Mahler9th

Finally:

Since I don't yet have a Smartycam, I did some work to make my existing video set up more valuable. I already had brake and WOT lights in my dash. I added a second pair in a more forward part of the video frame, near the driver's seat.

These can be helpful when watching the video between sessions. Since my tach was removed from the main dash, I experimented with a new location in the camera FOV.

Of course I could just buy a small tach and mount it near the brake and WOT lights by the driver's seat.

My recent student under braking at Thunderhill:

ProCoach

Hahaha! I love you, Mike!

I can tell you that THE GREATEST differential in basic skill execution has to do with braking. You can tell quite a bit from the Longitudinal G trace and even more from a good friction circle visualization, but brake pressure variations, attack and decay and other anomalies DIRECTLY readable in a brake pressure trace make it one of the two most important driver control inputs you can "recount" via data review.

I've lost count of how many drivers vary the shear sum total of brake pressure depending on their comfort level and intimate track knowledge BETWEEN corners. For example, they do great in some places that they can see or have a very clear vision, not so much in places that they can't see or have questions about the geographic point and geometry desired in their control inputs. The mind frames the expectation and drivers brake to what they THINK they and the car NEED, instead of what it WILL DO. Happens all the time...

This whole idea of "soft braking," unless the car is unstable due to conflicting forces acting upon it (crests, rises, turns in the middle) is just not present in how fast people go really, really fast.

When I look at pro drivers in the same car as good, winning amateurs, the difference in actual brake pressure, as well as the speed of the rise time and smoothness of the decay in relation to the assumption of cornering loads, is simply remarkable. Sometimes three or four TIMES the brake pressure exerted by the pro... For consequently a shorter period of time.

Also, if the bias is AT ALL adjustable on any track car, you MUST know what that split is to accurately quantify and explain the car's braking behavior.

The brake light is fine for now. And I will myself, and urge some others, to release some simple guides for setting up analog sensors, on/off and calibrations.

Thanks for keeping us up to date.

ProCoach

Excellent positioning of the camera and very good FOV. Nice!

Mahler9th

The brake lights can be used to synch in apps like Race Render. The WOT light is driven by a dedicated microswitch mounted directly to the throttle body.

Brake on/off, WOT and rpm are the center of the fruit in video FOV.

So why'd I buy the GDASH/EVO4? Because I needed a new lap timer anyway, and wanted to log AFR versus rpm.

Of course I could have just made a custom gauge cluster to mount up front in the FOV... and bought a product like a SOLO...

Mahler9th

I think us old timers can agree. With a good and motivated student in many of today's car, we can get them where they need to be with brake on/off.

I don't think quantitative pressure and/or Gforce information makes that happen any better or faster or more consistently than our old methods.

In fact I can see many teaching/learning situations where it could be TMI when the driver is looking for 1+ second of lap time. That being said, I have not driven a modern GT3 or Cayman track day car, or a Cup. However my hypothesis is that even with these capable machines, proper prep and motivation can get the driver to the last second or so of his/her "lap time window" with brake on/off indicated in the FOV.

I would think that its a real challenge for many coaches to discourage the practice of trying to "drive to the data."

On braking, I always go back to the 1986 video "Going Faster."

Mahler9th

Thanks Peter. The driver is a former PCA TTOD (overall) winner. Likely the only woman to do so in the history of the PCA.

Here she is back in the car after a 7 year hiatus... and that last drive was at the same track. And she had an accident in that 2009 drive (component failure-- right rear hub, under load at about 90 mph).

ProCoach

Hahaha! I want you to set up a +/- best lap page on the G-Dash. That will tell you instantly whether you are, in fact, doing something better or worse!

Matt Romanowski

I concur with Peter o the brake pressure info. Its worth its weight in gold.

I think you meant VDO sender, not Bosch.

winders

That student is braking at least a 150 yards early! Lot's of time to be had there!!

Mahler9th

I do have a page like that set up. Haven't used it yet. I can tell +/- by exit rpms in critical corners. This is an old school way. Again learned in 1986 or so from Skip Barber.

I cannot agree about brake pressure. So we will have to disagree.

Yes I meant VDO, sorry. Peter provided one with my package. It was easy to add this second oil pressure sender.

You know that student Scott! Of course she is braking early... she could barely operate the controls! But her line was spot on.

ProCoach

Great to see her back in the seat.

Matt Romanowski

Old doesn't mean better. Using the predictive and brake pressures is far better.