Back-to-back

The first time was in 2016 when we won in Ascot, England and then Lausitz, Germany. We finished second in the world championship that year.

One question that has been asked of me, is whether or not the win in Japan was easier after winning in Cannes and knowing we had the ability to win? Simply put, not really.

This year, there are at least five other teams out there with the ability to win a race in their own right (meaning, not relying on luck to get through a round, or other people to penalise themselves out). So, that on its own always puts pressure on us during race day, knowing we have some pretty stiff competition.

When your opponents are that fast, the last thing you should do is afford them an advantage. So, let’s wind back the clock on Japan and discuss how qualifying on the Saturday put us in a tough position and made Sunday’s job even harder.

The leadup to qualifying began on the Friday of the race weekend. Unusually we had four flights that day, three test flights and practice session one. All went well, and we learnt a lot from the day and felt we could improve on what were already respectable times.

Saturday rolled around, and we were scheduled for another two practice sessions in the track, followed by qualifying in the afternoon. Realistically, it was another big day with an extra flying session to what we normally have.

As this day progressed, we knew there would be a big change in the winds but were also aware that come race day on the Sunday, this wind would return to what we had seen on Friday, when we were fast. Therefore, made a conscious decision in qualifying not to change our race line due to the wind.

The reasoning for that was so that we did not change and confuse our thought process or lessons already learnt. I still believe this was a sound decision

Saturday practice went well, including topping the leader board on one of the sessions, all was looking good for qualifying. But then it all went horribly wrong when we got to the first really important session of the weekend.

My first run through the track in qualifying felt like it was a rock-solid run, up around my best times for the track. As I pulled out of the track, Jimmy (Race Director Jim DiMatteo) read my time to me, and I was two seconds off the pace. Two seconds! That’s a lifetime in the Red Bull Air Race and handed a massive advantage to our competitors.

‘Two seconds! That’s a lifetime in the Red Bull Air Race.’

The news was quite a shock to me, as normally my estimates of the time are pretty good, within half a second. It also had me ranked third last! As I reset for the second qualifying run, I was running through everything in my head as to what went wrong. Did I lean incorrectly? Did I mess up the power and prop setting? Did I completely get my start speed wrong? Was the engine losing power?

The bottom line was, I felt I flew well and all I could do at that stage was to try and fly well again and see what happened.

That next run felt just as good, but no better than the first. The problem now was that I clipped a pylon, and I knew straight away my chances of improving my ranking were gone. Pylon hits are worth a three-second penalty. Despite the mistake, I stayed in the track to get the best raw time I could, knowing we needed to collect data on what was going on.

As I pulled out of the track, the raw time was back to what I had expected. It was fast and would have put us second behind qualifying winner Mike Goulian – the guy who was leading the world championship by three points, ahead of us.

The three-second pylon penalty meant we ended up 12th, third last, while our closest competitors sat near the top of the tree. Bugger!

After I landed we had a quick team debrief. I went through my thoughts on what had happened, though admitted I had no idea on what went wrong on the first run. All I could do at that stage was hand over to Pete (tactician Peter Wezenbeek) and Finchy (technician David Finch) to see if they could find a valid reason for the initial slow time.

After a few hours, just before we left for dinner, Pete had isolated the exact point where things went wrong, and it was an easy item to fix. We also knew from the second run that if I did not hit the pylon (coulda, shoulda, woulda) we would have had a great time. We still knew it was in us to win the race, but a little more concentration was now needed considering the qualifying result.

What a 12th place in qualifying did though, was throw in a whole new element for the Japanese race – mind games. Our result meant that our opponent in the first head-to-head knockout Round of 14 was Yoshi Muroya, the home-grown hero, reigning world champion, and Chiba air race winner from the previous two years. Oh, and he knocked me out in the Round of 8 in 2017. Brilliant.

The Japanese media had a field day when they saw that Yoshi and I were matched up again. They were calling it the ‘heat to watch’ in the Round of 14. The good news was that Yoshi was looking at our team, equally worried that he was up against strong competition. Like I said, mind games.

After qualifying we went out for dinner as a team with Rowan Willson from OzRunways, one of our highly valued air race sponsors, and his wife Kristen. Rowan is an ex RAAF pilot like me, and we discussed the mental challenge that lay ahead on race day and the fact that no matter what happens on qualifying day, the next day is a new one. We also agreed that regardless of what coulda, woulda or shoulda happened, it’s always a little stressful after qualifying.

We compared my result from that day to doing an IRT, or a GFPT on pilot’s course…. you can be blitzing the flights leading up, but it only takes one error on the day to fail the flight.

I went to bed and thought a bit about this concept. I realised that it was exactly the same as being in the RAAF, and my whole career I had dealt with situations like this. Instead of focusing on what could go wrong, and making mistakes, I needed to recognise what could go wrong, but be confident I had a plan in place to deal with not letting that happen, then focus completely on how to do it right.

In the morning, the team and I continued with this mindset…everyone needed to be prepared for a perfect first run. There were lots of media questions about who would win between Yoshi and I, and our response was always ‘don’t know, can’t control it, all we can do is our best effort’.

The stress disappeared as the Round of 14 neared and as I taxied out for one of the hardest first rounds I have ever faced, I felt the most relaxed I had ever been.

And that mindset worked.

I flew first in the heat against Yoshi and put down a time that was 0.6 seconds faster than the next best, and over a second faster than everyone else. Regardless of how Yoshi went, I knew we would progress to the Round of 8 as the winner of our heat, or the fastest loser in the Round of 14.

Unfortunately for Yoshi, he made an error and DQ’d himself out of the round.

We always make a point of ‘racing ourselves’, not our opponent. Even though we never got the chance to compare our time to Yoshi that day, we achieved what the team has since referred to as our most perfect run in the track to date.

The highlights reel from Japan will show our winning run in the Final 4 where we raced against Mike Goulian, Pete McLeod and Martin Šonka. It might even show our Round of 8 heat when we raced Spaniard Juan Velarde.

But for our team, it was the Round of 14 that set up our victory and it was our most satisfying flight all day.

So, how can this help you?

No matter what you are facing in the day, if you are starting to get stressed about it, acknowledge that yes, there maybe things that don’t go your way.

But always make sure you have a basic plan on how to mitigate those items as best as possible, then focus on what you can control to make it perfect. Whether that be a flying test, a nasty weather day, or something on the home front, focus on the positives and have a plan for the negatives. If you can do that, you will perform better and most likely even enjoy the challenge.

Smoke on….