OVERDRIVE: Formula One In The Zone – A BOOK “REVIEW“

Article Title: OVERDRIVE: Formula One In The Zone – A BOOK “REVIEW
Submitted by: Craig Lock
Category (key words/tags): Motor racing, Grand Prix drivers, Formula One, “the zone”, “in the zone”, sport, success, achievement, peak performance, mind, the mind of a racing driver, mindset of a top racing driver, mind-power, motivation, champion, elite sports-people, excellence (enough there now, craig)

Web sites: www.creativekiwis.com/index.php/books/74-craigs-books http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/craiglock + www.lulu.com/craiglock

The submitter’s blog (with extracts from his various writings: articles, books and new manuscripts) is at wordpress.com
Other Articles are available at:
http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/user/15565 and http://www.ideamarketers.com/library/profile.cfm?writerid=981
(Personal growth, self help, writing, internet marketing, spiritual, ‘spiritual writings’ (how ‘airey-fairey’), words of inspiration and money management, how boring now, craig

Publishing Guidelines:
We hope that the following article may be informative and helpful to your e-zine readers, or on your web site. This piece (as with all my writings) may be freely reproduced electronically or in print, with acknowledgment to the source, please.
If it helps and/or encourages others “out there” on the ‘amazing journey of life’, then we’re very happy.

“We share what we know, so that we all may grow.”
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OVERDRIVE: Formula One In The Zone – A BOOK “REVIEW”
Sourced from: http://mccabism.blogspot.com/2010/03/overdrive-formula-1-in-zone.html
Submitter’s Note:
Craig is currently “working” on a new manuscript ‘INSIDE THE MIND OF A GRAND PRIX CHAMPION, which forms part of true and inspirational stories of ‘Endless Possibilities: Let the Journey Begin’
“A lot of people go through life doing things badly. Racing’s important to men who do it well. When you’re racing, it’s life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting.”

- Steve McQueen in the film ‘Le Mans’ (1971)

”And so you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high.”

“And suddenly I realised that I was no longer driving the car consciously. I was driving it by a kind of instinct, only I was in a different dimension.”
Ayrton Senna

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I definitely felt God’s presence with me when I was a driver. When I was young I even tried to use God to help in my career. That was a mistake because even though He helped me a lot, He delivered a lot of bad accidents.” (Alex Dias Ribeiro, Overdrive, p176.)

Overdrive, by the pseudonymous ‘Clyde Brolin’, is first and foremost a book about what it is like to be a racing driver in the Zone. In this state of mind, a driver attains mental clarity, he feels at one with his car (a part/extension of it), and driving fast at the very limit becomes effortless. Accessing this mental state requires the relaxation of the conscious mind, permitting the subconscious to take control. Under these conditions, the consciousness of the driver is able to sit back and observe, from an almost disinterested perspective, the actions of his own body. It is the interplay between the consciously held information and the far greater quantity of subconscious information (like an ice-berg the 90% below the surface), which holds the key to sporting performance.
As Brolin explains, many drivers in the Zone also have the ability to slow down the subjective flow of time. This capability is common amongst all sportsmen, and can also be experienced outside sport in moments of great danger, such as the fractions of a second just before a car crash. It is a phenomenon which has attracted the interest of various scientists, and two possible explanations for the stretching of subjective time have been proposed: it could be due to an acceleration in some neurophysiological clock, or it could be a trick of memory. Neuroscientist David Eagleman, of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, for example, has conducted experiments which lead him to believe the latter:
An intense experience, with heightened fear or excitement, rivets our attention and evokes the firing of many neurons across the brain…causing us to soak up more sensory details…Richer memories seem to last longer…because you assume you would have needed more time to record so many details…”You lay down denser memory [claims Eagleman]. When you read it back out, you think ‘Gee, that was taking a long time’.”
Yet Brolin suggests that racing drivers are not only able to stretch time when they are in the Zone, but many are also subject to Out-of-Body Experiences (OBEs). The most famous cited incidence of this occurred to Ayrton Senna in practice for the Monaco Grand Prix in 1988: “Suddenly I realised that I was no longer driving the car consciously. I was kind of driving by instinct, only I was in a different dimension. I was way over the limit, but still I was able to find even more. It frightened me because I realised I was well beyond my conscious understanding.”
And as the spatial and temporal context also disappears, the person feels a sense of infinite space and eternity.
The really mysterious thing about Brolin’s book, is that despite ten years’ worth of research, there is no mention, not even in passing, of such scientific research. In fact, the reader could almost gain the impression that no such research exists. Moreover, Brolin makes a frequent point of claiming that there is no rational, logical explanation for the experiences of racing drivers in the Zone:
The author is putting an awful lot of effort into trying to convince the reader that there are things beyond rational explanation, and this seems to be crucial to the overall philosophical development of the book. Brolin begins with the testimonies of racing drivers who have been in the Zone, and then infers from these testimonies that such drivers have experienced something spiritual. From the spiritual, he then segues into the religious. And, by the final chapters of the book, we have drifted quite a distance from the Zone, and quite overtly into the accounts given by various sportsmen of their ‘relationship with God’. Eventually, we are told that the Zone is a “gateway to the divine,” (p157), and that “the Zone is one indication that we are all linked to the same source,” (p228).

