PRO ANNUAL 2018

Something that has also grown significantly over the past 12 months is Virtual Reality (VR). A newcomer to the world of motor racing, VR has seen the likes of HIVE, PS4 VR and Oculus all aiming to take this market on for home entertainment. But will it threaten the simulator market? “Not at all” said Boaz. “It’s something we are aware of, but it’s not strictly ready and is also a different dimension to what we are offering.” He added: “VR is still only running at 720p and is not hi-res for starters and the perception of the car is different. With Base you are fully submersed in a car with the steering wheel in front of you and a huge screen which offers that realistic perception but we are always keeping an eye on it.” I took a lot from my day with Base Simulators and was now ready for Friday test day at Brands Hatch. I was keen to put everything I had learnt into practice, literally. So, come Friday morning I was confident, but the heavens opened. A cold, wet and windy morning was probably not the best weather in which to drive the Boss Racing C400 beast, but I was itching to get going. I signed on at MSV, got comfortable with the C400 and headed out on track. I’ve driven in the wet numerous times in a Caterham – even got on the podium – so I was no stranger to the elements. What I wasn’t used to were less powerful cars overtaking me as I found it hard to lay down the power in this animal. Especially on the straights going into gears as high as fourth and fifth and the backend still wanted to come out. It was a firm reminder from Rob and Colin at Boss Racing that you needed to press the clutch when going up and down the gears. As the first session came to an end, I hoped the circuit would dry as I only had three half- hour sessions left, but the next was equally damp. However, I was starting to work on the wet lines which Darren Burke (ARDS instructor) had told me to take – “wider around Paddock and Druids take the normal dry line”. I won’t go into details on his tips here, but I recommend a session with him to open your potential. In the MsD Summer Annual, we published an article by Gavin Gough, a sports psychologist. He’s worked with numerous drivers over the years and offers a new approach to help themmentally, on and off the track. Motorsport has so few areas to find improvements that every little counts. So I was keen to take up Gough’s offer to open my mind up about racing. I’d already told him about an incident I had at Paddock Hill Bend back in 2011. It’s haunted me for quite some time, a stupid mistake in which we changed a few areas on the car, tampering with the brakes etc, and somehow the brake bias was moved to all front without me noticing. I did a warm- up lap and heading into Paddock I locked up, bounced over the gravel and into the tyre wall. It was my first real incident and going from 70-0 on the data logger really showed how accidents can happen in the blink of an eye. To this day I find it hard to fully commit on the brakes and cannot pass Paddock Hill Bend without the accident haunting me. Gough was keen to dive deeper and so we found a quiet spot at Brands and he put me in a state of hypnosis. He wanted me to recreate that moment back in 2011 in my mind, but from a third person perspective, an out-of- body replay and imaging the incident in black and white as if I was watching it on TV, constantly rewinding and playing it until I played it without the incident and could look through the corner. At first I was a little apprehensive, but just as I got back into the car he told me to relax and be at one with the car – close my eyes and create the perfect lap! As I headed off into the session I did look through the corner and didn’t, for the first time, think about the incident. I came back in buzzing and felt like a new racer again. This highlights to me the importance of the mind, especially in a sport like this. Having the right mind-set is critical and can be the difference between winning and losing a race. As we moved into the final two sessions, which were held in almost completely dry conditions, I started to feel at one with the car. With the sequential box, you don’t need to dip the clutch and just flat shift into gear which is even faster and it felt like I could really launch the car out of Clearways and down the start/finish line. I managed to keep up and I started to beat the other drivers’ times, which was exciting. I found time to sit down with Gavin Gough again, who went over a few more points and started digging deeper into my mind to learn more about me and my personality. He explained some reasoning into my thought processes and gave me some homework – looking at areas where I can improve my mentality on and off the track. ‘Having the right mind-set is critical and can be the difference between winning and losing a race’ PRO ANNUAL 2018 11