Fast Maps: The Cartography of Speed SportRider, October 1996

Maps. Bird’s eye drawings of roadways that help us get from here to there. A geographer friend tells me that maps are “graphic representations of relationships in space.” Her definition probably isn’t all that bad, considering that she is a geographer. But if that is the definition of a map, what help could one be to a road racer who spends all day on a road to nowhere? She has also taught me that there are maps that each of us use that are seldom discussed and little understood, yet religiously followed. These are referred to as mental maps.

Mental maps are maps that we draw in our mind’s eye. They represent our personal view of the world. Their designs can range from actual representations of the world to unique constructs all their own — mental representations of relationships of space, emotions, intuitions and so on. Or for a racer, relationships of speed and time.

In 1994, my team (Team Pearls Racing) raced at Portland International Raceway (PIR) for the first time, offering me the opportunity to learn a lesson about mental maps and racing. Prior to practice, I walked the track with our riders, Darryl Saylor, Frank Wilson and Reuben Frankenfield, who were curious to see just where the thing went. They talked their way through each corner, discussing racing lines, pavement changes and details that might be worth remembering at speed. Civil engineers, of a peculiar sort, surveying and mapping the roadway.

The following day, after they each rode some laps, they drew a map of the track for discussion. Upon seeing their map, I was horrified at the confused “representation of relationships of space” they had drawn. I could not fathom how they could be so completely baffled as to the shape of the track’s layout having now both walked and ridden its length. Yet they believed their drawing to be absolutely splendid. What happened next was even more disturbing.

A local racer, who had overheard their discussion about the track, offered them an official copy of a track map. They took the map, glanced at it for a moment, then tossed it aside and continued their discussion with their version. Were these guys boneheads or what?

It eventually dawned on me that I was wrong and that the map they had drawn was exactly correct. Whereas I would have created a map that represented relationships in space, they designed one that represented relationships in speed, time, thought and action. Not having ridden the track at race speed, I had not experienced it as they now had. For them, it no longer mattered where a turn was located, but rather what a turn meant.

Their version of the track depicted gigantic turns and very short straights. In reality, PIR consists of tight turns, third gear or lower, and two long straights. But for racers, straights are inconsequential. Straights are merely spaces between turns. Time between actions. Traveling in a straight line at 160 mph is boring and effortless. For racers, the turns are what need to be solved. All decisions, skilled actions and everything that separates the best from the rest are in the turns. The entry, the apex and the exit of turns are where the races are won and lost.

On their map, they identified where they sat up, braked, turned in, located the apexes, and where they began to pick the bike back up. Their map included precise measurements and details of each turn with the straights virtually ignored. Because of all the thought and action that it takes to attack turns correctly, racers picture turns hugely out of proportion to the straight  sections of a  track. The more technical the turn the larger it appears on a racer’s map, regardless of its actual length. Their discussion included how the motorcycle was reacting and exactly what they were doing with the controls and when. For turns in close transition to each other, their mapping of the first turn was more of a picture of how to be in the right place to complete the second turn. They didn’t care where the pavement went, but only where on it they wanted to be.

Race speed also taught them to relocate some of the apexes, that some pavement changes they had noted while walking didn’t actually matter, and that ones they hadn’t noticed did. On their map, distance was secondary to time, thought and action. It was a map of speed, not of space. As a team owner, you might think that this would be an interesting curiosity to me at best. But it is much more.

After a racer creates a map the racer discusses it with their crew chief to communicate what the map reveals about the bike’s setup. Can a short-shift between two turns be solved with a gearing change? Can a suspension alteration settle the motorcycle through a particular transition? Does the suspension need to be altered for a gain in one place at a small loss in another? Data acquisition has helped this communication, but the rider’s mental map will always be an important technical tool of feel. Just don’t expect it to make sense on paper.

Maybe another sample.

Words and more words.