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Re: GHIT 0150: Ross Bentley Returns to Celebrate Our 150th Episode

Ross Bentley Teaching
Ross Bentley: World Class Instructor
Ross Bentley in BMW
World Class Racing Driver
Ross Bentley Karting
World Class Coach

Ross Bentley, world class racing coach and author, was kind enough to join us to help celebrate our 150th episode!  Since Ross has literally written THE book on racing and high performance driving, we always look forward to talking with him any chance we get.  Our team has improved in the almost year since Ross came on episode 100, but have our questions?  You will have to be the judge of that. 

As always, Ross is able to answer everything we are curious about and even provide some insight into the area that we had not even thought of to this point.  If you want an episode that will help you drive faster, Ross is the perfect guest.  We have already started our new list of questions in case we can talk him into episode 200.  If you have any, please let us know. 

Also, Ross has resumed his weekly podcast and if anything, it is better than ever.  You can subscribe to it on any of the podcasting platform of your choice.  Also, his book Speed Secrets is the most essential resource we know of to learn to be a better driver and race driver. 

One great thing about Ross is he can answer every single question we can think of.  The bad thing about Ross is he makes you think about it in another way.  This ends up with many more questions and usually Bill goes off and overthinks it, again.  Vicki missed a really good one this time (she was fixing her broken MX5 suspension in the hotel parking lot.

But the best thing about Ross is that he is a World Class Gentlemen!

How to get better at the turns is the (potentially) surprising subject of this Dominating with Dawson, but we attempt to discuss how to approach a fast corner and a slow corner.  Depending in the specific track, one or two of the turns will be most critical to a fast lap time and it can often be one of these two types of corners. 

This will be the first part of this area that we discuss as there is a lot of detail and discussion to be had in this area.  We did use several specific turns at Road Atlanta, Laguna Seca, Monte Carlo, and Mid-Ohio to describe these types of turns explicitly.  We are also sure, Ben slipped in a VIR reference at least once or twice.  For this discussion, the term fast is usually referring to a turn with a minimum speed of over ~60 mph or ~100 kph.

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Best regards,

Vicki, Jennifer, Alan, and Bill

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training Podcast and

Garage Heroes In Training racing team drivers

Highlights from this episode include:

1)  Ross quickly gives away why he is back on the podcast with us.  Lol.

2)  We talk with Ross about our (then) upcoming skid pad event at Lime Rock Park and he was kind enough to go into what we could do to maximize the learning at the skid pad.  It turned out that this was almost exactly what our friends at Safety Third Motorsports had already arranged for the event.  Even after the event, we still have a long way to go to be able to catch up to Ross’s friend Johan Schwartz who was able to hold a drift for 232.5 miles, with live refueling while drifting.

3)  Ross goes on to explain a way to have a car turn more when understeering by reducing the steering input you are asking from the car.  Its counterintuitive but exceedingly helpful. 

4)  How does practicing on a skid pad help your street driving, as well as your driving on a track.

5)  When to use slow hands and when to use quick hands.

6)  Bill even asked the questions that he is over thinking, again.  Things like is there a relationship between the apex and the resumption of throttle during a turn.  Bill’s pursuit of foundational axioms continues, lol.  And why is he talking about thermodynamics on a podcast about racing?

7)  A great discussion of what sometimes can fool you on track.  For instance, sometimes as lap of a turn may have felt “good” but ended up slower.

8)  Ben comes up with a truly new question to Ross!  Nicely done.

9)  The importance of focusing on what to do and not solely on what not to do, especially in racing.

10)  Jennifer asks a great question:  what can she do to improve during the off season?

11)  Ross goes in depth on mental imagery techniques and actually gives Jennifer (and everyone) an exercise program that has shown to significantly improve your driving outside of being on track.  Summary: Relax body and slow breathing to slow your mind down

11a)  Monday night:  entering and setting up to drive the track at speed, and push pace a bit with actually mimicking the physical movements.  Focus on the technique of driving Pitt race.  Refresh the same for 10-15 minutes the following morning.  Mantra:  Pitt Race etc.

