I too have this problem, and I think it is fairly common, dealing with the pressure of racing close to other cars, I’ve been enjoying rc now for about two years and although I deal with it better now than when I started, the pressure from another car still affects the way I drive to an extent. I have found the more races you compete in the better you will become at holding your line when some one is right behind you or in front. yes practice by yourself will improve your driving skill and thus improve the way you handle the car even when other cars are on the track, but the more racing you do the better you will be in the long run. the most important thing is to keep your driving clean and to have fun. my ten cents.

Ok so your set up is fine. It sounds to me that you need to get races under your belt and develop race craft which is probably the stage that your now at. As you say your fairly right on the track by your self. When racing concentrate on driving ripple strip to ripple strip, This is a: The fastest way around the track and b: makes the car more settled as the car will flow around the track where it wont if you over shoot corners and so forth. You will find that if you work on the ripple strips as I said above it will amaze you how fast you can catch up to the car in front and pull away from the one behind you. Your car may feel slower to you as you practice the above but it will actually be faster on the track. One more thing just because you can pass some one in a particular corner doesnt always make it the right move as it may leave you open at the next corner or two if the passed car ie:driver over drives as lot of racers do after they are passed. ( part of race craft ).
My 2 cents only

Interesting thread – being able to practice OK but falling to pieces with another car around you is something that many people struggle with when starting off.

As well as the other tips mentioned here, Id like to suggest some mental development techniques. These are used by pro sportsmen, will help drivers of all levels and best of all cost nothing!!! I got into this a few years ago when I stopped rc and went karting, and since coming back into rc in 2006 I have applied the same techniques and I have had some reasonable success

Firstly, you need to train the subconscious to drive automatically. Your subconscious brain can process something like 10 million times more information than your conscious brain. If you ever watch the good guys and wonder how their reactions are so fast, it is because they are using the subconscious part of the brain. Your conscious brain can just cope with driving an rc car by itself, but when there are other things going on (other cars, nervousness due to competition, distraction from announcer etc etc) it gets overloaded.

This might sound like mumbo-jumbo, but the good news is that it is easy to ‘program’ your brain before you get to the track using visualization techniques. In a quiet area, close your eyes, picture the track in your head, and picture the car going around it. If possible hold your transmitter in your hand while you do this, and even stand near your car so the smells etc remind you of being at the track.

Start off slowly, thinking which way you will turn the wheel for each corner, where you will apply throttle and brake etc. Then start to imagine a few alternatives – how will I react when the car oversteers in this corner, nose dives off this jump, understeers here etc etc and drive it in your head. You don’t need to be going at race pace in your head – the slower the better to start with – what you are trying to do is make your corrections reflex rather than thought. After a while, you will find that you can do this much faster in your head and it starts to become more natural. And so far, it has cost nothing other than some time!!

When its time to hit the track for practice, there is another saying to keep in mind: ‘Perfect practice makes perfect’. Don’t just go out and ‘cut laps’ (that is what bashing is for) – focus on 3 or so things that you want to try and improve. It may be holding a particular line through a certain corner, experimenting with your technique of applying throttle, trying a different approach to a jump – the brain cant focus on too many things so pick a couple and try to think about those during the run.

When you are racing, there is another saying to keep in mind: ‘Focus on your performance, not your result’. In other words, don’t say ‘I’m hoping to finish third’ or “I'm hoping to get a consistency of 0.5s’ – these are results. Think ‘I am going to focus on braking at this point for this corner, hitting this line for this jump, holding the steering smooth through the sweeper’ etc. You will then find that the results come.

There is a fantastic book I can recommend to everyone called ‘Inner Speed Secrets’ by Ross Bentley which is a book on Mental Techniques for race drivers. It has some great stuff on training your brain which is relevant for rc drivers.

Hope that this is of some help – it’s definitely made me a better racer and even though I am getting older my reactions and race results seem better than 10 years ago!!!

Most of all - have fun!!

L8r

Ray

This is very good Ray. I thought I was the only one that does this sort of thing. In essence what I think happens by using this as a training technique it makes your driving become 2nd nature so things begin to happen on the track for you with out you actually realising your thinking about it. If this makes sense. Like you said concentrate on the now ie each corner at a time then all of a sudden it feels like you have more time to do things on the track. When I go to bed at night I think about driving the track and I gotta say it really helps. Also another thing that I do is watch videos on youtube of races that have been held on the track in this case I run at Brendale. So I have watched the worlds many times for the 1/10. Im currently watching any thing that I can find on Moorebank because of the nats in a few weeks and also the Ray Wood dvd's are good. All of the above helps me on an ongoing basis. John Hamon of Trackside rc is a very experienced rc racer and he would back all of the above to the hilt. Great post Ray.
Noel

Nice work..:)
 

A subconscious posting :)

Hey Noel,

Thanks mate. I agree with all your points. When I was younger I used to stay up at night doing this same 'mental programming' - I didnt really know what I was doing but it helped. I know most people are busy know but if you can spend 10 minutes a day or night it really does help.

When you get it right, your driving can become so automatic that you feel remote from yourself. I remember 'watching myself' at the 2008 Nats and it was a surreal experience!! Your mind then becomes much freer for the conscious stuff: race strategy, setup thoughts etc.

