Motorsport: Deep south finishing school

The Elite Motorsport Academy has produced some of New Zealand's most successful drivers. Photo / Supplied

For the past eight years, the Elite Motorsport Academy (held with the Academy of Sport [South Island] and Otago University) has helped mould some of New Zealand's best and brightest racing talent. The week-long intensive camp, held in Dunedin, is for up-and-coming circuit and rally drivers and also has support from Sport and Recreation New Zealand.

Flying just under the radar it has, however, produced drivers of the calibre of Brendon Hartley, Hayden Paddon, Shane van Gisbergen, Mitch Evans, Earl Bamber, Richie Stanaway and Emma Gilmour, to name but a few. Other graduates who feature prominently in New Zealand and abroad are Daniel Gaunt, Andrew Knight, Sam MacNiell and Jono Lester.

Not bad for a country of only four million people with a fixation with ball sports. MotorSport NZ Scholarship Trust manager Ian Snellgrove still gets a kick out of the programme.

"I am still up on a cloud as the attitudes the nine arrived with were even better than previous years - and they were bloody good as well - and there were no real negatives all week," he said. "I felt every one of the nine moved up a gear overall. Sure, some subjects tested some more than others but it did not take away the fact that they all tried to be winners.

"The specialist sports science staff are very committed and each year's academy has increased their knowledge and understanding of the demands on drivers of different motorsport disciplines, helping them refine the programmes."

The course delivers a tailored high-performance programme to each year's crop of inductees. The programme, which has been running since 2004, attempts to provide a comprehensive toolbox full of the necessary physical and mental skills to help drivers cope with the high-pressure demands of world-class motor racing.

Drivers who make the cut and set foot through the academy doors are bombarded with physiology, mental skills, nutrition, media and life management skills training. At the end, they receive ongoing advice and direction. They have access to a two-year, individually targeted programme to continue their skill development. Included in this is a two-day refresher camp after year one.

The nine selected this year include two rally co-drivers and a karter for the first time, and are broken into three groups of three. Most days start at 6am and end sometimes at 9pm.

There is very little, if any, driver training. It's not the academy's function to make the nine go faster, rather to focus on preparing the body and mind for high-performance, high-speed sporting careers, rather than specific driving skills.

The young drivers also receive expert training in fitness, mental skills, public speaking and decision-making techniques.

The programme is a holistic approach that has successfully established a strong high-performance culture among a generation of young motorsport professionals.

All the high-end performance testing is done at Otago University's Human Performance Centre, with the other sessions and seminars held at the Academy of Sport facilities. The programme utilises a comprehensive range of facilities, personnel, resources and research capacity including simulating race conditions, appreciating how drag works in the flume and Wombat training.

This innovative software from the University's Cognitive Ergonomics and Human Decision Making Laboratory is normally used for their research into air traffic control and commercial flying. The test examines decision-making abilities, while being confronted with multiple sources of information.

Sessions with racing simulators in the HPC's environmental chamber, where the drivers were exposed to the extremely high temperatures of their sport, are also included.

Highly
skilled presenters and leaders in their respective fields provide information on mental-skills training, decision-making and managing heat stress.

The drivers also learn how to create the ideal team environment and performance planning as well as daily physical training routines designed to test and push the drivers to their mental and physical limits.

The effectiveness of the academy is catching the attention of motorsports' organisations overseas and the FIA has started its own academy based on the New Zealand model.