11b)  Tuesday night:  Close eyes and focus on personal driving confidence improvements and then drive the track again. Follow with a Wednesday morning refresh.  Mantra:  Confidence or I’m here etc. (in driving)

11c)  Wednesday night:  focus on ultra-sensory perception and expansion of details.  Follow up Thursday morning.  Mantra:  Sensitive

11d)  Thursday night:  Focus on race craft and starting scenarios and racing scenarios and try to envision ways to gain position.  Repeat refresh next morning.  Mantra:  I’m ready or I’m going to the front

11e)  Friday night:  Focus on adaptability of dealing with a car that isn’t quite correct.  i.e. left turns aren’t same as right, you lost a gear, brakes are an issue, shock going away, etc. etc.  Mantra:  Adapt

11f)  Saturday:  Focus on a specific driving technique you are working on, like brake pedal release etc.  Mantra:  on the technique

11g)  Sunday night:  Focus on the thrill of driving at the limit and just driving without conscious thought.  Mantra:  TBD by you

12)  Ross and his students have all found the value of the using mental imagery and seen large benefits, especially when expanding the practice beyond the physical driving as we described above.

13)  We also went over several other off season, off track practice topics that anyone can do while in the off season.

14)  Bill also brought up the relatively recent release of the Garmin Catalyst, how it works, and how it can help most if not all drivers at the track.  It does not replace a coach, but can definitely help anyone to be faster and try new techniques on the track by looking at what you are doing and helping you to optimize from what you are doing to a better approach. 

14a) Most of us would be surprised by how it can help you break a plateau.  (We are still working to get a guest on the show to diver deeper into the Catalyst.  We have not given up.)  Ross coincidentally has helped in the development of the Catalyst and it really shows.  The Catalyst even helped Ross improve his personal lap times and we are sure it will help you as well.

15)  Ross covers what areas are typically key to focus on at various driving levels of proficiency.  Several of the habits are similar across the driving levels, sometimes even to the highest professional ranks.

16)  We go into the relative importance of driving at the limit vs driving the perfect line.  It looks likes Robin for NASA Great Lakes was correct with his tip to Bill at Autobahn CC this summer.

17)  A few brake light stories that Ross has “heard” about, as well as a great story about Ross driving the most “evil” car he ever drove at Nazareth.

18)  Ross was even willing to entertain us with the fast and furious story time questions that we haven’t asked him already.  Some will surprise you, but all were very entertaining.  We were especially looking forward to Ross’s answers to his favorite corner of a track.

  • Ross Bentley Using The Garmin Catalyst
  • Ross with Garmin Catalyst
Ross Bentley Collaborated with the Development of the Garmin Catalyst and even he was able to go faster on track using it

GHIT 0150: Ross Bentley Returns to Celebrate Our 150th Episode

Ross also joined us on episode #100

GHIT 0149: Joe Marko from HMS Motorsport Discusses Safety Equipment, including Seats and Racing Harnesses

HMS Motorsport

Joe Marko was our guest from HMS Motorsport joins us to discuss several of the key aspects of safety for your race car, key aspects to take into consideration, as well as installation guidance, basically a one stop shop, but it was so much content and information, we are sure this is only part one of several more.  If you are going to be working on your car or especially if you are building a car this winter, this can help you significantly.

On this episode’s Dominating with Dawson, we cover what to do and what to avoid when steering the car on track.  Also a few tips that have seemed to help Vicki and Jennifer break their former shuffle steering habit.  And Ben balances eggs on his hood? 

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Best regards,

Vicki, Jennifer, Alan, and Bill

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training Podcast and

Garage Heroes In Training racing team drivers

Highlights from this episode include:

1)  A history of Joe and his team at HMS Motorsports, as well as how they have focused on safety for motorsports cars and drivers for the past 25 years, including all levels from amateur racing through NASCAR.

2)  We finally know how to pronounce Schroth properly.

3)  How HMS began working with NASCAR after the Dale Earnhardt accident at Daytona and how the relationship has grown in the intervening time to where almost every driver is using belts from HMS.

4)  We cover what is a DOT or street legal seat belt or harness vs only for track use.

5)  How your harness belts, shoulders, lap, and crotch belts should be installed to maximize safety and prevent submarining in an accident.  And more importantly why.

6)  What are the differences between SFI and FIA rated harnesses and how that came to be.

7)  What is the difference between and 5-point belt and a 6-point belt and why one is usually better than the other? 

8)  We go into the ideal mounting geometry and the geometry of where the belts should be on the driver.  Joe also gives an ingenious, yet simple solution for drivers of different sizes requiring different length belts.  We know, we did tell you there would be no math, lol.

9)  Why you may want to get the enduro style belts?  They are a bit more expensive but offer significant advantages, especially when fitting drivers of several sizes, like in endurance racing events or shared cars at HPDE and track day events.

