Michael Czeiszperger wrote:
Can someone tell me what to do with the non-geographic data on these recorders? Looking at a track map with the paths of the car and braking and acceleration (and lateral Gs) makes perfect sense to me, but these pocket trackers without this information, I can't make any sense of 'em. What do you do with the simpler software like RaceChrono and DynoLicious?
There are some great concepts you can look at with data aquisition. Peter Krause has a whole seminar with the kinds of items to look at, but I will try to touch on a few here.
Course review:
One of the powerful points of DA is seeing what part of the course is really important vs what you think it is. A perfect example that Peter uses is turns 1-2 vs the Uphill esses (turns 7-10) at VIR. Most people think if I can run through the up hill esses I can make a big difference in time. Peter shows that in truth your actually spend 2X's more time in the 1-2 turn combo than you in the esses. he also shows that a 1 MPH difference in 1/2 gains a lot more time % than 5 MPH does in the esses. Looking at the course and seeinf where the most time is spent and where the 1 MPH difference can make the biggest impact can mean substantial reductions.
You can also look at MPH per corner between yourself and other people. Look at Vmin. The higher the Vmin, the quicker the times, period. If you see that one time you went in just 1 MPH faster on a different line, it could mean 5 seconds on the end of the section on the road course. on this graph I can see that by slowing down MORE and turning later at the last turn I gained 9 MPH by the start/finish line:
This is a comparison of laps for a day. Looking at this chart I can see which laps I did each section (by my definition) better, and why. I can also see that I may have done one section faster, but it screwed me up on the following two sections. From here I can dive into each section or lap as a whole and look at the speed and time data.
There is so much you can dive into and gain by looking at this. Some other little tidbits include proper gear for the turn, geographical vs speed data, etc. etc.
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Marty Howard
2011 NASA SE Factory Five Challenge Champion
Track Events Logistics Coordinator - TZC/THSCC
2007 Factory Five Challenge Car.
http://www.mh-motorsports.com