Hundredths of a second count, so the cash blown on reshaping ports, re-profiling camshafts and increasing gas flow is considered money well spent. But shouldn’t we be more concerned with a completely different head?
The most tuneable part of any race bike is the bloke riding it and that doesn’t necessarily mean hours spent down the gym or a diet of lettuce leaves and boiled rice. It’s all in the head – the most powerful component in the paddock.
Last year I embarked on a racing career at the ripe old age of 31. My mindset then was fairly simple, with an equally simple ambition of attaining my national road race licence within one season, something I’d achieved by October through racing with loads of different clubs at a variety of levels.
My best results nearly always came about when there was little or no pressure to do well. Other than the obvious pressure a racer puts on himself to perform, I was pretty much carefree and the results came quite easily on a relatively standard bike.
This year’s been a little different. Competing in the MRO Supersport Championship has brought with it a different approach. More money has been poured into the bike, preparation is taken more seriously and despite a fair bit of sponsorship the whole thing is costing me more money than I can sensibly afford. And with it added pressure to perform.
For the first time since I’ve started racing (which admittedly isn’t very long) I started thinking about championship points almost before the season had even started. With that came an attitude that 13 points for fourth was better than crashing and so pushing for a podium or a win was out of the window. Add to that a pre-season highside that thoroughly bashed my confidence, and it’s easy to understand why my lap times were nothing special while my overtaking manoeuvres were always a touch too safe and well planned.
Cadwell kind of saw a turnaround for me. I love the circuit, which helps but the biggest difference was the lack of pain to remind me how much crashing hurts and a new found confidence in my own abilities. The bike remained unchanged from the previous rounds save for a new set of Pirellis, my physical fitness had waned as I’d been unable to train through injury, so the only difference in the whole bike/rider package was the way my brain was working and my desire to do better than I had been.
Over that weekend my lap times fell dramatically. Every time I went out on the bike I knocked almost a second off each lap time. The difference was I was absorbing information and working out where I could go faster, where I could try a different line – even where to change gear without unsettling the bike. My mind was in tune with me – it was racing.
And I could still go faster. Not by bolting on the latest lightweight go-faster goodie, not by tuning the motor to the brink of explosion or by running a new set of tyres every session, but by making less mistakes.
How many times have you ridden and thought: ‘that was the perfect lap. I couldn’t possibly have got round any quicker. The bike is holding me up’. Unless your name is Valentino Rossi or James Toseland, then hopefully it’s not that often. The point I’m trying to make is that all the engine tuning and suspension tweaking in the world ain’t going to make a slow rider fast overnight.
On a recent Ducati launch, I was lucky enough to have a good chat with a remarkably relaxed Ruben Xaus. Recently married and now a father for the first time, his career has taken a turn for the better. Yet so often that’s not the case – ‘a kid; that’s a second a lap then’ being the favourite quip from childless singletons.
His explanation for his recent return to the form we all know he’s capable of is entirely psychological. “Before, I was too crazy and not just on the racetrack. I always wanted to do so much; Supermoto, Motocross… I was always trying to do too many different things. Now, I have everything I want in my life, all I care about is looking after my family and racing. I’m more focused on the racing now than I have ever been. I’m riding less with my balls and more with my head now and it seems to be working.” No new training regime, no factory bike, just self-belief and determination.
Remember Troy Bayliss’ first MotoGP win at the final race of last season? Of course you do, because it was as emphatic as it was unprecedented. A rider that pushes the front end harder than most, the switch from Pirellis to a Bridgestone front tyre that Capirossi had told him was ‘incredible’ along with an engine map and power delivery that had been tailored to mirror his beloved Superbike was all he needed to have the confidence to take an easy win.
Do you think that his incredible performance having already won the WSB title along with no expectation or pressure for him to win from Ducati Corse was a coincidence? Of course it wasn’t. He was relaxed and brimming with confidence long before first practice.
Getting into the right frame of mind isn’t easy though. Work pressures and everything else us non-professional racers have to deal with doesn’t make it easy. We have to go to work on Monday, we have to pay the bills and we don’t have the backing of a factory to rebuild the bike should we get carried away and sling it into the nearest oak tree.
But we can learn to use our strengths and accept our weaknesses. I’m trying to stop myself from hating particular corners or types of weather and more than ever, I’m working on learning how to ride my bike faster and getting my head right. And that’s something that money can’t buy.