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GHiT 0728: What to Do to Recover From a Mistake on Track (and learn from it)

GHiT 0728: What to Do to Recover From a Mistake on Track (and learn from it)

Garage Heroes In Training Sep 19, 2025 18 min
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About this episode

The discussion dives into how drivers should handle mistakes on the track, emphasizing self-awareness, ownership, and learning from errors to improve. Vicki shares insights on analyzing mindset and physical factors that contribute to mistakes, while Ben Dawson adds perspective on accountability, team dynamics, and the importance of being 100% focused before driving. They explore the balance between pushing limits and managing risks, and how quick self-analysis can prevent bigger incidents. The episode also touches on the community aspect of racing and maintaining respect among competitors.

Topics: recovering from mistakes self-analysis accountability mindset and focus team dynamics risk management track safety learning from errors
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Captain's Log Supplemental.
So, Ms. Vicki.
Yes, sir.
Do you remember when we were watching those WRL events
and some of those grid life events
where you used to see the in-car video
and it had the cameras seeing front and back,
but it also could see all the telemetry
and everything that was going on in the car?
You know, most of the ones that we'd like
were taken by the Sentinel system.
Remember James came on our podcast earlier?
Right.
You know, we have no excuse since he lent us one
for trial and demonstration purposes.
We should actually probably put that in one of our cars,
maybe two.
I really think we should.
I think we should.
I know.
Because then we'd look like the immature endurance racing team
that we are.
Oh, wait.
I mispronounced that.
I'm sorry.
We could have.
So does the Sentinel system do?
We could have three cameras with picture-in-picture.
We could have, if we ever get the AIM system to work,
open invitation to anybody from AIM to come on
and give us a little bit of love.
We need some help.
And then we could have all our telemetry,
telemetry, telemetry, telemetry, telemetry, telemetry,
telemetry, telemetry, telemetry, telemetry.
And then we could have all our telemetry on there.
And then we can have it streamed live into the paddock
or around the world to our millions of fans.
We're apparently very popular in Kenya right now.
Don't know why, but that's fine.
And it can integrate all the available race statistics
from like race here and everything.
So we could actually see how we're doing on video.
We wouldn't even have to carry around our phone anymore.
Live.
I love it.
From the great halls of their house,
there are assembled three who hope to one day be
the world's greatest driving heroes.
Created from the cosmic legends of the universe
comes our team captain, the vision, Bill Fisher.
They're soon to be Wonder Woman, Vicky Fisher,
our captain Marvel and head flight trainee,
Jennifer Scribchuk, and our backer,
the master of tools, gadgets and all things mechanical,
our mild mannered soon to be billionaire, Alan Danvers.
Their mission to fight injustice,
share what is right and wrong to get you out of your house
and come out racing with them and serve all mankind.
They are the garage heroes in training team.
Dominating with Dawson.
Ben Dawson, Ben Dawson.
Welcome back, Ben Dawson.
Thank you.
It's so nice to be back.
We took a little bit of hiatus again.
Life keeps creeping up on me.
That's all right.
That's the kid thing.
All right.
Miss Vicky.
Yes.
We're going to talk this one to you
and then have Ben analyze your answer.
Okay.
Okay.
Miss Vicky.
Yes.
I know it has never happened to you,
but suppose that you made a mistake on track.
How would you address the mistake
and how would you address learning from that mistake
so we don't do it again?
Hmm.
Oh, okay.
I wasn't sure this thing was on.
No, no, no.
I got, I got to really think about it.
Well, first of all, um, you got to,
you got to own how you got in that predicament
in the first place.
It doesn't have to be a huge mistake.
You really do.
No, it doesn't have to be a,
it doesn't have to be a huge mistake,
but that mistake could also be a mindset.
It could be just if you end up in an incident,
the incident didn't happen at that corner.
That incident happened at a setup,
probably three corners away,
or you coming into it.
So you really have to analyze what you did
to end up there and really kind of go backtrack,
um, and then make those, those corrections.
And if it was a headspace thing,
you need to figure out what you were doing
to create that headspace,
whether you were racing a person
and not racing on a track, you know,
or letting your emotions get too much of,
you know, ahead of you,
or it could be dehydration and tired.
There's a lot of factors,
but regardless is that,
that whatever happens to you,
whether it was done to you,
if it was done to you,
that's a whole different scenario,
because sometimes things just kind of happen
out of the blue and, you know,
a car fails and hit something else.
But if it's on you, um,
take a little bit of time and, you know,
reflect on how you got it
and be brutally honest with yourself.
Because the worst people that are driving out there
are people that don't own their mistakes.
And of course, if it was something done
to another person's car,
then be respectful and approach that person
and, you know, go find them
and let them know that, you know,
keep yourself in check
and then go have a discussion with them
and, you know, make sure everybody's okay
and make sure the car's okay.
And that's how I would take a look at everything.
If, you know, if that was me,
which it was, but definitely,
definitely, you know, definitely learn from it.
It's a learning experience.
