February 8. Four-time Indy 500 champion Rick Mears' interest in driver coaching grew from his own experiences as a young driver, when veteran drivers helped him. In 1978 when he first drove for Team Penske at the Indianapolis 500, his teammates were Mario Andretti and Tom Sneva. "Good advice can make all the difference," says Mears, clearly enjoying his role as advisor. As Mears established himself as a champion driver over the years, other drivers would come to him for advice, and thus the roles reversed. Mears generously offered this reporter an interview to explain his role as a Menards Infiniti Pro Series driver coach.

Having experience as a driver is key, explains Rick Mears. For those in the stands at PIR, for example, the cars look as if they are going by smoothly through the troublesome turns one-two. But for the driver—and the car—it is anything but a smooth ride. Without power steering or air shocks, the car pulls every which direction and the ride is very rough! The driver is constantly fighting the steering wheel, making small corrections and line adjustments. This is evident during televised races when in-car camera shots reveal the drivers hands constantly making small corrections on the steering wheel.

"Most important," remarks Mears, "is that a driver learn how to feel the track and feel what the car is doing on the track. The feedback from the track and car are invaluable for a driver's own training."

Drivers often find that when they come out of turn one, they are not where they need to be for entry into turn two. Drivers usually think they have a turn one exit problem. In fact, according to Mears, the real problem is more likely an entry problem, a turn one entry problem, and Mears helps drivers learn the relationship between the turn one entry and where the apex needs to be in order to come out of turn one properly positioned for entry into turn two.

Sometimes how you look determines what you see, and with his years of experience and achievement, Rick Mears seems to see what others do not. He has this great insight into the cause-and-effect relationship of what happens with a car at racing speeds on the track. Sometimes, the time between the cause and the effect may be short, but the distance between the two can be long.

"It is so important," says Mears, "that the driver learn to focus on how the car feels as it goes though turns, to make the proper corrections." That feeling will tell the driver if he is making the turn the right way.

So Mears watches, and then he gets together with the driver. And then he acts as a sounding board: "I listen while the driver explains what he thinks he and the car were doing, before I explain what I saw and what corrections I think the driver needs to make and why." When the driver goes back out on the track, Mears resumes his position to watch the track again.

"The rewarding part for me is when after talking with a driver and explaining something that the driver needs to understand to correct a problem, the driver goes back out on the track. He may make the same mistake again, until all of a sudden I'll see the light switch go on, and the driver discovers the right correction himself."