Racing...A Limited Addiction

Post by **JRC ETD** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 10:17 am

Many times over the years I have been asked what it was really like to race from the drivers perspective, I have thought alot about that recently and these are my opinions. The biggest challange a racer faces is beating himself, the odds of losing to your own errors are mathmaticly much higher than being beat by a competitor or by speed, the micro second mental decision making that takes place over never before seen terrain at race speed for 200 miles a day is mentally a extreme test for the brain. Depth perception, visual ability, balance, and reality perpective are esstential at exteme conditions to overcome just the course it's self. I never looked at the race as being a grueling 500 mile race, rather I raced each gas stop knowing there had to be a finish before there was a win. I would wrap a rubber band around my right wrist to the point that it was just painfull enough that it was reminding me to concentrate harder and actually back off the speed a bit when it was rough to save the sled.The fatigue from noise and it's effect on the mental concentration was far greater than physical or element fatigue. I tried to offset it by wearing 1 ear plug in my right ear and leaving my left ear to listen to the sled, this also helped with the pipes on the right side. My routine before a race was to find a quiet but very focused and calm perpective of the next 4 hours and mentally visulize what those hours would be like, then block out everything else! This was very important for me! I would not worry about the sled breaking because there simply wasn't any thing I could do about it, and if it broke I was out of contention any way. From 1975 on in each race I can remember the sleds that passed me, and I also learned very early that if I was doing my best driving, those sleds were driving over there heads and would crash, or I was not perfroming to my ability. If you made the wrong choice and chased them, your fate was the same as theirs, or you had better pick up the pace because you have allowed your self to believe you are competitive.......Merry Christmas, more to come! Best Jon

Mr. Deere · Post by **Mr. Deere** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 7:11 pm

WOW TAlk About Concentration. BOB

yzboy99 · Post by **yzboy99** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 8:04 pm

Love the posts! Keep 'em coming. We are fortunate to have someone willing to take the time to put these memories together and share 'em.... Merry Christmas.

Post by **JRC ETD** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 10:52 pm

My ambition to be a racer were challanged by a couple of hurdles, the first was trying compete starting at 16 while growing up in central Ill., with very limited snow, the second being that I always had to prove I was capable of contributing as many doubted my position as a driver with my relationship as Bob's son. I realized that to compete with the best racers from the other factory's I would have to drive sleds almost every day in the winter and race every weekend into spring.My education was moved to summers and springs so that I could move up to northern Mn. to test and race all winter, this started full time with Roger Jansen and Dale Cormican with the advent of the 340/s and these of course are my mentors in the art and addiction to competing as individuals on race sleds. There are only a few racers or true mentors in the world regardless if it's racing, sports, business or life that will share with another without expecting something in return and Roger was that for me, without his help and examples I am sure I would have failed. Today I have practiced personally, and believe completely that resourses and overwhelming critical mass with perfect execution are essential for victory and that is the advantage that the resourses of a factory race effort were focused on....the expectation and pressure to win was very strong. I crashed and broke many sleds before I was able to find the skill and patience to drive with the best and had the enormous opportunty to do this while so many others worked very hard each day to finance their desire to compete. Being on a sled at speed became so routine that racing was nothing different than the rest of the week's riding and that was exactly the strategy.......more later! Best Jon