Mr. Dawson, what are you thinking?
Vicki, your hair looks great tonight.
Oh.
That's right.
So you must have had it done really recently.
You're looking great with that great hair.
Love the way your glasses are set it off.
It really pops.
I don't have anything negative to say about.
Oh, I thought you were leading me into something.
I got worried.
I'm like, okay, he's softening the whole thing.
I was like, Ben, Ben,
I'm trying to stay out of the bathtub.
Don't, don't, don't be bad.
Gotcha.
Just kidding.
Not kidding about how great you look.
That's fantastic.
No, you're right.
I think you're right away.
You keyed off on some things that are very important
and post-mistake analysis,
whether it's just making an ugly corner
that you've been hitting consistently
or all the way to an incident where
more than one vehicle is involved.
You're right.
You got to, you got to own it and be analytical about it
and like what led to this.
This is something that I did.
So it happened.
It happened under my control of the vehicle
or loss of control of the vehicle.
So I think, you know,
using terminology like I need to own this
and need to analyze what happened are important.
And also all the way through to taking accountability
with with any other parties are involved.
So I think that's that's all good stuff.
I mean, you know, a lot of times you got to kind of be doing
learning on the fly.
My, my, this may sound counter to,
to how much of an ego maniac I am about my own driving
and abilities on track.
But, you know, when something happens on track,
my first assumption is that I screamed something out.
Like, so I tried to go back thinking like,
was this a failure of me placing the car?
Was that trying something that was a little too extra
that I shouldn't have been trying?
You know, in my mind, I'm like,
I'm never trying anything extra,
but maybe I'm like, I'm like, God,
maybe I tried to take an extra, you know,
half a rate marker into this corner or something like that.
So I'm, I'm immediately my first,
my first step in self analysis after,
after any kind of mistake or misstep on track is like,
what did I screw up here?
What the hell did you just do then?
And unfortunately, there have been times where I've done that
and failed to see an issue with the car.
I blamed myself before I blamed the car a couple of times.
And it should have realized, I don't have the problem.
Like we had a, had a, had a break failure that I didn't
understand was a break failure for one lap until the second lap.
I had it, I rolled into somebody.
So, you know, it's a, it's a tough game to play,
but you, I think you're, you really hit the nail on the head
with, with everything you're saying about just,
you got to be immediately analytical about it.
You got to own what, what led up to it was red mist.
Am I over, am I over fatigue?
Is it time for me to come in?
You know, even if you're 20 minutes into an endurance snip,
but you're out there, you know, missing, missing your marks or,
you know, things aren't going well in the car.
You got to be able to say, Hey, I need the next driver to come up.
I, for some reason it's not clicking.
I mean, you know what they always say, you know, at the end of a track event,
they're like, you know, if you feel like you're not 100%
for your last session on Sunday, skip it.
Those last, last runs are tough.
And I mean, and there's a lot of wisdom in that.
I am enough of a track maniac that I've never,
I can't say I've never skipped the last session,
but usually it might be a deal where somebody's like, Hey,
do you want to take my car out for one more?
And it's like, I can go home and make dinner.
I can make it in time for dinner with my kids.
So yeah, I'm lying.
I definitely have skips from opportunities to get back on track.
Not necessarily for not feeling it,
but just for other more self-serving races,
like we're at a crack of beer or, you know,
I want to get home and have dinner with my kids.
But yeah, you have to be self-aware about that.
I don't know if I've used this analogy on the show before,
but I had a teacher in high school.
I went to the Alabama School of Math and Science
and Dr. Schwaner was a renowned,
like a world renowned herpetologist, reptile doctor,
you know, reptile scientist.
And one of the big things he had done
and made his name doing was studying tiger snakes in Australia,
which are way more venomous than any snakes we have on our continent.
One bite from a tiger snake, you're not going to make it,
but they had to go out and count them in nature
and find them.
And so that was their big deal is they had to go out there
and say, how many tiger snakes are living
in this one mile radius here versus one mile radius there?
And they have a team who would go out and collect them.
But the whole deal was if their team of five or six people
all felt 100%, they'd go out.
If one of the team didn't feel all the way,
like maybe had a few too many drinks to that before,
maybe just felt pukey that morning,
maybe just breakfast didn't sit well,
they all stayed back in camp that day
because they had to have their whole team on board
and everybody had to be 100%.
And that's the way I feel individually about going on track.
If you don't feel 100%, if you feel off for any reason
or something's not there,
you're not just taking your own safety in your hands,
but you're going to get out there on track
with a bunch of other people who's safety
is also your responsibility.
I hate to get all so boxy and weird about it,
but don't go on track if you're not 100% into it
and you're not 100% feeling it.
Because it is like dealing with extremely poisonous reptile.
Like one misstep could make things really bad for you.
Especially if you're driving a car that doesn't have
full safety equipment, it's even scarier to me.
And the other thing too is, you know,
and that is the self-ownership part of it.
But when you have a team and you're racing
in a particular circuit,
that is like legit a community.
