By Chris Berg

The dwindling snow banks around most of the nation means it’ll soon be time to go racing again.  With that in mind karters are spending hours in the garage assembling and preparing their machine, or machines if you are fortunate enough to have more than one, for competition.  But, many racers overlook putting time and effort into a driver tune-up.

The first time back in the kart for many racers, including myself, usually ends up being a pretty draining experience.  High performance driving puts a huge toll, physically and mentally, on a driver’s body.  In kart racing, the stresses that are placed on the body are amplified.  Many professional race drivers, including those who started racing karts, have commented that they find karting much more physically difficult than racing an Indy Car, stock car, or even a Formula One car.  One can only imagine that these claims are true.  If you look at the construction of a kart, there is no place for the forces of physics to act that won’t somehow travel through the driver.  The position of the seat and the method in which it is mounted, all the way up to the lack of suspension means that the driver feels every bump, rise, or ripple in the racing surface.

Racing is also a very taxing sport from a mental standpoint.  The concentration and coordination it takes to drive a vehicle at the limit, hitting the same points on the track again and again is truly phenomenal, and that’s just when you are on the track alone.  Add to that the decisions and calculations which you must instantly make during a race and it’s easy to see how race drivers can suffer from mental fatigue and information overload.

The interplay between your body and your brain just adds another level of complexity to the issue of fitness.  As the muscles in your body turn the steering wheel and absorb the shock from the racing surface, they begin sending pain and fatigue signals to your brain.  Everyone has probably felt it, for the first couple laps you feel good and are concentrating on getting to the front, but as the laps dwindle, all you can think about is how much your arms or ribs hurt.  This obviously means that you aren’t spending enough of your mental energy on driving, which means you’ll be going slower.

An old argument in motorsports was that spending your time getting fit doesn’t really do a whole lot for you since there are few exercises which match the movements you make while driving.  However, that argument has lost a lot of steam over the past 20 years, or so.  One can acknowledge that there aren’t many exercises which match the sport of high performance driving, but research has shown that any type of physical exercise is helpful when it comes to motorsports.  Racers at all levels have taken the fact exercise is good to heart, and the results are very easy to see.  The most successful racers in recent history have also been some of the most elite athletes in the world.  Michael Schumacher is the greatest example of that point.  He owns almost every record in the history of Formula 1, and will now get back into the driver’s seat after two years away from the sport.  Schumacher is known for his impeccable fitness, and is one of the hardest working and most fit athletes in history.

Other than just pointing out examples of racers who use fitness to achieve great things, there are hard facts which back up the idea that any type of exercise is helpful for racing.  Studies performed on Indycar drivers in the middle of a race have shown average heart rates just shy of 200 beats per minute.  That is more than twice the resting heart rate of the average person.  Almost every personal trainer will advise their clients to not go above 170 beats per minute when doing any type of physical activity.  In short, this means that the body of a racer is kept near maximum performance for extended periods of time.  Any sort of physical activity which is meant to prepare your body or this type of grueling exertion will provide some sort of benefit.  If nothing else it will make your body accustomed to a sudden increase in heart rate.

Exercise will also make a driver more flexible and less prone to injury.  Any type of motorsport is dangerous, and the possibility of injury is high, especially in karting where the driver’s body is very exposed.  The forces that the body absorbs during a race are miniscule compared to the forces involved in a crash.  Forces of over 100 G’s have been recorded in motorsports crashes.  And while these forces last for only fractions of a second, the sudden shock is often times enough to cause injuries in a driver.  Exercise will allow vulnerable parts of your body to be flexible enough to absorb the impact without sustaining a break, tear, or other serious injury.

Now that we’ve discussed the importance of physical and mental exercise, you may be asking yourself, how do I go about becoming more fit?  In the next two months we will talk about some of the important things to keep in mind when it comes to training for racing.  Resources to learn more about racing and fitness will be discussed, as well.  The most important thing that anyone has to remember when it comes to any type of fitness program is that it immediate results are not typical.  If you are just starting to think about getting in shape for the upcoming season, it may be a little late to see the results of your training in the first couple months of the season.  But, if you develop a program and stick with it, you will be feeling more fit and in better shape by the all-important middle and end of the season.  If not just to become more successful on the track you, owe it to your family and yourself to become fit to decrease your chance of injury.

Next month we’ll go into detail about becoming physically fit.  In May we will discuss some ideas to increase your mental strength and fitness.

Prepare your body and you will enjoy a safe and fun race season!