One of the best parts about my role as an instructor within ThisIsBracketRacing ELITE is the ability to get to talk with racers,from all over the country (and the world), who compete in seemingly every facet, category, and series of sportsman drag racing. As a prime example, I recently hosted an ELITE “mastermind” call alongside a small panel of our members who have been extremely successful in bottom bulb competition; a group including Stock, Super Stock, Footbrake and No Box racers.
As the moderator of this call, I felt confident that our membership would benefit from insight from the panel on many of the tangible challenges of bottom bulb competition: the mechanical adjustments these drivers make in order to adjust reaction time; when transbrake racers mash the gas to put the car on the rev limiter; how much Footbrake racers focus on maintaining a consistent staging RPM; whether or not they use a blinder; and more.
As I teed up these topics, I was surprised to repeatedly hear responses from the panel that seemed to consistently harp not on these quantifiable facets, but instead on the mental aspect of the game. After stubbornly trying to adhere to my script of topics for the first half of the call, I finally got the message and allowed the conversation to go this route almost entirely. What I learned was eye opening, while perhaps not completely surprising.
I’ve long argued that once we reach a certain level of understanding of the game and its nuances (an understanding that most high level competitors share), that the difference between winning and losing has more to do with what goes on inside the helmet than anything else. As I listened to these rock star bottom bulb drivers, it made even more sense that they would focus on this aspect of our game. Let’s face it: bottom bulb racing has more inherent variables than other forms of competition. Misses are wider. It’s easier to question ourselves; it’s easier for doubt to creep in. So it’s only logical that these drivers would put as much emphasis on the development of their mental toolboxes as they do anything else.
This column is for the bottom bulb racers! I want to distill some of what was shared in that call, combine it with a little research and science, and perhaps interject bits of my own personal experience. Here are some of the key takeaways:
Fearlessness: The seminal moment of our conversation – at least for me – was when I asked our panel what the biggest key for each of them, personally, was for success on the starting line. Trey Vetter, who is making a legitimate run at this year’s NHRA Super Stock world championship, was one of the first to speak up. He said that when he’s at his best, he approaches the starting line with fearlessness. In short, he’s hitting the tree aggressively, without trepidation of a red light. It’s something he says he reminds himself regularly. That resonated with me (and with other members watching along), because while I pride myself on my starting line aggressiveness, I nodded my head at the idea that – specific to bottom bulb racing, where the discrepancies in reaction times across the field are typically wider than what I’m used to in top bulb or pro tree competition, I often find myself racing “not to lose.” I think we can all agree that mindset is not the most conducive to winning!
It’s one thing to say that we’re going to approach each round with fearlessness. It’s another to actually do it. How do we get closer to realizing that goal?
“Fear is a mental state. It’s being afraid of making a mistake when you swing the club. Fear causes golfers to try to guide or steer the ball, rather than swinging freely. That doesn’t work.” – Bob Rotella
Conservative Strategy, Cocky Swing: This is a quote directly from Bob Rotella’s classic How Champions Think, a book written for golfers that I find extremely applicable to racing. Most of our members are familiar with Rotella’s work and specifically this book, as we’ve basically made it required reading within ThisIsBracketRacing ELITE! Henry Roberson (an extremely successful bottom bulb competitor from Northern California) and multi-time national event winner Brenda Grubbs were panelists that specifically quoted these words, and talked about the importance of finding fearlessness by staying in their comfort zone.
In simple terms, the idea is this: when we’re comfortable, we typically perform at our best, and we all have a threshold for comfort. Trey, Henry or Brenda may be comfortable setting up for a .010 reaction time (maybe even tighter) without fear of red lighting. For me on the bottom bulb, that number may be more like .015-.020. For a beginner, it may be more like .030 or .040. The specific target doesn’t matter. What matters is that whatever we’re aiming at doesn’t “feel” too close to the edge. It’s the same reason that when I’m feeling anxious about the possibility of red lighting in Super Gas I’ll often reach down and click .001 in the delay box. I don’t do it because .001 is likely to turn most of my red lights into green lights (it’s not). I do it because when I click that thousandth of a second into the delay box, I immediately think “that’s way too much delay. There’s no way I can go red: I HAVE to CRUSH it!” It’s the same idea here. A “conservative strategy” – whatever that may look like for each of us individually – allows us to perform without inhibition (a “cocky swing”).
Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.” – Bruce Lee
Be like water: While none of our panelists quoted Bruce Lee directly, there was a common consensus that while there is some inherent rigidity built into consistently hitting the tree as a bottom bulb racer, the more we think about the tree – the more we get into our own heads – the worse we tend to perform. Jason Ford, one of the more successful bottom bulb racers in the midwest, said that a big key for him was essentially “going with the flow.” What he meant was keeping calm and not allowing things that he could think about in advance – like the speed of an opponent (the difference in dial-ins), lighting or darkness on the tree, or his previous round performances (good or bad) to consume his thoughts in a way that disabled performance. And, to take it a step farther, he also harped on an ability to conform to some of the more in the moment challenges that perhaps we don’t get as much time to think about and prepare for: downtime following a brief clean up, a slow staging (or quick staging) opponent, losing lane choice, and more. Our panelists almost universally nodded in agreement when he stressed the importance of not stressing; let it be and trust yourself to do your best. Speaking of trust..
Train it & trust it: This is another term stolen directly from Dr. Rotella, one that I’ve internalized over the years. Former Stock Eliminator world champion Jerry Emmons chipped in with this on our call. Plain and simple, it’s the value of practice. And not even the idea that practice necessarily makes us better (it almost certainly does), but the simple idea that the right practice unlocks us because it not only helps us to refine the physiology and mentality that facilitates our best performance, but builds confidence in the simple idea that we’ve put in the work that makes success possible.
Rotella talks about how NBA players will take hundreds of free throws every day, often experimenting with different routines, release points, grips, and more. Eventually, he says, they settle in on the most comfortable and effective methods for themselves. And then they practice some more, ingraining those subtle movements into the subconscious so that when the time comes – in front of thousands of screaming fans and millions more watching on television, with the game on the line- they can trust the subconscious to take over, guiding them through those same rehearsed movements successfully – without conscious thought. Reacting to a light bulb on our Christmas Tree is remarkably similar: it’s a rehearsed physical movement that we’re trying to repeat as consistently as possible round after round. The more we think about it, the harder it becomes.
“Once an athelete has learned a skill – as Lebron (James) had learned to shoot a basketball – he needs to trust that skill, focus on the target, and let the shot go without thinking about how to do it or being concerned with the result. In slightly more scientific terms, the subconscious areas of our minds do the best job of controlling motor skills. When the conscious brain gets involved, our bodies tend to become awkward.” – Bob Rotella
Embrace the plateau: Austin Romine, one of our newest ELITE members who has had immense success in my local region, talked a bit about the inherent feeling that we may have made immense tangible progress at one point in our growth curve, but that often times it feels like despite our constant efforts that period of rapid improvement is gone. Even though we’re working and striving, it often feels as if we’re spinning our wheels. He encouraged fellow members to stay the course, an idea that can be best summed up by swim coaching legend Terry Laughlin:
“Love the plateau. All worthwhile progress occurs through brief, thrilling leaps forward followed by long stretches during which you feel you’re going nowhere. Though it seems as if we’re making no progress, we are turning new behaviors into habits. Learning continues at the cellular level… if you follow good practice principles.” – Terry Laughlin
When you’re struggling: Sometimes we go through stretches that don’t feel as much like a plateau as they do an outright slump. In these times, it’s easy to question everything. For bottom bulb racers who have adopted the “stare into the bottom bulb” approach (which, to be clear is NOT the only successful method to use on the starting line, but I would personally argue is the simplest), trying to react to the bottom bulb in much the same manner you would the top bulb if utilizing a delay box, there’s a reset that we often suggest once you board the struggle bus. Flip your practice tree from .5 full tree to a .5 pro tree, while maintaining the same rollout. The pro tree element ensures that you’re reacting to the bulb, rather than anticipating it.
Our northern influence on the panel, Canadian standout Craig Johnson, suggested taking this idea to the next level. He said that when hopping into a new car or when he’s struggling with his tried and true combination, he’ll often take a test run on a .5 pro tree at the track, simply to verify that he’s reacting to the bulb rather than anticipating it, and that his car is reacting in a manner that produces competitive reaction times doing so.
One of my personal fallbacks when it seems like I’m at or near the bottom of a hole that it feels like I can’t crawl out of in competition is to remind myself that momentum in our sport ebbs and flows like the tide. When we’re down, it feels like we’ll never get it right. Conversely, in those fleeting instances when we’re really rolling, it can feel like we can do no wrong. In my years of racing I’ve learned that it can often flip in a single round. That means that no matter how much I’m struggling, I’m just one good run away from getting that mojo back. So when I’m questioning myself, I try to remind myself that one good run can flip it – and bring back all the positive vibes of feeling like I know how to play this game. When I’m struggling, the thought of making six or eight, or even ten good runs consecutively to win a race seems daunting: when I haven’t gotten it right once in a few weeks that can even feel impossible. But one good run? I’m capable of making one good run. So I try to focus on my ability to do that. When I can accomplish it, it’s often amazing how additional good runs have a way of almost naturally following.