However, whilst the book suffers from this philosophical flaw, it is still a unique and fabulous work. The author has extracted a gripping and fascinating collection of lucid recollections from many of the most famous names in motorsport. Brolin has essentially unearthed a whole world of private experience which has received little prior attention. The accounts rendered of being in the Zone should be treated as a treasure-trove for psychologists and neuro-scientists, and even the more overtly religious testimonies later in the book can be seen as an interesting anthropological study of the beliefs held by certain modern tribes. Buy it!
Sourced from
http://mccabism.blogspot.com/2010/03/overdrive-formula-1-in-zone.html

If YOU set your heart on it, you can test, challenge and surpass your own “perceived limits” as YOU too ”get into your own zone”.

Reach for the stars and discover the champion of life in YOU …through playing your own brand of music on the magical journey of life!

Shared by Craig Lock (“Information and Inspiration Distributer + totally unmusical motor racing fanatic and petrol-head”)

“Champions aren’t made in the gym. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them -
an inner flame that burns brightly…with purpose, desire and passion.
True champions live the dream, the vision of who and what they can one day become….
even a long time before it happens.”
- craig

” I truly believe we can ALL create and enthuse magic into ‘so-called humdrum little lives’.
You don’t just have to be the choreorapher, or the conductor of your life script -
rather paint your life as the masterpiece it could (one day) be.
There is a rich tapestry of talent in every human soul, that flows through the spirit of God.
So don’t spend your days stringing and tuning your instrument; start making and playing your unique tunes of music right now.”
“Success: how and the spirit with which you face, then overcome the daily obstacles, the frequent trials and tribulations along the
often rocky path-way of life’s magical and mysterious journey. Light your path brightly.”
- craig

About the submitter:
Craig is a motor racing “fanatic” ( a petrol-head”), who believes in (and loves) helping others to find their passions and gifts… through encouraging people to reach out for, then accomplish their “wildest” dreams. He truly believes people can overcome obstacles, rise to any occasion, and accomplish their dreams, even ‘Endless Possibilities, Far and Great Horizons’ in life with enough FAITH and PERSISTENCE. http://www.craiglockbooks.com http://www.selfgrowth.com/experts/craig_lock.html

The various books that Craig “felt inspired to write” are available at:
http://www.creativekiwis.com/books.html www.lulu.com/craiglock http://www.webng.com/writernz and http://www.myspace.com/writercraig

”And so you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high.”

“And suddenly I realised that I was no longer driving the car consciously. I was driving it by a kind of instinct, only I was in a different dimension.”
Ayrton Senna

“Together, one mind, one life at a time, let’s see how many people we can impact, encourage, empower, uplift and perhaps even inspire to reach their fullest potentials…and so become ‘ever more champions of life’.”

THESE THOUGHTS MAY BE FREELY PUBLISHED
For dearest dad and 'pal', another 'champion' - see the dream never died... it's just taken another course!

"Sometimes you have to give up the life you had planned... in order to live the life you were meant to live."

This article may be freely published, with acknowledgment to the sources, thanks

PPS

For dearest dad and 'pal', another 'champion' - see the dream never died...it's just taken another course!

"Sometimes you have to give up the life you had planned... in order to live the life you were meant to live."