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GURSS: Great Racers - Born or Learned?
Written by: Jade Gurss   
02/24/2009
Mooresville, NC
 
Faster. Louder. The weekly column on SPEEDtv.com by Jade Gurss. (Harold Hinson Photo) ยป More Photos

Are great racers born – or do they learn to be great? This question seems particularly pertinent on this date as the USF1 team makes their inaugural public announcement – and begins the public search for two top-flight pilots.

First, let’s distinguish between “drivers” and “racers.” A driver is someone who might be able to drive (or ride, if we’re talking motorcycles) fast or turn a good lap time but needs a perfect machine to run at the front in the race. A racer is a winning driver: a person capable of getting to the front in less-than-ideal equipment and rarely makes a mistake when a victory is on the line.

In sports research circles, one element of athletic success is called “field sense.” It’s something Wayne Gretsky, Tom Brady and Michael Jordan possesses: a sense of where every player on the court/ice/playing field is located at all times. It’s something that separates the greats like Gretsky, who was never the fastest, biggest or strongest player, from mere mortals. Because Gretsky was small, he honed his field sense as the only way he could become a professional hockey player. Researchers in Australia and the United States insist they are developing methods to teach field sense, but can it be applied to racers? You might be able to teach someone to drive, but can you teach being a “racer?”

In motorsports, the enduring cliché lives on: Dale Earnhardt could “see” the air. Was that something Earnhardt had from birth – passed down from his father Ralph? Was Dale Jr. – with two racing grandfathers and a dad who was among the best of all-time – born with the same innate field sense – which involves not only vision,
but also a heightened sense of timing and spatial relationships?

Dale Jr. often credits his superb peripheral vision (which is also one of the reasons his father gave when he insisted on wearing an open-face helmet rather than a safer full-face model) for his success on restrictor-plate tracks. But vision alone does not allow him to have the car control and the ability to make instantaneous decisions at 190+ miles per hour. That must be an innate skill, right?

One of my clients this season is Kevin Harvick Inc., who have entrusted one of their two Truck Series entries to Ricky Carmichael, a man known as the GOAT (Greatest of All-Time) in motocross circles. Based purely upon his previous auto racing results and experience – very, very limited at best – Carmichael would have never been a blip on Harvick’s radar, but because of his 15 championships in motocross, he was suddenly thrust into one of the top trucks on the tour because Harvick saw a true racer.



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