Missed Apex

For the non-track literate people, the apex of the corner is the point when you learn that you will either slide off the track, spin, or successfully navigate the corner to continue on for another lap.

Needless to say, the apex is important.  A missed apex can equal a blown lap, or worse.  Lessons gained from days at the track translate well into other aspects of life.  The people who don’t realize that are deprived of invaluable knowledge.  C. Scagnetti is about to learn that.

Focusing on past mistakes can lead to making future mistakes.  The mind and eyes need to focus on the intended destination in order to arrive.  There are almost always obstacles to the direct path.  How you respond to them determines your ultimate success.  The same issue that causes me to be off line through a given corner might also affect me in my strategic thinking.  The issue at hand in my case is normally operator error.  The specific error is choosing the wrong vehicle for the application.  When in the car I can feel when I've done something wrong, but it is harder to see a missed opportunity or failed execution when generating new revenue streams.

Can I recover from a missed apex to save the lap?  What about the next time through that corner?  Focus is hard to get and even harder to maintain.  I keep being distracted by photos of combat aircraft.  Those who have trained themselves to maintain focus will always have an advantage over others who are less able.  I do my best to maintain AcMo’s focus on its primary objectives, but it isn’t easy without a lot of assistance.

It is important that we have fun with whatever we are doing.  Even the process of failing can still have some element of fun to it.  This works even better if you are the type of person who loves a challenge.  Life is all about challenges and how you respond to them.  When I mention life, I’m really talking about the track and racing.  All of that other stuff, such as eating, sleeping, meetings, garage sales, and shoveling snow are just mundane maintenance tasks in preparation for the track.

There are certain techniques available that help people improve their skills.  These techniques can improve lap times and can also be applicable to most facets of life.  Through AcMo’s struggles and customer complaints before we closed the complaint department, I have learned not to give away information for free.  The restocking fee and refund process was killing our business.  This means that I will not be sharing the techniques referenced.

Back to that corner and missed apex.  How long is it safe to dwell on the mistake before it becomes an ingrained habit?  How does one effectively remove that mistake from muscle memory?  Action, reaction, or panic, which is the correct choice for that corner the next time around?

I always want to be faster:  on the track, creating revenue streams, making decisions, and servicing customer vehicles.   The service one is complicated because if we significantly reduce our repair times, customers will question why we are still using their cars, which will impact our track opportunities.

AcMo has a mandatory daily training regimen for all staff designed to improve our ability to perform.  The training itself isn’t too difficult, but removing bad habits and learning new techniques is.  It would be impossible to maintain the workouts without knowing that they could lead to something greater.

Discovery is a gradual process.  Each corner has a finite amount of grip that varies at any time.  The surface temp, moisture, debris, tire condition, vehicle speed, and a plethora of additional variables impact the available grip.  What you can never know until you are in the corner is how much grip exists.

Our belief system can cause us to doubt that unknown value.  Many drivers who drive an F1 car for the first time are unable to comprehend the braking ability and the cornering speeds the cars achieve.  The Scuderia AcMo F1 team will not have to worry about this because the primary driver, Johnny Jamz is a seasoned veteran.

Treating the corner as an unknown that has to be discovered through exploration is fine except for during a race weekend.  A driver may not have time to gradually work up to speed if the competitors are already going faster.

This is where mistakes and poor technique can prevent a performance rhythm from being achieved.  If our organization had a little more speed, and made a lot less mistakes, you would see more AcMo employees getting paid to drive other people’s cars.  We do get paid to do that now, but the owners don’t realize we’re driving their cars on track.  I am referring to being paid professional drivers racing in “legitimate” professional series.

People say it is never too late.  Maybe that botched corner isn’t the end, but a beginning to the resolution.  If I can get it right the next time, and every time after that, there are only 3,040,395,976,288 more that need to be perfected.  That seems doable.