everything you look at becomes a distraction.

2. Racing and overtaking: This is a massive distraction. Looking at other drivers, thinking about them, wondering what they're thinking, predicting what they're going to do – these are all distractions from your driving. Obviously, you can't avoid going head-to-head with other drivers, but you've got to prepare for it and know how you're going to deal with them.

3. Problems: Whether it's graphics issues on the simulator or setup problems with the kart, any little thing you notice can become a distraction. You start thinking, "I need to change this," and before you know it, you're missing apexes.

4. Desire to go quicker: This is a real killer. It's natural to want to improve your times, but if you let this desire consume you, you'll start trying random things and before you know it, you've gone wide.

5. Something someone told you: It could be a comment from your mechanic, a piece of advice, or even criticism. If it pops into your head while you're driving, it can trigger a cascade of thoughts that pull you out of the zone. You start replaying the conversation in your head as you're driving.

6. Self-esteem stuff: Any little mistake or somewhere you lose time can create a cascade of thought, like "I'm no good at this, I've done it again, what an idiot." Then you create this narrative in your head of why you're no good, maybe even a counter-narrative trying to cheer yourself up. It's all irrelevant distraction.

7. Fitness: Any lack of fitness creates distraction – aches, pains, fatigue. It immediately takes you out of perfect concentration.

8. Getting something right: Very often, if you get something right and randomly hit a line that works perfectly, you don't just think, "Oh, that was cool, I'll log that." Instead, drivers go, "Oh, that was good. Why is that? What did I do before getting into that?" They're analysing a whole scenario and replaying it in their head as they're driving. Proper focus is gone.

9. Splits and lap times: Whether they're good or bad, splits and lap times coming up on the dash can trigger a lot of processing. You start thinking about where you lost or gained time, and that's useless because you've got the data anyway, so you can analyse it when you get back.

10. Damage and budget: A lot of drivers who aren't loaded think about not being able to afford to bend the kart. That's just a distraction. As soon as you go out on the track, the kart and everything about it has to become completely disposable; otherwise, you're handicapping yourself.

11. Emotions: Anger, fear, regret, relief, joy – any emotional reaction can be a trigger to start thinking about why you feel the way you do. It's fine to have emotions on the track if they just fuel your driving like a chemical that gets into your blood, but when you start imagining what you're going to do about them, it takes you out of focus.

12. Human stuff: Animalistic reactions, like threats to your status from another driver doing something, can trigger instinctive, prehistoric responses that get you thinking when you should be driving.

13. All the stuff you have to do when you're not in the kart: There are tons of things that you should be doing during the day, but not when you're driving. They can pop into your head – dealing with a sponsor, something embarrassing you said. We need to kill that sort of stuff when it emerges.

These distractions have to be nipped in the bud immediately. And even if you do manage to push them out, they'll probably try to resurface. That's why it's so important to have a strong, clear purpose every time you get in the kart. A purpose that fills your mind so completely that there's no room for these distractions to take hold.

So it does raise the question: distractions, but from what? From what are you being distracted? That's the thing you have to get clear about first.

Build a Fortress Against Distractions – Your Racing Purpose Hierarchy

You need a strong purpose, or set of purposes, with a hierarchy that gives you clear motivation.

Then you've got something that should be dominating your mind as you're driving.

Every time you're heading down a straight towards a corner, you want your mind at every level to be completely filled with unquestioned purpose. There should be no blank spaces where a distracting thought can take root.

If you're fully occupied with the right things, any stray distractions that do manage to get through will stick out like a sore thumb. You'll be able to swat them away with a simple, "Nope, not dealing with that now. I know what I'm doing."

Filling Your Mind with the Right Purpose

So, how do you make sure your mind is filled with the right stuff? It's all about having a clear hierarchy of purposes.

1. Ultimate purpose. This is your big 'why' for racing and being a racing driver. Whatever it is, this is the unwavering core that everything else is built upon.

   
   This keeps the back of your mind straight and on point, so it is less likely to come up with irrelevant dumb thoughts as you drive.
   

2. Today’s purpose. This needs to be the specific reason you are at the track today. For example "I'm here to drive exactly the same all day so we can evaluate these 3 motors". If your session purpose is just "to get some laps in" or "to test a few things out", that's leaving the door wide open for distraction.
   
   This keeps your mind on the mission and will stop the temptation to try something new like suddenly brake 10m later.

3. Live corner-by-corner purpose. This is your detailed plan of attack for each part of the track that directs your mind as you actually drive. It's about knowing exactly what you need to do at each phase of the corner to execute it perfectly.
   
   This has to be a constant live mental direction that refreshes exactly how you do each corner just before you reach it.

When you have this hierarchy of purposes crystal clear in your mind, there's no room for distraction to sneak in.

Without this clarity of purpose, you might as well not even bother getting in the seat. You're just wasting your time.

So how do you get to this point of clarity?

It starts with figuring out what right looks like. For every corner, you need to define exactly what you do when you nail it. And if there's any uncertainty, any of this "sometimes it's like this, sometimes it's like that"? Then you don't really know.

I’m certain you already know a solid way to run each corner already. Stick to it while you practice zero-distraction driving

Run through each corner in your mind, figure out a completely solid, reliable way to attack it. This isn't about taking big risks. It's about knowing exactly what you know you can do, focusing on the things you know work ok for now, and you have done before.

When you drive with this level of mental clarity, and hit each corner to such a straightforward plan, blocking the possibility of any distraction at all, you’ll start to really feel all your senses open up.

Things get very easy, and you’ll start to feel the magic. You will also find it very easy to find time because you unlock so much mental capacity.

Your current corner plans will start to feel really slow, and you will naturally update them and go a lot faster, and you’ll find it VERY natural.

It should go like this:

Not like this:

Now, here's a little bonus tip. Once you've mastered this mental game, you can start using it to your advantage against other racers.

As a bonus, understanding the things that distract you also gives you insight into how to distract your opponents. I might be a bit evil for suggesting this, but if you're the type who enjoys mind games, you can use this knowledge to plant seeds of distraction in other drivers' minds. Comment on their fitness, mess with their sense of status, get them obsessing over setup details. It's a bit Machiavellian and maybe not for everyone, but it's an option.

Thanks for reading!

Terence