Another thing to consider: you get used to certain inputs to help you drive. With nitro in particular, when you practice you can hear the engine which gives you a good sensation of speed. When you are in a race, the engine can be drowned out, affecting your ability to drive the same lines. Try using earplugs in practice to see how you have to sense the car using your vision rather than your hearing. (Note: I havent raced nitro, but the same applies to an extent with EP).

If you really want to get fancy, there are also techniques to help your left and right brain communicate better if anyone is interested....

Cool subject !!

Ray

What post Harry ? I did not realise I had done it:):)

Re Ray's post...
 

It was a nice work re: Ray's post. If anyone noticed, I sent Guy into a corner with his Ipod at the 2008 Nats to do the same mental visualisation. Ray's confirmation enforces that and his post was written verry very well.

Very nice work, well done :)

PS: No need to give you praise batto, can do that in person :)

Thanks Blis. Any more questions, feel free to ask.

Ray

Just wondering if any of you guys tried any of these techniques, and if so, have they been useful?

Ray

Will let you know in a couple of weeks after the nats Ray.

I really enjoyed reading your post...thanks.

I currently do it with results that I am happy with. And as Slo mo says let you know after the IC nats and see if it makes me any more consistant.
Keep em coming Ray.
R,
Noel

hey mate
these helped me alot i went from an Average time of 62secs to a tine of 48 secs
thanks alot
do you have anymore advice

thanks
dane

Thats great to hear!!

As for more advice - try to understand the concept of a 'tyre friction circle' and practice with that in mind.

The tyre friction circle describes the way in which a tyre operates. A tyre has a certain level of grip which it can provide for acceleration, braking, cornering, or a combination of cornering / brake or cornering /accn. This level of grip is approximately the same in all directions, hence it looks like a circle when you draw a graph (cornering grip on the x axis, accn/braking grip on the y axis). Basically, a tyre will provide maximum forward grip with no cornering, and maximum cornering grip with no accn/braking - when you have combined cornering/brake/accn then there will be less pure cornering grip and less pure forward grip but the total is about the same.

How can you use this? Try to consider the tyre throughout the whole brake / cornering / acceleration phase and blend your throttle and steering accordingly. Here are the 5 main phases of cornering:

1) Braking - try to brake in a straight line for maximum stopping power. If you try to steer with full brakes, you will usually find you understeer (4wd) or oversteer (2wd).

2) Braking/turn-in - at the point where you are turning in, progressively release the brakes as you start to steer. This way, you are staying on the edge of the friction circle but using a combination of fwd/cornering grip, progressing from full braking to full cornering. When you get it right, this feels awesome - but to be honest it is the hardest part of driving at the limit!

3) Cornering - in the middle of the corner, you should be at the cornering limit of the tyres. At this stage, you shouldnt be aggressive with the throttle - maximum cornering grip will come when you are steady on the throttle, not accelerating or braking. Hit full power at this stage and you will find the car pushes wide (4wd) or spins out (2wd).

4) Corner exit - as the corner straightens up, progressively wind off steering lock and at the same time start to apply power. Your tyres are moving from full cornering grip to full accelerating grip during this stage.

5) Straight line acceleration - once the car has completely exited the corner, you should be on the limit of the tyres in pure forwards acceleration. General rule of thumb is NEVER APPLY FULL POWER UNTIL THE WHEELS ARE STRAIGHT! This can take some patience as the natural tendency is to get on the throttle early as possible. This looks fast as the car moves around a lot, but you are actually taking away grip if you hit the throttle too early as the tyres may still be providing full cornering grip.

When practicing in your head, try to move your steering and throttle in unison during phases 2 and 4. You often hear about full-size race drivers 'blending' the throttle and steering - this is what they are talking about.

I recommend going down to the track by yourself one day (or even finding a low grip area of carpark / dirt to practice on) and try these techniques. Compare the difference between being aggressive (full brakes /throttle and steering at the same time) and blending the two. You will find when you get it right that you are actually able to brake later in the corner, keep more control, have less tyre wear and get faster lap times.

Another tip - the faster you go, the less steering lock you need. How many of you drive at full lock with an rc car during all corners? Do you do this in your full size car? It is a bad habit. Get someone to video you driving around and you will probably find you are using a lot of lock. Try to concentrate on using full lock at low speed, half lock at mid speed and quarter lock at high speed.

Let me know how you guys go with this. Probably enough for now!

L8r

Ray

This is what I always tell guys who ask for advice. Never apply full throttle unless the front wheels are straight.(your point 5 Ray) However the trick is being able to feed the power on earlier in a corner which will increase your exit speed. I think this has alot to do with car set up. An untidy handling car looks fast on the track and a slow looking tidy car is actually faster. You even question yourself when your car is dialled, As in gee my car feels slow but alas the times dont lie. All of what I have said above is mentioned in Ray's post, I just wanted to reiterate his points which I think are all spot on. The steering lock point Ray mentions is good. You need to find a set up so as you need as minimal lock as possible to get around corners as this will enable you to carry more corner speed as the front wheels are not needing to turn as much to get around the corner hence then you are not washing off as much speed. I noticed this a while ago when looking at the top electric drivers up here in QLD there lock was not as much as what you see on the nitro tourers. Please correct me if I am wrong Ray.
Great reading Ray.
R,
Noel