TedDBere

I was two seconds off the top guys at Devens this year and wanted to know what I should be working on. Help me find two seconds in this video. By my reckoning that means there are at least 4 spots I could have improved on. See if you can find the cone too, which I'm not concerned with because this was the only run I hit it on. If not for the cone I would have finished 5th behind Salerno, Reeves, GJ, and Conners all of which I'd like to beat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtxPoDMK-yk

Thanks.

the blur

selarno is a professional, good luck.
I know in his old car, he was running 1/4" spacers under his wheels.

dbratten

My guess for the cone is on the right at 31 sec. As far as going faster there are a number of places where you coast for quite a while; for instance, at 36-42 secs in. There's some more time in the final seconds coming into the finish also where there was space to be on the throttle harder.

--Dan

TedDBere

Yes Dan, the cone at 31 seconds was the culprit. Coasting seems to be the general impression. I'm coasting while braking to stop from stuffing the corners which is something I've been working on this year but maybe I've gon too far.

Pat's driven my car and has said he could win Nationals in it, FWIW.

Solofast

I just took a quick look and saw a few things.

Right out of the box you were late getting on the gas after the first couple of gates. Earlier and smoother on the throttle is what you want there. Forget that the last gate of an accelerating slalom even exists. Start powering out one cone earlier. It also appears that around the 19-second mark you were behind the car. Your turn-in was late and jerky. At the 25 second mark you were way late getting on the gas, same thing as the first comment.

At around the 35 second mark there is a big right hand sweeper any you were way wider than you could have been there. Going wider adds distance and you lost at least a half a second in that one spot alone. Same thing again at 59 seconds, you were wide and that really hurt you.

A couple of caveats, not being there it is hard to judge where you had to be to position the car for later on the course, but that is what it looked like from the top of the car.

I did like the view from the top. It showed a lot better where you were positioned as oppsed to a view from inside the car. Sometimes it's harder to see where you wanted to be from a in-car video and this was better from a "finding the line" kind of thing.

Does look like a fun course tho…

Dave OH32

I was about to say the same things...

Scott, the run looks good, just that there are places where you can go faster. You can be earlier on the throttle almost everywhere which will chop off a decent chunk of time. Also as was stated earlier, it does seem that you get behind the car in a few spots from not looking ahead enough and it seems like your inputs in those sections are a tad sudden and jerky from reacting quickly once you try and "catch up".

talon95

I was thinking this also while watching. It's even more important on these runway style courses, which that essentially is. Gotta thread the needle to go fast. The trick is to do that and stay clean (not really easy).

In the past I've mounted an external camera on the rear quarter of the car to see exactly how far away I am from the cones. It can be surprising.

And this is a very transitional course, so the Lotus has the advantage anyway, just like the East course last year at nats. Not 2+sec advantage by any means, but it's likely faster.

Dave G.

TedDBere

I did pick up those two spots as being too far off the line. Also there are two spots where I think I lifted and probably shouldn't have.

I noticed from data aquisition that every slip up like that cost me about 0.3 to 0.5 seconds. While it sounds like I'm late on the throttle the data shows me rolling on the throttle, the mike doesn't pick that up too well. For instance at the turn at 40 seconds the data had me at 1.28Gs and it's hard to accellerate at those Gs, also while the entry looks to be coasting the turn was taken at the limits of the car (the next run I spun there at 1.30 Gs!).

Thanks for the responses.

LehmanZ06

You must learn the ways of the speed GRASSHOPPER.

Drive always with faster drivers.

Wear their underwear, after them without washing it first.

Beat small animals with sticks.

this is the way............................

TedDBere

Thanks David, I'm looking for some chipmunks as I type....



One interesting post I got on another forum compared data runs to someone who had a faster time and I was ahead of them by 0.6 seconds entering the turn onto the finish runway, at 57 seconds into the tape. You can see me overdrive the corner and was off the exit cone by about two feet. This forces me left and I had to correct back and make a left turn around the next cone forcing a lift around the next offset. They drove the corner tighter and drove straight all the way to the next offset. At that offset I was now 0.3 seconds behind...losing 0.9 seconds on the single turn.

I did the same thing at the 34 second mark, swinging too wide and forcing me to lift and be late on the throttle. Again losing over 0.5 seconds.

LehmanZ06

Don't make the mistakes.

You will learn this grasshopper. We must learn. Not like the male black widow spider that goes back every time----and gets killed.

You are given another chance-----like a frog jumping to another lilly pad.

Eat the bugs !

jmartynuska

Thanks for posting the vid, Ted.


What set up are you using for the cam and data logging?

GrantR

Hi Scott

Basically as most of the posts above have said, you're late getting on the gas in most places. To take advantage of the torque/power we have we've got to set our lines up to be coming off most everything on throttle.

It's too bad my camcorder's busted, or I'd have been videoing my runs too for a comparison.

For instance, at the beginning, you hesitate getting on power in the slalom. I made sure to get a good tuck in behind the first cone as I shifted to 2nd, so that I could pretty much feed throttle in from the 2nd cone (0:12), then it was full throttle out of the slalom and through the next left - where you again hesitated. I think I was on the verge of hitting the rev limiter if not actually brushing it, just as I lifted and braked in the right at about 0:16 to tuck the nose in a bit to try to carry as much speed through the left/right and into that funny little open squiggly thing.

