Our previous article about the motor sport coach Evgenii Vasin had an optimistic end: "Dream what you want, but let's start our way to your dream!" It's good, but how long will this way be? You know, motorsports need substantial financial investments. Today we, together with Evgenii Vasin and his co-driver Aleksei Shchukin, are talking about terms, results and situation in the national rally in general.
E.V: There should be the concept of training. It's like a person cannot come to the traditional sporting section – gymnastics, figure skating, soccer – and participate in the World Championship round immediately. There are certain stages of development that give the possibility to become a formed sportsman and everything should follow these canons. It's impossible to jump onto the tenth step without stepping onto second, third one and so on.
A.SH: And now look how the formation of our sportsmen occurs. The first step: people obtain their driver's-license. Then they save some money. And what do they buy? Knowledge? Skills? No! They buy a car. Without understanding how it works they get into it and drive to the race. The situation is that some chain from the Club Rally Cup to the National Championship was built but only in relevance to the expenses but not to the skills upgrade.
And here is a person tried to drive. But something went wrong and he begins to ask. Who? His competitors in Internet, of course! Vasia, do you jump on that crest? I do. And I don't. And how to do it faster? To jump is faster. He jumped and is out of competition for a year because he has to repair the car. The year has passed, he hasn't jumped there anymore and failed on the second turn. And he is asking again: Vasia, how do you pass this turn? I do it on the second gear. And I have tried on the third and it didn't go. I'll try on the second. And here is the development...
E.V: But there is a winner anyway because there are several of them participating. And this winner immediately starts to write articles in Internet, give advices, in one word, becomes a coach...
During the practices with one of the sportsmen we have noticed that his development had the same scheme and we asked him: where did you hear such a nonsense? He says that he has read just another opus in Internet, and there is no other information! That's why we have a wish to create some school for the beginning rally drivers and teach them according to the definite system.
Moreover, the system does work! Even the people who do not have any inclination to it can be taught. The programs applied in the practicing were testing on the common drivers. And in 4 days the driver got just different skills of driving. In brief, we keep understanding that something should be done. The question is how it will be required.
But there are a lot of schools of supreme driving skills including those with sporting instruction...
E.V: To a large extent, all the Western schools work according to the principle "look how I can do". You can come and ask Grönholm, Kankkunen or Mäkinen to practice with you. They make no secret that they do fine tuning: to practice with them you have to demonstrate the upper-intermediate level of training. But when a fresher comes to them, he cannot learn anything as a matter of principle. He rather can perfectly become familiar with the 2 km part of the road. But if you remove him 2 km further, the things become even worse: he has already felt the speed but has no idea what to do with it. So, some concept of pilot's evolution is required.
Some simple course of basics is needed and for those who want to dig into sport there will be the next step. You should have basics of the control elements of the racing car, of what the pace notes consist of, how to write it and so on.
A.SH: So, this system should be revived or adjusted but now everything is hovering. People don't understand how and what are they doing. Do you want to know the principles of safe driving and qualify it as sports at least to certain extent? Do you want it to be the competition, the struggle, not the tossup on who will jump longer or drive deeper into the forest on the break-through?
Has this system existed before?
E.V: Yes, there was such a system, maybe a little bit ridiculous, but there was the USSR national team. There was a kind of a sieve and you couldn't get there without previous steps. There was a coach – a person who monitored the concept of one or another sportsman and was responsible for him when he represented the region on some competition of higher level. It can be said that there was everything wrong, but now there is no even the system like that.
Now there is a gap in the connection of the generations between the sportsmen and those who could teach them, show something (another question is if they are talented coaches or not, but at least they can give some advices of interesting suggestions). Everybody says: we are modern, we understand that we don't need any national team, now it's enough to have a good car, a lot of money and a license.
A.SH: As a rule, the people who bumped into the wall come to Evgenii. When no method left unessayed but no of them worked, they are told: refer to Vasin. But even in this case a person comes and says: Evgenii, I know how to do everything, I have more than perfect pace notes, I have the most expensive car, but I can't cope with braking, and I can do everything else, show me only this!.. It's terrible. He can do nothing. He spent so much money for the best motor, the best gearbox, the best suspension, and it revealed that they cannot protect him against the trees!..
E.V: Strangely, some beginner sportsmen do not know even the history, the names of those who developed the motorsports. Maybe, any boy who came to practice hockey knows who Kharlamov, Fetisov, Tretiak are. And here...
Everybody knows Schumacher...
E.V: Yes, especially for the person that decides to practice rally, Schumacher is, of course, important!
A.SH: In the result of it, the person doesn't understand to whom he or she should go to learn something. If a boy comes to me and asks to whom he may address, I will say: "To Brundza." And he will say: "I don't know who he is. I know Gennadii Broslavskyi, Ogarko, Kuzmich. And who is Brundza?"
I mean that to know history is not an end in itself but the need to understand who can teach you. Of course, the technics is much more advanced but physics is still the same! It can be also applied to the vehicle to drive, if it should be with 2 or 4 wheel drive. Does it matter if your car is influenced by the principles of physics?!
It's all clear, physics, history. And should mechanics of the car be known in detail?
E.V: All these factors are desirable. It's desirable to understand how faster this car can move, what the feedback to the engineers and mechanics could be to get the required result. And if you struggle against the car on all the testing sections, it makes no sense to adjust the suspension. It's nothing to talk about if you are afraid of the car! You finished, covered the distance twice, sained yourself because you hadn't fallen anywhere. Which suspension can we talk about?
