Ricky Carmichael's Race Car Career

 According to DirtRider, Ricky flew straight from winning the World Supercross series event in Vancouver British Columbia on Saturday night to Lakeland Florida for a NASCAR test on Monday morning.

What interests me about Ricky's career change are the factors that allow a successful motorcycle racer to transition to car racing. Racers like Ricky Charmicael, Travis Pastrana, Valentino Rossie, Rick Johnson and Jeff Ward have all either made the transition or flirted with it -- and proven that they have the skills to make the switch.

What are those skills? I feel there are probably a few key areas

• Vision skills such as the ones I highlighted in this post, including things like the ability to clearly see objects while you and the objects are moving fast.
• Mental skills such as discipline, motivation and intelligence (or maybe an intuitive sense of physics).
• Something I'll call feel. This is the ability to feel at one with a machine and the machine's interaction with nature (the sky, the track, etc.).

On the topic of "feel", Dirt Rider's Scott T says:

"Ricky is learning so much every time that he gets into the car and has impressed the NASCAR team personnel with the amount thathe can feel changes with the car. I laughed to myself becauseRoger Decoster told me that he has never worked with a rider that could feel the slightest change on the bike as much as Ricky can."

I think the critical skills for any racer are the ability to feel the machine's interaction with the track, the ability to see the whole track and utilize all the vision skills I listed in this post, and having the mental discipline of a champion.

In summary, I feel Ricky's ability to even be considered for NASCAR is due to the following three factors. He can:

1. Feel it.
2. See it.
3. Make himself do it.

Lots of trainers and sports psychologists are focusing on helping athletes with the last item (mental discipline, etc.), but I am not aware of anyone who is working with motorsports athletes on vision skills. I think it would also be interesting to study "feel" and understand how it can be improved through practice. However, I would have to say that I think fit eyes are the most important of all these factors because we already know how to train an athlete to improve their visual skills. That makes fit eyes the only one of these three areas that is not being addressed today while the knowledge of how to address it is available. Fit eyes are therefore one of the top competitive advantages a racer can cultivate today.