Race Walking

Tapping the Power of Dynamic Imagery

Race Walking is in essence a form of dynamic imagery. The idea being that whenever you are walking, you have an opportunity to train your mind/body for racing. This can be done by walking proper lines around corners, while drawing on the vestibular, kinesthetic, tactile, and audio sensations from your actual driving experience to make the act of walking feel like you are driving your body. Actually, as far as your mind/brain is concerned, the act of walking becomes indistinguishable from the act of driving, in much the same way that your brain can not distinguish sensory-rich imagery from reality, which is the basis of the imagery training that Pro and Olympic athletes have been using successfully for decades.

So, here is my premise… if you want to be able to control your car like it’s an extension of your body (all good drivers can do this and every driver should strive for this), then you should be able to control your body like it’s a car; really, it’s just the other side of the same coin.

The Neurological Basis

The neurological pathway for walking is one of the first developed, and it’s one of the strongest. Therefore, it seems to me that if you intimately associate driving with walking (in fact it shouldn’t just be an association, it should be experienced as the same thing) you can tap into and use this incredibly strong pathway for your driving instead of having to create a completely new pathway.

Also, if you create a new pathway (as most drivers do) then you also have to maintain that pathway; that is, you must get lots of seat time to keep that neurological pathway fresh. If you don’t get to race for a while, then the pathway erodes and you need some seat time to refresh it. (Many people say that even after a short break, they need to go practice at least one day before a race to be up to speed.) I Race Walk all the time, and I’m certain that it is the reason I can show up on race day, after a 6-month or longer layoff, do 2-3 laps, and be right on the pace.

When I first started driving (once a month in the Russell school’s formula fords series), at the Saturday morning driver’s meeting that began each race weekend, the chief instructor would tell us “Take your time, work up to speed, YOU CAN’T TURN IT ON LIKE A LIGHT SWITCH!” Of course, as an 18 year old future F1 champion wannabe, I use to think to myself BS, and I would go out (after not racing for a month or more) and be at lap record pace in two laps.

What I didn’t realize at the time, was that he was right… you can’t turn it ON like a light switch. However, if you never turn it OFF (if you leave it ON all the time as I did by constantly Race Walking), then you don’t have to waste much time at all getting back up to speed.

The Psychological / Physiological Basis

Static imagery training is a proven-successful method of both learning sports techniques and optimizing performance in sports. However, in normal daily life, it’s difficult to set aside the time to do a proper relaxation/imagery session. Also, training for racing is somewhat different than training for stick & ball type sports because there are several very complex cause-effect/action-reaction type relationships that are constantly occurring/changing when you drive.

For example, you turn the steering wheel, the wheels/tires turn, energy flows, loads are transferred, traction is created, forces act on the car, the car starts to turn, more energy flows, more loads build, more traction, more forces and so forth until the turn is complete and the energy in the car returns to a state of relative equilibrium. The feedback you get from all these interactions is:

Visual (where am I on the track)
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Vestibular (how am I oriented on the track, how is the car balanced, and how much G load, traction, and slip angle is being generated)
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Kinesthetic (how am I oriented on the track, how is the car balanced, and how much G load, traction, and slip angle is being generated)
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Tactile (how do my feet feel on the pedals, how does the wheel feel in my hands)
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Auditory (how hard am I accelerating/decelerating the car, and how much slip angle/scrub am I generating)

You evaluate this feedback through the filter of your experience, knowledge, expectations, and objectives (your non track-specific mental model of how to drive) to determine your direction of travel and how close you are to the limit of adhesion. Then, based on this evaluation, you select and perform the next logical action that will take you to your goal (for that turn, or that lap, or that race).