In the tighter left at 0:22, again, you hesitated just after seeming to get some gas on, but to avoid the exit pinch cone. A slightly slower entry would have given you the exit line room to stay hard on the gas up to the right hander onto the taxiway.

You carry too much speed around the right hand sweeper at the end of taxiway (0:34), you can't get on the gas at all exiting as a result, and it ends up compromising your line and forcing you coast for the next 6 seconds. Slightly tightening and slowing up your entry would let you power pretty hard off that sweeper turn and into the next left, where setting up to the left you can still carry good speed over to the tight right hander at 0:40.

You could have carried a fair bit more speed through the fast right at 0:46 Accelerating up through that slalom prior, just after the left cone you start slowing down in a straight line. Rather you could have positioned the car another carwidth to the left while still on the gas, then carried fast speed into the right letting it scrub a bit of speed off from slip angle, while still giving you a good line to accelerate hard straight into the next slalom.

You entered that slalom as I remembered - fast in, braking deep but early enough to tuck around that left hand cone in the middle at 0:50. But notice what you immediately did after passing that cone? a throttle blip, which ruins your entire exit line for the slalom forcing you to wait wait wait - you never throttled hard again until around on the next runway. Rather, by staying off gas for longer in the middle of the slalom you could have placed the car nice and tight around the back of the right hand cone at 0:52, and been able to accelerate pretty hard from the next cone at 0:54 for a moment before diving it in tight for the right hander to the next runway.

I think I was losing time on the last runway, never did get the line sorted, so I don't want to comment there I'm pretty sure I coughed up a bunch of time on the third run there trying to drive "faster".

my second run was a 54.8 + 1, my "trying to drive faster" third was only 55.3 (but clean at least). Pat's third run was dirty but was a freaking 53.8, damn him

It is amazing how much time can be lost by coasting, or being late accelerating off of stuff, or not paying attention to keeping your speeds up. I remember studying some incar from an event once, and there was a 5 cone slalom that I was assuming I was driving well, but was actually by the end of the day losing 0.5 seconds in relative to my morning runs just from not paying attention.

You look comfortable pushing the car around - just a couple of adjustments to your approach setting the car into a turn to get better exits could easily chop 1.5 seconds or more off your times. If you make sure you get the car rotating prior to picking up the throttle you can accelerate very effectively and maintain that rotation. Picking up throttle when the car is in steady state tends to just make the fronts wash out - work on getting that mid turn rotation, from braking or lifting to get weight up front to help the fronts bite. Make sure you don't go into stuff too fast and hurt your exit, preventing you from being able to accelerate.

jmartynuska

Sounds like my run, Grant!

Brian L was giving me grief for driving the opening slalom the same way.

Funny, I remember remarking that I had to find 2 seconds.....

TedDBere

Thanks Grant!! I was hoping you'd answer my quest for time!

Are you saying to throttle lift after turn-in? That sounds like spin to me. You obviously have the right approach though so I'll give it a try, thanks for taking the time to comment. See you next year.

GrantR

uh, I'm not recommending anything that'll spin the car! lift, brake, turn in, whatever combination of controls that gets the car on the line you want for the particular corner entry, every corner wants some different set of inputs.

I'm a software engineer, not an english major, I have no idea if I'm communicating clear or not maybe I'm just giving you ideas that will result in highly entertained corner workers at your next few events!

naschmitz

Ted, sounds like you found your two seconds with the datalogger. I've found similar things like that where a 2 foot error cost you almost a full second. Without the datalogger it is sometimes hard to believe you lose that much time.

I've recently switched from using the RaceLogic PerformanceBox to the MaxQ and so far really like the MaxQ version 2.8 software.

Which datalogger are you using?

Thanks. Bert

TedDBere

You are soooo right. Yesterday I ran an event where my last run was 1.5 seconds slower than my best time and I thought the timer was broken. Looking at the data I found two spots where I got off line and it forced me to be late to the gas...voila, -1.5 seconds! Hard to believe being a tad late can cost you so much time, but there it was in the data. Without it I would be thinking I have to drive harder to get the time, when in actuallity I have to drive better!! Little mistakes cost you a lot of time.

I use MaxQ because that's what Evolution Driving school uses and it's more common amongst the people I run with so we can share data.

Here's an interesting video, where you can watch my hands and my turn-ins, from the event: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ilt4Esrvrc4

naschmitz

Hi Ted,

I've used the RaceLogic PerformanceBox last season and just started using the MaxQ. I've found the MaxQ Chart 2.8 software to be superior to the PerformanceTools for comparing runs.

Is there a way to use the MaxQ to find those 2 foot 1 second errors before your next run? If you can digitize the cones with the MaxQ, are the places where you were two feet wide and able to eliminate a steering input and get on the throttle more obvious?

I am about 5 seconds off the lead pack of drivers I compete with at Devens, but those clubs run courses twice as long as the SCCA so there are more opportunities for errors. Finding just one mistake and fixing it before the next run would be awesome.

Thanks, Bert

TedDBere

I know the new MaxQ programs allow you to plot the cones, but the older version I have doesn't do it. Off the cones is best seen from the videos, in my case.

The best way to do it right is on the course walk find the exits and the accelleration points and be sure to do whatever it takes to get your car to those spots when you make your runs. It's about car position. But it's easy to say and difficult to do, especially in a Corvette because everything happens so quickly. You have to look way ahead to locate those spots to get the car onto them when you're running.

Good luck.