Whether manhandling beasts over 300 miles per hour or trying to take less than a hundredth at the finish line in a 12 second street car, a driver’ s capabilities are astounding. Years of training produces pilots who are akin to the engines under the hood in terms of consistent performance.

In many ways, technological advancements have leveled the playing field, taking out some of the driving factor. As electronic components are added and more and more parts are controlled by computers, the consistency of race cars has made it easier for even novice drivers to quickly become good. Closing the performance gap also means tougher fields of cars, making it more difficult for drivers to gain any type of edge over another. Any mistake will be taken advantage of by a competitor.

Perhaps because of this, the driving piece of the puzzle is taken more seriously than ever these days. About three decades ago, Frank Hawley established his drag racing school and has helped hundreds of novice and professional drag racers reach their next performance edge. While that next step in becoming a better driver looks different for everyone, Hawley says there’ s one critical piece that affects every driver, regardless of experience: emotion.

“ There are a lot of things in your body and brain that don’ t perform well when you get overly enthusiastic or experience other emotions like fear of poor performance,” Hawley educated.“ It’ s interesting because people say,‘ Well, I’ m learning to drive the race car. I’ m pretty nervous. I don’ t want to mess up. There’ s a lot of pressure for me to learn how to drive the car.’ And yet if you go

to the pros and they’ ve been racing for decades, the same sorts of things can happen. They say,‘ There’ s a lot of pressure on me to perform. I don’ t want to mess up. My team is looking to me for a good performance.’ Emotion issues are universal, no matter how many years of experience you’ ve had. Emotions can hinder a person’ s performance across the spectrum.”

Managing emotions while competing for for any prize can be a daunting task. Hawley emphasizes that mental preparation is key and also suggests visualizing runs before they happen:

“ Mental rehearsal or visualization is something that virtually all professional athletes spend a great deal of time on. We spend a fair amount of time talking about visualizing your routines, especially if you’ re a new driver. You can do it in your kitchen chair, if you want, but if you’ ve got

a race car, we suggest you get strapped in and go through the routine: the burnout, the back up, the staging, all aspects of the run. Where your body is. How much pressure you have on the left foot, the right foot. Is your head on an angle? How are you breathing or are you breathing? All of those things go into visualization. New drivers need to visualize procedures, because you’ re writing programs in your mind that hopefully will allow you to do this at a later date without any conscious thought.

“ Actually, once the driver gets really good and experienced, we don’ t spend a lot of time going over how they’ re going to drive the car, but we do spend time with them on settling down, getting quiet moments in the car ahead of the time they’ ll drive. Get rid of all outside influences. They’ re not necessarily having to practice how they’ ll

PHOTO: FRANK HAWLEY’ S DRAG RACING SCHOOL