Unlike static imagery, Race Walking provides an actual simulation of the visual, vestibular, and kinesthetic feedback. That is, when you Race Walk around a corner, you will see where you are “on the track” and you will feel your body “as it rotates into, and then drifts out of the turn,” and you will feel the “g forces” acting on your body. So, in essence, you are driving; it’s just that when Race Walking, your car is biological instead of mechanical. To further enhance the training value, you can combine your physical experience with your imagination to simulate other physical sensations you would experience based on how the car would react to various inputs, like:

Braking – like slight instability or ‘twitchiness’ as the car fights to slow down in a hard braking zone, or how elevation/camber changes impact braking, etc.
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Turning – variation on how the car will rotate into the turn in different circumstances like a cambered/off-camber or uphill entry, trail braking, etc.
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Accelerating – how the car responds to acceleration, like squatting and hooking up, or snap oversteer, or wheel spin, or wagging its tail out of the turn, etc.

Another Important Benefit of Race Walking

I believe that by constantly Race Walking (and correcting for drifts/slides while doing so), the ability to correct for slides can become as automatic as the ability to catch your balance. Your body already has a complex automated system that keeps you in balance. If you constantly Race Walk, the perceptual distinction between walking & racing and between body & vehicle becomes blurred.

Therefore, if you blur the distinction between your body and car, then it stands to reason that your balance system will perceive the car/body combination as a single entity that it is responsible for keeping in balance. This has been my precise experience… when I drive, correcting for slides is as automatic and precise as if I were making corrections for balance as I walk. Actually, I don’t even notice/think about correcting for the vast majority of slides. About the only time I do notice them is when something unexpected and/or extreme happens, just as it would if I were walking and slipped unexpectedly on some ice.

Your Body is Your Car

Remember that when Race Walking, your body is your car, trust yourself to know how to drive your body as a car. It’s not rocket science, or super serious; it’s a game and it’s fun. With minimal practice it will be as natural as using your hands and body when explaining how your car is handling, or when describing what happened during a racing battle. Most drivers do this naturally, without any instruction. If you think about it, it’s almost impossible to describe what’s happening on the track without “moving” in some way (hands, body, or both).

That said, some people do need an intellectual framework from which to start exploring their inner knowledge, so I’ve included a description and example of Race Walking to help you get started:

When Race Walking, your head represents the reaction of your head / body to visual, vestibular and kinesthetic sensations experienced when you are actually driving…

For example: If your body/car is decelerating, you naturally move your head back slightly to compensate for the G loads, right?. Turn, and your head tilts to compensate for the G loads, and rotates so you can see where you are going; just as it would on the track to guide you from corner entry to apex to exit. Make sense?

Your hands can be used in two ways:

You can use them to simulate controlling the steering wheel (cause – input from the driver).
You can use them to represent the car’s front wheels — their steering position (effect – result of the driver’s input)

For example, to represent front wheel movement, simply hold your hands out flat (vertically) from your wrists and flex your wrists right/left as the wheels would move when being steered. To simulate control of the steering wheel, simply hold something in your hand(s). E.G. you could hold a pad of paper in both hands and steer the pad as though it was a steering wheel (warning, you may get funny looks at work). At work, I usually control the steering wheel by rolling (turning) a pen between my thumb and forefinger (kind of like the steering shaft would be moving)… no one can tell, and it works just fine. Either technique (controlling wheel position or the steering wheel) will work, but I think you should change back and forth so you can practice both cause and effect.

In braking areas and during corner entry (since loads transfer forward and the front tires are doing most the work), the balls of your feet/shoes represent the front tires.

So, when you decelerate, the loads would transfer to the balls of your feet and toes. As you turn into a corner, most of the load would move to the outside front portion of your outside foot.

Your upper torso represents the front end of your car (that portion of the car/driver package that is located in front of the center of mass).

For example, if you walk up to a turn and simulate wheel movement, or steering wheel movement, to initiate turn-in, you would then feel the loads build up in your feet and then your upper body would start rotating into the turn. This happens just like when you drive, you decelerate (loads build longitudinally in the front tires), you turn in (lateral loads begin to build in the tire, which generates traction and slip angles), then the front end of the car starts to rotate into the turn.

