Photo Credit: Taco Gunner | Stefan Jones
The benefits of being a dyslexic driver.
Think about the way you process an upcoming corner when driving on a track (or a road, for that matter). Following your vision, you process where you begin to brake (BoB, or Begin-of-Braking), the Turn-in, possibly (and hopefully) the End-of-Braking (EoB), the Apex, and finally the Track-out or Exit. Oh, and likely more than a few other references along the way.
In a discussion and interview with Dr. David Ferguson (Michigan State University, Spartan Motorsport Performance Lab) for my podcast (episode #186) a few years ago, he shared an interesting observation with me. About 9-10% of the general population are dyslexic, and yet closer to 30% of professional race drivers are.
As you’re probably aware, those who are dyslexic try to read a page of text from the right to the left, or “backwards” to those who are not dyslexic — and how Western language text is intended to be read. Or, the text is just mixed up.
It might be easy to assume that most other athletes are similar to race drivers in this way, but they’re not. In fact, across traditional stick and ball sports, athletes are no different than the general population in terms of the percentage who are dyslexic.
Hmmmm… what does that mean?
Dr. Ferguson had the opportunity to test a variety of racers on a simulator while they wore an eye tracking device, then analyzed how they used their vision, and therefore, how they process a section of track.
What he found is that the more successful drivers tended to look to the end of a corner as they approach the entry, then their vision tracked back towards the beginning of the corner. It’s as if they’re trying to read the corner from the “right to the left,” or backwards. He also observed that less-successful drivers look for and process a corner in what may seem a more logical or sequential way, from the beginning to the end.
Could being dyslexic be an advantage in our sport?
Prior to speaking with Dr. Ferguson, I spent a couple of years researching everything I could about vision, and specifically what the best athletes in all sports, including race drivers, do with their eyes. I came to the conclusion that the best drivers glanced ahead, then tracked back to the next primary reference point/area, then glanced ahead again, back to the primary reference, glanced ahead, back… and so on. In between these glances ahead is really what we talk about when we think about “scanning.” (You might want to review what I wrote about this a few months ago in the Glance & Focus Your Way Around the Track post)
It’s the glance ahead that the best drivers do, looking for the end of a corner, then tracking or scanning back to the beginning. It’s what Dr. Ferguson also observed with his eye tracking research on a simulator.
All of this reminded me of a quote I read many years ago from the golf legend, Jack Nicklaus: “I never hit a shot, not even in practice, without having a very sharp, in-focus picture of it in my head. It’s like a color movie. First, I ‘see’ the ball where I want it to finish, nice and white and sitting up high on the bright green grass. Then the scene quickly changes, and I ‘see’ the ball going there: its path, trajectory, and shape, even its behavior on landing. Then there’s a sort of fade-out, and the next scene shows me making the kind of swing that will turn the previous image into reality… I believe a few moments of movie-making might work some small miracles in your game.”
Apparently, Jack Nicklaus would have made a very good race driver, as he started with the end in mind. Of course, he didn’t need to do his “movie-making” at speeds well above any golf cart he’d ever ridden on did, like we do!
The old saying, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there” is a good reminder.
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If you followed the advice of the title of this post, you’d be reading this now, before the rest of what I wrote: starting with the end, and working your way backward to the beginning. I know, that might be weird, but I just tried reading each of the paragraphs in the order from the end to the beginning… and it’s not too bad. I like this idea of starting with the end in mind.
Here’s a challenge for you: Be deliberate about how you look through corners, whether driving on the track or road, focusing your vision and your mind on the end of the corner before you even arrive at the corner.
Also, if you want to improve your vision techniques, I created what I call a Playbook video on the subject. It’s an in-depth, practical, and yet, relatively quick training tool that I call Vision Techniques Playbook (I know, not very imaginative!). You can find it here.
Ross Bentley
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Ross Bentley has spent a lifetime helping drivers go faster. He’s the author of the Speed Secrets books (the best-selling racing series ever), is one of the most sought-after driver coaches in the world, and runs SpeedSecrets.com, the largest collection of driver development resources anywhere. Want more articles like this? Subscribe at RossBentley.Substack.com.
