And a lot of people don't know what they don't know in life.
I think objective times and competition is good for learning and perspective.
It helps keep the ZOMG IM A RACE CAR DRIVER IN HPDE1 threads down, too.

 

I love racing and competition because its a pretty easy way to separate out the talkers from the doers. Otherwise it just winds up being an Interwebz pissing match.

On our local forum, we were taking about "magical thinkers." You know, the people who think they're smarter, faster, more successful than they actually are.

Someone brought this up, which I thought was great!
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

 

Concisely summarized by someone on the internet as the four stages of competence:

1. Unconscious incompetence -- You're so terrible that you don't even know enough to know that you're terrible
2. Conscious incompetence -- You've developed enough skill and self-awareness to realize that you're terrible
3. Conscious competence -- You've continued to hone your skills to the degree where you know what you're doing
4. Unconscious competence -- Your skills have developed to the point where you can do it well without actually thinking about how you're doing it

 

You're definitely the minority...

I generally don't do any coaching now unless it's a paying client or a fellow S2k/FR-S/BRZ driver.

 

I think I'm at 2.5, lol.

 

A couple good points brought up. One is risk mitigation. I never drive 100% at the track. We're in freakin convertibles for goodness sake and there's no prize in HPDEs! I'm generally only push around 85%-90% to leave a buffer for the unexpected (oil, water, dirt, car spinning in front of me, etc). I'm out there to have fun and I have a lot of fun at 85%-90%. I ride a motorcycle and when I go for rides, I gear up completely (full leathers, boots, gloves, back protector) and even then, I only push maybe 70%. I ride a bicycle which I consider more dangerous than a motorcycle due to speed differential with cars. I stay off narrow streets and streets with heavy traffic. I go for rides after work which means the sun is on the way down. I make sure to plan my path so that I'm never riding into the sun with it low on the horizon. Why? Because looking into the low sun makes visibility difficult. That means cars behind me also have a hard time seeing. A friend of a friend got hit by a car because the driver side the sun was in their eyes. The person on the bike spent over half a year bed ridden and whole lot longer after that doing rehab.

I help out with instruction on occasion and always go over the car with the student along with making some points before the car even moves. One thing I do is ask what the tire pressures are. Not if they checked, but what the actual pressures are to see if they went over their car like they are suppose to. I'll also ask about if they torqued their lugnuts, how much brake pad they have left, and a few other little things like removing floor mats. After the car checklist, I make the very first point which is that the goal is to drive the car home at the end of the day in one piece. Therefore, be safe, be mindful of following distances, look ahead, always point out the corner worker stations, check the mirrors often and point by cars as necessary, etc. Then I ask them how much experience they have so that I can determine what skills to hone in on. So after determining the condition of the car and laying down the ground rules with regards to driving safely, THEN the car moves. Even during the session, I'll drive home the point of safety. If either the student does something that can be risky, or another car on track does something risky, I'll point it out and say why it was risky.

 

Damn...I can't freeload anymore?

 

You fit into that fellow S2k driver group...

 

You fit into that fellow S2k driver group...
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Thanks for the ride-alongs/instruction Mike. You along with a few of the other S2K drivers have definitely helped me to progress as a driver.

 

You fit into that fellow S2k driver group...
[/quote]

Oh ya...