We have a great shift in emphasis. It's motor sports, and the prefix "motor" means that you should creep under the car and assemble the motor day and night. And sports, what is sports? The main thing is "motor"!..
This theory can exist but in fact the higher you stand on this scale the less it matters. You only have to give your feedback to the team: I don't like how the car turns. But you should feel it! The sense of car is a sporting component, and the number of clicks is a technical one. Anyway, in my opinion, the sporting one should be in priority. You may not know the design of the shock absorber and it's not your business, to a large extent. But you should know clearly: your car slips off in the first and third turns and in the third quarter. And the engineer should tell you why it happens. That's why such a huge amount of testing operations are required.
And often the tests are confused with the practices. Somebody says: I've had tests and I've got some practice. No. You come to the tests with the skills you already have. And you shouldn't cross that margin because you have to set up your car. If you cannot drive it, and you don't have necessary techniques, it's nothing to do for you during the tests! If you have these skills, you are welcome to the tests, set up your car to be comfort for you.
If you went to the Russian Championship now...
E.V: We would win it with 90% probability. By the way, the fact that Uspenskiy won the Championship at the age of 55. It's abnormal, the 55-year-old pilot shouldn't be ahead of the 20-year-old ones!
Why?!
E.V: Because the 20-year-old is younger, stronger, more endurant, he has better reaction. He has better starting position! The other question is what he is doing. And he is doing nothing. That's why the 55-year-old pilot is ahead of him!
A.SH: In effect, it's a disaster for sports.
E.V: Let's imagine that Uspenskiy will go from the motorsports to business. Those who followed him couldn't overrun him and were 3 minutes behind. But they will stay! And some of them will be ahead of others, though he hasn't managed to leave these three minutes. And this one will live the sport too... It's a devolution, and then we spiral into the level of the motorsports in Romania.
After all, I will return again to my question. How much time is needed for training?
A.SH: The time depends mostly on the respondent. The better your accessibility is, the better physical condition you have, the smarter you are, the sooner you will learn. What is exactly the practice? It's splitting of the competition process into elements. If you cannot hold your hands right on the piano keys, it's useless to make you play the scales. If you got this skill in 5 minutes - OK, let's proceed! If you needed a week, so you needed a week. We can talk only about the elements of which the learning process consists, and how long it will be depends on you.
We had 4 practices with Irina Kolomeitseva and she will have no problem to be ahead of the half of the Ukrainian peloton even now, and two more practices – and she will be on the inaccessible height. The things she does during the practices... ¾ of the Ukrainian peloton doesn't even understand that it could and should be done! But, again, these are things she technically can do. And there is also a psychological part: how will she be excited, will she have butterflies?..
So the practices are the process with the definite goal. Then it's turn of fine tuning.
But even when it seems that all the elements are learned, and I think it will take half a year of frequent practicing and a year with a calm schedule, there's no limit to perfection anyway.
Many drivers take their coach, sensei, tutor to the competition because he will see some errors anyway and adjust the methodology A sportsman is not a diamond that can be polished one time but a flexible construction that can be improved endlessly. But this is such an inaccessible dream, and today we talk about the possibility to lesson people into basics and this will improve the overall level of motorsports.
Do completely learning-disabled people exist?
E.V: Sure. It is not given to a person, and it is possible in any area. It just means that you will have no brilliant results in this type of sports.
But can you become a master of sports?
E.V: Yes, yes! And by the way it's not the fact that you won't have significant results. When you defend only your own interests, you can storm this hill, become 7th, 8th, 10th, and one time zap and it's done – you are the third on the round of the World Championship!
So counter indications are only clinical. It means that doctors prohibit this. Even then... remember Zanardi! Everything depends on the person. One says: thank you, it's enough for me, and the other – make me such a car that I can shift gears with my nose.
Do you recommend to be liberal in driving or feel your limit every time?
E.V: I'm a follower of the liberal option. There are two development options: either descend from top downward or go up. I'm a follower of the second option, though the first one is also possible... So the story runs... However...
A.SH: You can never foresee the results of an error. There can be the most awkward cases. And if you drive all the time with the principle "I will break my car but feel the limit" you can break yourself together with the car one day. An awkward accident, some stone or tree – and that's it, you are on a buggy. What for? What have you manifested?..
E.V: Besides, there is no guarantee that after another accident you will want to return to this sport. In general, I wouldn't do like this.
And if a pilot keeps falling, it means that he passed his limit, didn't he?
E.V: This points to the fact that his sense of limit is affected and he doesn't make a wind correction. All these accidents are the result of some failure. Either a sportsman fails to drive a car or to assess the facts or the road...
Can the coach help in such a situation?
A.SH: Of course, it's the situation when the coach is required. Although coaches require some compensation of their mental and physical efforts, they save the huge amount of drivers' resources. Of course, you can work it out by yourself! By trial and error method, after decommissioning of several cars, you will understand: you can do like this and it's better not to do like that, and here it's better to do it just another way...
First of all, you need a coach to shorten the way of your development. To a large extent, the coach is not a panacea, 90% of sportsmen in our country feel themselves perfect without a coach and take it easy. But the experience you get in 10 years you can get in one year with a coach. The things you learn in 5 years you learn in one month with a coach. That's it.