Note: Remember not to rush or combine the individual steps (unless that is the particular technique you are practicing). In general, the actions should happen in sequence, and there should be a definite (but not necessarily long) delay between each step. This delay represents the time it takes to send energy out from the chassis’ center of mass, through the suspension, to the tires, to the track, and then for the resulting forces to return through the tires, suspension and chassis to act on the car’s center of mass.

Your lower torso and hips represent the back-end of your car (that portion of the car/driver package that is located behind the center of mass).

The cornering forces generated by turning into a corner, will start to act on your upper body, causing it to turn (twist), so that it points toward the apex of the turn; just as the front of your car does. However, your lower torso will still be trying to go straight ahead. At some point (typically after a bit of delay), the forces generated by your upper body (front end of your car) turning towards the apex will start to pull your lower torso (back-end of your car) away from the straight path and into the arc of the turn.

As you approach the apex of the turn, the polar momentum (vertical rotation) of your lower torso rotating into the turn will increase, and at some point (usually right near the apex of the turn), the “polar shift” will happen.

Note: When you are driving through a turn, the polar shift is the moment when the car rotates around its center of mass. It defines when you are through turning into the turn and are ready to exit the turn. It also usually signals when you can get back on the gas (unless you are using specific driving techniques to control when the polar shift happens). When Race Walking, the polar shift is represented by the moment when your lower torso comes back into alignment with your upper torso.

Now, as you approach the apex, the increasing rotational momentum of your lower torso rotating to catch up with your upper torso (rear of your car trying to align with the front), and the decreasing rotational momentum of your upper torso will cause your hips to continue rotating to some angle past complete alignment with your upper torso. This simulates what happens when you drift the rear end of your car out of a turn… the rear of your car goes a little past alignment with the front. The amount it goes past alignment is the result of a combination of factors including how quickly you turn in, how hard you accelerate, the available traction, chassis setup, etc.

After the polar shift has occurred, your feet/shoes transition to represent the rear tires of your car.

When you accelerate out of a turn, feel the loads build up on the appropriate areas of your feet (primarily on either the sides of your feet, or towards the heels of your feet when accelerating longitudinally).

Also remember that as you drift out of a turn, your rear tires would be fighting for traction (slipping, gripping… as cornering forces are built and released). Throughout all this drama going on at the back of your car, you would be making the appropriate steering and throttle adjustments to control the back-end of the car. As you make steering corrections, the car’s front end (your upper torso) would steer (turn/twist) in the direction you’re steering, right? In the same vein, when you use throttle to control drifting out of a turn changes in throttle application would change the loads the tires have to carry. And of course, both throttle and steering interact so a change in one will likely cause an inverse change in the other. Confusing? Na, it’s just like what you do on the track, you’re just not use to thinking about it.

To summarize, as you turn into the turn, your upper body starts to turn. After some delay, your lower body starts turning. At some point (about the apex), your upper body stops turning, and your lower body continues turning to some angle beyond alignment with your upper body (drift angle). To bring equilibrium back to the whole mess, you apply some combination of throttle, and steering correction such that you can exit the turn in a controlled, power-on drift. Easy, right?

General Rules for Race Walking

1) Race Walk EVERYWHERE you walk…

I’ve been doing some form of Race Walking for almost 50 years, and I have never had a single person tell me I walk “funny,” And no white van, has been called to take me away… like they could catch me!

Note: You do NOT have to walk fast to Race Walk… fast is not the point. The whole purpose is to simulate the sensations of driving. If you’re driving well, then it does NOT feel fast; right?

2) Always Race Walk as you would race drive…

Use all the walking path “track” entering turns, hit a proper apex (clipping point) for what you are trying to practice/accomplish in the turn, and use all the path on the exit. Also, as you are walking through different types of corners (decreasing or increasing radius corners, etc) walk a line through them as you would drive them. When you encounter a combination of corners, prioritize them as you would on the track (e.g. the one leading on to the longest straight is most important, etc.). No matter how you decide to link turns, do so with smooth flowing movements, as you should in a car. However, if the rebound from cornering loads in one turn would impact the way your car would turn into the next corner (for example: using the spring rebound from one turn to help rotate the car into the next turn) make it so when you Race Walk.

