What a Difference Ten Months Makes

In March of 2009 I received a phone call from a young man named Andrew Novich. Andrew had just found out he had been chosen to participate in the Volkswagen TDI Cup and he wanted to learn more about driver coaching. Andrew had met Liam Kenney, a long time Speed Secrets driver, at the TDI Cup shootout at Infineon Raceway a few weeks previously and when Andrew asked Liam how he was able to do so well in the previous season he credited much of his success to Speed Secrets coaching. 

At the time Andrew called we were organizing an Inner Speed Secrets seminar at BeaveRun raceway in Pennsylvania. We arranged to have Andrew attend the seminar and do two days on track in a Mazda 6 - putting to use what he learned the previous day in the seminar. This young man took care of all of the logistics of getting to Pittsburgh and arranging payment for the seminar. During this process we realized we were making all these arrangements and we had yet to speak to a parent. We actually wondered if this was a kid’s wishful thinking until we asked to speak to Andrew’s mother Kim. She told us about his maturity and how he took care of his own karting career and how she just shows up at races when he tells her to! With her approval in place, we finalized the arrangements and made plans to work with Andrew at BeaveRun.

The first day on track was not as smooth a day as we like to see. There was a lot of work to do and Andrew struggled in the brake zones with this car. We ran through the usual Speed Secrets exercises like sensory inputs, setting defined objectives and focused on specific things to improve his driving. Still, Andrew struggled in the brake zones and when he asked me to take the wheel and show him I realized what he was coping with. The ABS system on this car was difficult to deal with and that was hurting Andrew’s confidence on track.

After two days on track seeing some really good things in Andrew I knew that this young driver had what it takes to excel in this sport - and that he has. His mother came to me at the end of the two days and asked the question all parents ask after the first outing “is he ready to move up to cars, would we be wasting our money and most of all will he be safe if we put him in the TDI Cup”. These questions are usually hard to answer as a coach at this point, since testing won’t tell you how a driver is in traffic and what he will be like when the green flag waves. However in Andrew’s case, these questions weren’t as hard to answer. The maturity level Andrew displayed told me he would be smart in the car. I still didn’t know how he would handle the pressures of running in a race but I knew that he was smart and it wouldn’t take him long to catch on and deal with challenges as they arose.