10)  Seat mounting and harness mounting guidance that may save you when you most need it.  We also go into how to properly design a seat back brace and perhaps most importantly the shape of the brace interface with the seat.

11)  Halo seat designs and considerations, as well as advantages and disadvantages.  Interior nets can be a close approximation of a halo seat when installed properly.

12)  Webster’s dictionary has not gotten back to us for our proposed entry of “luxury mammals” that we first heard from prior podcast guest Randy Bish when i-racing.  We will keep everyone updated with our progress.

13)  Joe also helps us to explore several potential options for fitting drivers of different size into a single seat in our endurance cars.  Our winter to do list is growing.

14)  The importance of how you mount and align your seat as well as the interaction this has with the belt/harness system effectiveness.

15)  What the new Snell 2020 helmet certifications mean and how they may affect your current helmet if it certified to 2010 or prior.  Joe also explains why there is a time limit of a helmet and under what circumstances you should replace your helmet even if it has not expired.

16)  We even go into how to care for and clean your helmet from track use or in case of more extreme events after one too many “thin mints”.  This question is for you Bruce.

17)  A helmet dryer is not the same as when you use a blow dryer, which can damage a helmet.

18)  How to mount your radio wiring or camel back type straws and how not to.  Hint:  hole drilling is bad.

19)  Joe also presented several options to help keep your visor and/or eyeglasses from fogging.  Bill is actively looking for pin lock visors as we speak.

As a bonus, we have an extensive post credit bonus discussion of Jennifer’s recent accident at the Charlotte Roval, what happened, and several alternative safety improvements that may have reduced the damage to our driver.  

Links to several of the items discussed:

Custom Seat Insert System:  https://www.hmsmotorsport.com/item/bsci-foam-seat-pouring-kit

Schroth Bead seat inserts:  https://www.hmsmotorsport.com/item/schroth-profi-seat-kit/seat-fitment

HMS Motorsport’s YouTube Videos:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz0etXlIQnDtbfHzCtGwduQ

GHIT 0149: Joe Marko from HMS Motorsport Discusses Safety Equipment, including Seats and Racing Harnesses

GHIT 0148: Brian Bohlander Racing and Potential Paths to Racing Education and Training

Is Racing School or HPDE/Comp School Better for you?

  • Brian Bohlander Headshot
  • Brian Bohlander Racing Driver

Brian Bohlander is a very accomplished race driver having competed for over 30 years and has won the Mint 400 Class 5500 and is a 3-time Thunder Roadster champion.  In his professional life, he is the marketing director for Peak antifreeze and is responsible for all sports and racing partnerships.  As if that was not enough, he is also the Comp school director for NASA Great Lakes.  During the episode, we try to compare two of the primary paths for training and qualifying to compete in wheel to wheel racing:  attending a formal racing school or working your way through the HPDE levels and graduating through Comp school.   Please note that this was recorded prior to our skid pad event that we covered in earlier episodes.

We discuss the different methods of determining your braking point markers and their relative importance in our Dominating with Dawson segment.  We start with a discussion of the relative importance of the point where you begin braking and the point where you come off the brake.  Then we digress into a wide variety of discussion points, some related, some very much not.  We each learned a bit of what we each do when on track.  Who knew?

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Best regards,

Vicki, Jennifer, Alan, and Bill

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training Podcast and

Garage Heroes In Training racing team drivers

Highlights from this episode include:

1)  We start with a bit about off road racing and quickly go into several strategies for organizing and prepping for a track event.  It is not only a skill challenge, but a large and complicated logistical challenge.

2)  Brian has probably the shortest and most direct racing philosophy that we have heard to this point.

3)  What is Comp school and how it compares to attending a racing school and where HPDE’s fit into the landscape, including a brief history of where we started driving instruction and how we arrived to where we are now. 

4)  We learn that the NASA CCR (~ rule book) actually has a definition of what a “pass” is on track and how to and how not to pass, but also addresses what each drivers responsibility is during a pass.

5)  What is Comp school?  What do you do and learn while in Comp school?  What are you qualified to do after passing Comp School?  Hint:  Safe, Predictable, and FAST are three key points that allow you to advance.

6)  How the NASA program works to prepare you a driver for better, fast, and safer driving on a track, wheel to wheel racing, time trials, or even to eventually work towards being a competent and certified performance driving instructor.

7)  What is the best path to learn depending on your personal goals.