It's a community that really cares for each other.
So especially like with the grassroots, you know,
as you get more elevated, things get a little,
you know, more team-oriented.
But when you go off, you know,
it's kind of like going over and apologizing to your neighbor
because, you know, something happened.
So if you kind of have that one wild driver
who wants to start throwing punches, you know what?
That is a reflection on like the entire team.
So, you know, you have to,
you have to really keep that in mind
that it is, these are also your friends.
These aren't just competition.
So it is good to keep the peace
and to do those things to smooth things over.
You know, it's just a race.
You know, sometimes you come out of the car,
a little aggro and whatever.
That's not, you're in the wrong circuits if you're doing that.
You're watching too much F1.
You're watching too much NASCAR.
It's so funny.
The different world, like when I was,
when I raced cars, they had that off duty sheriff's deputy
out there every Saturday night to wake up fights.
Oh God, you know?
Yeah.
Thankfully that's not the world we live in.
Yeah, and that goes online too.
That goes for online.
You know, you got, you also, I mean, these, these,
these can reflect poorly on your team
and give an impression of your team
that might not be so great.
So, you know, keep that in mind.
You just be diplomatic about it.
My entire team, we're not fully in favor of the punch Nazi
sticker that I put on our car at one point.
Yeah.
But I was fully in favor of that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Not that my, not that many of my teammates were Nazis.
I guess we're all as full-throated supporting of being violent
toward Nazis as I am.
You know what?
There, there is, there is, you know, politics that,
that, you know, can be on the track.
But is that, is that where you want it to be?
I mean, I, I agree, but yeah, it's, it's a tough,
that's a tough one.
Yeah.
You gotta, you gotta have to take a 360 view of everything,
of everything that you're doing at any point for sure.
And especially with, especially the race and how you would go along.
I am certainly more willing to just take everybody's face value
if we're all just out there racing.
Yeah.
Everything, I'll leave everything at the edge of the back.
I'm just there racing, but I don't, I can't,
I can't fight every battle at the time, you know what I mean?
Right.
Yeah.
But certainly when something happens to your car,
somebody else's car, you know,
practice good, practice good, um, being a good neighbor.
Like, like a good neighbor, Mickey is there.
That's right.
Indeed.
Okay.
So that's kind of the thoughts on, you know, I've never had a
perfect race.
I've never had a perfect lap.
I barely had a perfect turn.
Uh, you gotta think about these things and you gotta be critical
and not overly critical, but factually critical.
And, you know, there's a lot you can do to improve and just, you
know, take it from there.
And, you know, Vicki started talking about like big mistakes
and even little mistakes.
You have to, you have to take a look at it.
And if you're, if you're wasting the time that you
have on track and the dollars that you've spent to be on
track and not trying to learn from it and maximize that.
I feel like you're being wasteful of your time and
your money.
And then it's really expensive.
And, you know, if you're just going out there to have fun and
just do laps and you like the way it feels to be on track,
cool.
But if you're trying to get better, try to take advantage of
it.
Yeah, I agree.
If you're, if you're out there to up your game and you're
out there to get faster and faster and more competitive and
whatever pursuit you're doing, um, self analysis and understanding
how to correct mistakes, um, in an effective way and
quicker and quicker.
And, you know, it's, it should be a big part of that.
Like if you watch video of me driving, every time you see
my hands kind of going, you know, saw back and forth or
saw on the wheel a little bit, that's a wreck that I'm not
letting happen.
You know what I mean?
That's a mistake that I'm not letting come to fruition
because I'm prepared for it and ready for it.
I know what's likely to happen, but I'm going to push
hard and I'm going to fight little mistakes as they
come up.
So the better and better you get at this, the tinier
and tinier your mistakes are and the more impcessible
they are.
That's the same.
If you're watching the car from me outside the car, you
don't see any upsets for outside the car.
As long as I got the throttle down, you can't really
know what he's going on, even though I might be fighting
like the madman in the car from the outside.
It doesn't look doesn't look like there's any upsets
going on.
So that's already minimized mistakes, at least
outwardly.
You know, but if you're looking at in car of, uh,
of somebody who's pretty quick, they're, they're
making a little corrections, especially if we're not
talking about a car that's like full arrow, like an
F1 car, those guys aren't making a lot of corrections,
but just about everybody else who has to try to do, you
know, as much as they can with their, with their
foot down, they're going to be fighting the cars to some
degree or other.
And those are people who are just not letting the
mistakes come, come literally full circle on them.
You know what I mean?
And, and Ben said those, that's a wreck that you
didn't let happen.
It's also a limit that you crossed and came back
from, you know, that's another way to think
about it.
You know, Ben does it on the wheel because it
looks cool in the video.
That's me plucking that string.
You know what I mean?
That string, that string that vibrates side to
side of the limit.
You know what I'm saying?
You're plucking that string all the time.
Yeah.
All right.
Sounds like a plan.
Thank you.
Thank you.
That was fun.
Good one to talk about.
Thank you.
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