3) Pay attention to your attention…

Most racers spend far too much effort/attention doing ‘stuff’. For an average turn, the stuff you “DO” (braking, turning, apexing, accelerating, tracking out) should occupy a very small percentage of your attention. The majority of your attention should be focused on the spaces in-between the actions… on the energy movement and forces caused by your actions.

Speed hides between your actions; where cause and effect meet.
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4) Take into account changes in elevation and surface traction as you would when driving…

For example, if you are Race Walking from carpet onto linoleum, then depending on your tires (shoes) traction would be reduced as you get on the linoleum, right? So, you would need to compensate for that (reduce speed, change line, go easier on throttle, kick the back-end out to tighten turn radius, etc). The same applies to elevation changes, if you are turning from level ground onto the top of a stair case you had best be ready to loose traction in the front and/or rear (depending how you turn-in to the stairs). Coming up the stairs you can carry more speed than you would think because the elevation will be working for you. However, when you turn while cresting the top of the stairs, you are likely to have a big understeer as the load is decreased on the front end. Making sense?

5) Use appropriate sound effects (engine sounds are the most important)…

I’m not saying run around work, home, or the grocery store making racing noises at the top of your lungs; do it in your mind’s ear. Of course, if you want to make sounds out loud, or under your breath, go ahead. For example, make shifting sounds, or rev-up if you get wheel spin, or bog-down if you get too sideways. If the tires squeal in the type of car you race, imagine that too.

6) Try different things

That’s really the whole point of Race Walking! When you do it consistently, you have an almost unlimited opportunity to try (simulate) new things such as different: lines, turn in rates, even imagining driving a different type of car. Use your knowledge and experience to guess (extrapolate) what it will feel like, then Race Walk like you think it will feel… trust your intuition on this. Also, don’t forget to practice difficult and emergency situations like driving in the rain, locking a brake, weak brakes, someone spinning in front of you, hitting oil/water, just plain loosing it… practice different ways of handling these situations.

Race Walking; a Sample Turn

Let’s say you’re going to Race Walk around a 90 degree turn (such as the intersection of two corridors or hallways).

