I wasn't going to complain, but I'm tired of what I call mid race jitters.
Every race I have ran, at about the 19 minute mark, I just get so nervous that I cannot hit my Mark's or modulate brakes and throttle inputs. It becomes difficult to even look far enough ahead to plan for what's coming.
Has anyone dealt with something like this? It's becoming frustrating to see my pace just fall off due to stress, and most of the time, I am not being contested by anyone. Any advice would be appreciated.
Obviously I am not the best, or near the best, but this has helped me.
The best thing I can think of is to race more with other people if you do not do it. Racing against AI is not bad but what you do not get is the vagaries of other humans. AI can mimic what a human may do, but it will not make the same decisions a human will do. This can help when you find yourself in traffic. I rarely race against AI any more. I can learn to react to humans only by racing against humans.
Learn to concentrate and feel the car. With the tires as they are now you have to be sensitive to the progressive changes in grip due to tire degradation and track changes. If you drive the car as if you have new tire grip later in the race you will have offs.
This may sound counter intuitive but don't push. Just drive. When we did the GTO's at Road America I was looking for speed. Bock, Griffall and I were the only ones in the server and both were faster than my by a second or more. Both were talking about relaxing to try to save the tires for the whole race. I gave it a shot, just drove a "Sunday Drive" for a few laps and found I was lapping faster than if I pushed hard.
Brake earlier than you think you should; coast into turns you would normally attack. Momentum driving. I cannot attack corners like many drivers can so I work to keep my momentum up and be smooth. This helps keep the tires and it also helps me stay consistent.
Learn to turn the disadvantages of a car into advantages: The porsche has a slippy back end. I use that to rotate into turns in such a way that I can power out sooner than many others. I may bet beat on top end but I can get through a turn pretty fast just by lightly stabbing the brake as I turn in. The back end gets out just enough to get me in the direction I want to go and I hit the go fast hard.
After everything understand that you will make mistakes. My problem is always in the last five minutes. I led most of the race last night, often by a comfortable margin. Throughout most of the race I was mistake-free except for a slight off between the last two turns. By that time I had more than a 15 second lead and was able to recover and still have 7 seconds on the P2 car. When I came out of the pits Brett was ahead but I knew his tires were going to go while I had fresh tires and could attack. He was running faster laps on his tires (he is faster) but I knew all I had to do was be patient and push him enough to get him to make a mistake. He did and I was able to pass him. With a few minutes left he was gaining but I also knew he was tearing his tires apart and would not be able to attack me as hard, giving me a chance to have wide shoulders and keep him behind for the last lap. Then I got off in the same spot as earlier in the race, hit the klag going into the last turn and had an off than put me into third.
Pooh happens. It is what you learn from it that makes the difference.
I will never be an alien, I will just try to stay consistent and depend on others who are faster to make mistakes.
I think the most important is to race often against others. This gives you an idea of what it takes and puts much more pressure on you to be faster;find the better line or figure out how to get speed where you would not normally look.
