{"id":6844,"date":"2017-09-18T04:45:54","date_gmt":"2017-09-18T11:45:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/?p=6844"},"modified":"2017-09-03T11:09:41","modified_gmt":"2017-09-03T18:09:41","slug":"how-far-ahead-should-i-be-looking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/how-far-ahead-should-i-be-looking\/","title":{"rendered":"Q: How far ahead should I be looking on track?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Q<\/strong>: “The brain takes 1\/4 second to process and recognize visual images from the eye. At 100 mph you’re traveling at 146 feet per second, or 37 feet per 1\/4 second. What you “see” is 1\/4 second in the past. So, at 100 mph, when you “see” your tire at the apex, you are actually 37 feet past the apex. We are essentially driving in the future. This doesn’t take into account the time to send a signal from the brain to body to control the car, around another 1\/4 second. There is something going on here rather mysterious to me.\u00a0Experiments show brain wave activity occurs prior to consciousness and movement. When we look ahead at where the car is going maybe we provide input to allow the mental calculations of position. Maybe when we are in the zone, groove, rhythm, we are in some predictive state allowing driving in the future. So do we need to look 1\/2 second ahead?”<\/p>\n

A<\/strong>: Very interesting! While I\u2019ve seen some slightly different numbers in terms of reaction times and the amount of time it takes for the brain to process information (and no comment on your math and logic!), your question is a good one.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo do we need to look \u00bd second ahead?\u201d No! Many, many seconds ahead!<\/p>\n

On the road, traffic safety experts suggest that a driver should be looking 12 to 15 seconds ahead. On the track, I\u2019d say drivers should be trying to look at least that far ahead, but knowing that due to the speed we\u2019re traveling, that might not be possible.<\/p>\n

Imagine that you\u2019re driving on a straightaway, approaching a corner. You look way ahead \u2013 possibly a thousand feet ahead. You spot the turn-in point, and a second or two later you begin braking for that corner, perhaps 400-500 feet before the corner. You still have that turn-in point in your overall vision, but you\u2019re already glancing into the corner, taking in pieces of the visual picture between the turn-in and the apex. As you get to the turn-in point, you haven\u2019t actually been looking at it for seconds (or fractions of seconds). But you don\u2019t need to be looking directly at something to drive to it. In fact, if you did, and then picked your vision up a \u00bc or so seconds before you got to it, you\u2019d be \u201clost\u201d in terms of where to go next!<\/p>\n

When you say, \u201cWe are essentially driving in the future,\u201d you\u2019re right, because we\u2019re looking many, many seconds ahead, setting our path and speed well in advance of actually getting to a spot on the track.<\/p>\n

When driving down the highway, do you look at something, and then check whether you\u2019ve driven next to or over it by looking directly down at your tires? Right, you don\u2019t do that. You look at it, set your path, and trust that you\u2019ll get there.<\/p>\n

And when you say, \u201cWhen we look ahead at where the car is going maybe we provide input to allow the mental calculations of position. Maybe when we are in the zone, groove, rhythm, we are in some predictive state allowing driving in the future,\u201d I say, \u201cYes!\u201d It\u2019s because we\u2019re looking many, many seconds ahead that we\u2019re able to do the mental calculations to set the right path, and why being in the zone feels as though we\u2019re able to predict the future. We\u2019re predicting where we\u2019ll be by looking way ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Q: “The brain takes 1\/4 second to process and recognize visual images from the eye. At 100 mph you’re traveling at 146 feet per second, or 37 feet per 1\/4 second. What you “see” is 1\/4 second in the past. So, at 100 mph, when you “see” your tire at the apex, you are actually 37 feet past the apex. We are essentially driving in the future. This doesn’t take into account the time to send a signal from the brain to body to control the car, around another 1\/4 second. There is something going on here rather mysterious to me.\u00a0Experiments show brain wave activity occurs prior to consciousness and movement. When we look ahead at where the car is going maybe we provide input to allow the mental calculations of position. Maybe when we are in the zone, groove, rhythm, we are in some predictive state allowing driving in the future. So do we need to look 1\/2 second ahead?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ask-ross"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6844"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6849,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6844\/revisions\/6849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speedsecrets.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}