To keep shorter my previous post, here is a separate post about what I have not gotten to yet, that I like to try to write about each week after racing on Sunday Nights.
I made two big mistakes in this week's formal racing that I want to share with others. It helps me to maybe not have as much of a chance to make the same mistakes again, and, it would be cool if maybe it helped someone else by chance.
First, I turned-in too aggressively going into the esses on Apricot Hill and ended up spinning out. I have been learning about not being overly aggressive in a race, and like I said in last week's mistake post, learning about not pushing myself or the car too hard in a race (or during qualifying). But in hind sight, I realize that I had specifically identified this with braking points and turn-in points (i.e. not moving my braking point up to try to get an advantage, and not moving my turn-in point up to get an advantage). Iow, basically not doing something I had not practiced with my braking point or my turn-in point just because I suddenly wanted so much more to be faster during an actual race. HOWEVER, I had not associated this concept with the aggressiveness of my driving arc. I tried to get a tighter turn-in to the first apex so that I would be positioned more to the right going into the second part of the esses, but as I was doing it, I immediately knew I had never tried or done this in practice, and to my horror, sure enough, I began skidding and to my painful disappointment found that my steering input was having no effect on the skid.
My second mistake, was pushing too hard when I was right behind another driver on Tsukuba. @
KTR5 was in the lead and I was finding a slight amount of extra speed, probably due to the draft, in a couple of spots and I realized I started to have a conversation with myself about catching him vs. backing off a little and being safe. I completely forgot about the technique of allowing a gap and trying to capitalize on it. Anyway, I made the comment about how much fun I was having at the time pushing right up to Coach, running so close together, pushing it so hard. I did not realize that this was a recipe for disaster and was a slow, ticking time bomb. Sure enough, the almost inevitable happened, and I over pushed on a corner and went off. I had been feeling kind of discouraged with Tsukuba because it seemed so hard to distinguish myself on this track that relied so much on getting relatively small places on the track just right in such subtle ways. So when I found myself in second and gaining I suddenly felt elated and, evidently, failed to stay grounded in reality.
Now I know, when I am in a race and I am very close to someone for an extended time, even if it is extra tempting because passing them means being in first, and the ego is kicking in about how good I am because we are in the lead, I should equalize my self-inflated view of the high altitude of the situation, realizing the reality of its unique risks, compensate for the lack of oxygen to my brain giving me a false sense of invulnerability to the dangers of being on the edge, never throw care to the wind in the face of unexpected success and excitement, and remember, once again, in yet another type of situation to not over push myself and the car. Oh, ya, I also forgot to factor in the effects of draft. And, of course, I completely forgot about the fact that it would have been very good for my evening if I had settled for running in second (a consideration that had been given to me when the roles had been switched with the exact same driver in a previous race) until after this all went down and I ended up having two other mistakes in the race and ending up almost in last place. Basically, I had about four chances to come to my senses. Oh, hubris, how harsh is your bite.
R because it doesn't interest you, doesn't help the lower division guys get any better. If it's a problem I'll remove the post since it seems to be causing a lot of grief. 
) and they didn't have any of those conditions. Or if they did, they didn't warn us about it and also with a lack of data collection/telemetry I doubt they were tracking it either. It was fun!
).
