Visualize with Feeling

by Nick St. Laurent

I'm sure most racers have heard about creative visualization, and probably even tried it. In the week before a race weekend, I close my eyes and visualize getting my race car around the track, mostly at night before falling asleep. I've read stories about racers who could do this and come within seconds of a real lap time around the circuit, hopefully a few seconds under the existing lap record. I've never timed my visualized laps, but I do have an enhancement to suggest, if you haven't already done it. Don't limit your imagination by the "visual-" in visualization. Feel it with your whole body while you're visualizing.

Perhaps getting around high speed corners is a little overrated in terms of lap times, but for me if I can get through the fast corners on the limit, everything else flows better. To improve my speed through the high speed corners, I repeatedly visualize driving through it focusing on the feeling of the car moving around under me. I make a conscious effort during my visualization to enjoy the feeling. I mean, admit it, the adrenaline rush from a moment at speed in which you scare the bejeezus out of yourself but then save it is worth the price of admission.

So, imagine the car on the limit when visualizimg, making the corrections with nice smooth movements of the steering wheel and the pedals. Do it over and over again. Take it to the limit. Dial in a sense of confidence, then enjoy the feeling with your whole body, not just your eyes.

I know this visualization stuff works. When I first started riding dirt bikes, I wanted to be like the big boys and do those long wheelies, but I was apprehensive about it. I'd do these little blips and get the front wheel a few inches off the ground for a few feet, then chicken out and roll off the throttle. Then one night I had a vivid dream in which I could get the bike up on the rear wheel and carry it forever - I felt all the sensations of achieving the balance and controlling it with the throttle. The next day, I fired up the CR250 and went out to play and, lo and behold, I could do wheelies. I went nuts! I felt like the wheelie king - what was his name - George Domokos, something like that. I was carrying wheelies for an eighth of a mile, it was heaven. I wheelied my ass off… literally. One day I got carried away and went over the back at speed. I wore through my motocross pants and a couple layers of skin. Kind of like that guy who flew too close to the sun, I don't think it was Oedipus, but it might have been one of those other puses.

Copyright Nick St. Laurent; all rights reserved.