8)  Several tips that we tried to apply at our skid pad event a few weeks ago at Lime Rock Park.

9)  Brian gives some opinions on the use of data and how it can help you while you are learning and progressing as a driver.

10)  Track Attack Software comes up again.  Please let us know if you have used it what you think of it.  Also, if you would like us to try to get them on a guest, please let us know.

11)  Brian does a very good and clear description of trail braking and how to use it bet on a track.  So, if you haven’t ever been 100% clear on what trail braking is or why you would want to use it, this may be a great episode for you.  Even if you already use trail braking, this may increase your understanding and use of the technique.

12)  We also have a chance to go into the auxiliary benefits of learning to drive in this manner and how it helps you when driving every day on regular street roads.

Brian Bohlander Racing
Brian in His Thunder Roadster

GHIT 0148: Brian Bohlander Racing and Potential Paths to Racing Education and Training

GHIT 0147: HPDE at NJMP Lightning Wrap Up for 2020

  • Porsche 911
  • Vicki's NB Miata
  • BMW
Some great cars, and some of ours attended this event.

The latest HPDE with NASA Northeast last weekend completes our season of track driving and instruction for 2020.  We try to summarize it as well as how the COVID 19 impacted racing season went.  And Bill can’t wait to start planning 2021.  It was a great weekend on track with fantastic weather, especially for mid-November in NJ.  We came with three cars good to go.  We left with zero.  Seems to be a familiar refrain.  The winter to do list gets longer.

On Dominating with Dawson, we cover driver communication going into and out of the car at the track.  

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Best regards,

Vicki, Jennifer, Alan, and Bill

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training Podcast and

Garage Heroes In Training racing team drivers

Highlights from this episode include:

1)  We cover our goals going into the event.

2)  How was Bill’s new HPDE car on track for the first time.  If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again or the fourth time is the charm.

3)  We also cover how Vicki and Jennifer applied the things they learned at the Lime Rock skid pad on the track.

4)  Bill gets to see the Lightning track for the first time, even though he/we drove this track for several hours last year.  Hood-Gate.

5)  Jennifer got to drive with and review the data from the Garmin Catalyst for the first time. 

6)  Vicki also started reviewing and using the data from the Apex Pro for the first time ever.

7)  Both Jennifer and Vicki got a lot faster throughout the weekend and seemed to have some of their best driving stints ever.

8)  Bill went on track for the first time ever in the ND Miata. 

9)  What were the areas of greatest improvement for Jennifer and Vicki.  Both made significant gains in both their lines and their car inputs.  Also, now they were both able to take input from the data and video and apply it on their next stint. 

10)  Bill apparently can’t count turns past 5 and gets confused with turn 7.  We will blame this on our post-race weekend hangover. 

11)  Bill really wants to put racing brake pads onto the M3 for the next track event.  The all-season tires were not as big a deal as anticipated but will also need to be improved for our first event next season.

12)  Vicki’s last stint led to an off on turn 5 that has caused some issue with her suspension.  Exact point of failure is still TBD at this point.

13)  We were able to get a lot of good video and hopefully good data.  We cannot wait to analyze further and learn what we can work on and how we are improving.

14)  Jennifer breaks the news that Ross Bentley is coming back as a guest for our 150th episode that is coming very soon!

15)  Vicki went into her off track event late Sunday at turn 5. 

16)  Brief review of some of our off season work and planning for next season.

GHIT 0147: HPDE at NJMP Lightning Wrap Up for 2020

GHIT 0146: Live from NJMP Lightning with NASA NE

We thought we would get a short podcast out to update how the day has gone and what we have been doing today.  Jennifer is in the Soul Red 2019 Mazda MX5 (Miata) ND2 and is in HPDE 1 this weekend.  Vicki is in her first HPDE 2 and, as always is driving her 1999 Mazda Miata with the Flyin’ Miata turbo.  Bill finally found an HPDE car that he can fit into that wasn’t stolen (yet) by the girls, a 2004 BMW E46 M3.  The day went very well and we all learned from the time on track.  We cover highs and lows and end with a short story time from Bill about the last stint of the day.  This will cover Saturday and we will likely have a longer episode covering the whole event in the future.  

If you are here, please say hi.  Jennifer actually ran into a listener in her HPDE class.  

Also, if you happen to have some race pads for an E46 M3, Bill has cash money.  

GHIT 0146: Live from NJMP Lightning with NASA NE

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