As you approach the turn, steer yourself to the far edge of the hall (track).
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When you reach the braking point, start decelerating…Feel the deceleration forces pushing your body forward. Feel the load transfer to your front tires (the balls of your feet and toes). Also, if you are braking very hard, feel how the back-end of your car becomes a little unstable (and maybe moves a little side to side). You should also hear (in your mind’s ear) the motor’s revs dropping and maybe the blips of throttle from down shifts.
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At the turn-in point, steer into the turn…As the energy from your turning action flows through your chassis (body) and into your front tires (your feet), feel them start to build cornering forces. As they do, let your upper torso turn toward the apex of the corner in response to the cornering forces coming back from your feet; just as the front of your car does. Also, remember to feel the braking forces decrease and end just before or just after the turn-in point (depending on the type of turn and your driving style).
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Transition from turn-in to aiming towards the apex…Feel the slip angles increase as the front tires’ cornering forces build (and act upon your feet and upper body). Also, remember that as slip angles increase, your trajectory will change slightly (e.g. the front end will start pushing away from the line to the apex). Also, feel your lower torso start to rotate into the turn just as your car’s back-end follows the front end into a turn.
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Rest now, keep things as they are and DO NOTHING. Open up your senses…Feel the front tires reach their peak in cornering forces/slip angles as they approach the apex of the turn. Also, feel how as you approach the slowest part of the turn, you start to lose the force (speed/energy) needed to maintain the large slip angles you’ve created. This means the car is now coming back into balance (the heavy loads transferred to the front tires during braking and turn entry are now flowing back into the car). Remember also that while the front end’s cornering forces are peaking, the back-end (which has now developed quite a bit of rotational momentum as it follows the front end into the corner) is catching up to the front end. Also be aware that the combination of rotational momentum and the relatively light loading of the rear tires during this phase of cornering can create a pretty unstable situation.
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Next, KEEP DOING NOTHING; just feel balance returning as your earlier work brings you to the apex…
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At approximately the apex of the turn (give or take a little depending on your objectives, the turn, driving style, etc.) the car (your entire body) will reach equilibrium. This occurs when:
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- The energy transferred forward and laterally by deceleration (from braking and/or cornering) is balanced by the forces returning to the vehicle’s center of mass
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- The back-end catches up to (and becomes aligned with) the front end.
However, this equilibrium can only be maintained for an instant because, as we know, the amount of energy being supplied to the front-end is decreasing, and the rotational momentum of the back-end will cause it to rotate past alignment with the front end.
OK you finally get to do something again — maintain this balanced state for the duration of the turn…
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As the back-end (your lower body) starts to rotate past alignment with the front wheels (oversteer caused by a combination of rotational momentum and lightly loaded rear tires) apply some throttle, to flow some energy (load) to the rear tires (your feet now become the rear tires) so they can generate some cornering forces/slip angles. You will likely also have to dial in some steering correction (turn your upper body into the slide, and/or use your hands to turn the steering wheel or point your tires) to compensate for rotational-momentum driven oversteer.
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At this point, again, “Do” as little as you can — enjoy the ride — throttle on, rear tires planted, steering correction in, drifting towards the exit.
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Stay relaxed so you can really feel the traction and balance of your car. Based on what you’re sensing, quickly extrapolate your trajectory to confirm you are on target for the exit point of the turn you are Race Walking. If not, make any throttle or steering adjustments necessary to rotate your car on the line you’re driving so that you get back on target. You would, of coarse, drift all the way to the edge of the hall (track) just as you would in your car. Also, be sure to add vestibular, kinesthetic and auditory sensations for all the tail wagging, bouncing, slipping, etc. that goes on as the car fights for traction when accelerating out of a corner.

And Now The Magic Begins…

Practice Race Walking as described for a while until you can really feel the forces, hear the sounds, etc. Once you feel comfortable Race Walking, then the fun really starts because with your imagination, you can try any driving/setup variation you want.

Come up with some objectives you want to meet (e.g. better corner exit speed, less tire wear, quicker rotation for turn in, controlling power-on oversteer, etc.) then try changing your driving techniques and imagine how the changes would feel/affect your performance.

For example, if you want to rotate your car quickly in a tight turn, so that you can get on the power earlier, you might try (‘flicking’ the car into the turn — turning very quickly and aggressively, probably while trail braking) How would that affect the amount of load you build on the front tires, and the speed with which it is built? How long will the front tires have to carry that load? How much energy will transfer to the front end? How will such an aggressive energy transfer and turn in impact the stability and rotational momentum of the back-end? How will you get the rear tires back under control after purposely tossing them out of balance? (Hint, your steering correction must be ahead of the imbalance… you caused it, you knew when and where it would happen, so you know where it needs to be caught, and your steering correction needs to be there waiting for it; not trying to catch up to it.) How will the technique affect the location of the “polar shift” in the turn, and how will it affect the rate of polar rotation etc.

Are you getting the idea? Just by doing that one simple change (turning in later & faster) you have set off a huge chain reaction that changes how your car performs and how you have to control it. If you Race Walk every time you walk, then you will have a significant advantage over your competitors because you can try thousands of variations in driving technique, while imagining and “feeling” the effects. Then, when you are ready to move your new mental/physical skills (develop through Race Walking) to the track, it will be a much easier transition. Even if you don’t try any variations, just Race Walking the way you always drive will keep your mind/body ready to hop in your car and perform with a minimum of warm-up/practice time.