I'm talking about The Zone here. No, not some new movie or a band, but this thing that happens to me occasionally, like it did three days ago.

I was messing around on WS, when I suddenly got a great first lap time (34"4). I don't know what my best splits of old were, but this was certainly good. Later on, I get even better lap times, a 34"2 at some point. I hit a couple of 34"3's, the 34"4's come regularly. The second and third laps are also periodically very good; 33"1's, even a 32"9 at some point. Of course, WS is hard to be consistent on (at least for me), but it'll be only a matter of time before I get three good laps, or two great ones and one decent, and I can bring my ancient PR down from 1'40"7 to something like 1'40"5, maybe lower.

And then, half an hour later, it stops. I make small mistakes and my first laps go up, 34"7, 34"8. I make big mistakes. I fail to get a turbo start. I finally get a first lap without mistakes, but it's 34"6. My fingers hurt and I'm tired, I have to sleep.
The next day I try again. I get 34"4, occasionally. My second and third laps, the ones that go well, are 33"2, sometimes 33"1. I do hit another 32"9, I get two new top-5 times (on my new memory card), but nothing extraordinary.
The day after I play some more. My fingers are warm, the MTs are fast, but the consistency is gone. I struggle to get 34"7, the 1-shroom laps are 33"4. I think back to two days ago, that half hour. How? Why?

Can anyone tell me where The Zone comes from, or how you can stretch it as much as possible?

When I'm in the zone, it's not that I'm not driving on autopilot; on the contrary, it's when I'm producing great laps on autopilot.

Perhaps a better example for me is BP, where for me (with 6MT-strat) 9"3xx is a good lap, 9"4xx is mediocre and 9"5xx is poor. I sometimes have these time windows in which I produce 9"3 laps almost without fail; my driving line is great, the moment I turn in for the corners is ideal, I don't need to correct anything. This happens for 5 or 10 runs in a row, and then my turns suddenly start to become too wide and too sharp again. It really feels like a magic time window.

^ Thanks for your expert input! I do indeed have a tendency to stubbornly play one course until I achieve my goal or cannot play anymore, especially when I feel that I'm close to said goal. I'll try out your advice.


While I'm here, I have another story, with the same question:

Still at WS. I drive another 1'40"8xx. My top 5 now consists of 1'40"8xx times only. Why can't I get a 1'40"7xx?
I play on. And then, suddenly... 1'40"573