ProCoach

Camera mount has a covering over it, remove and affix. Each new kit has TWO camera mounts.

For those wanting to transfer from car to car, I sell (and Garmin has available) the Garmin suction cup mount for the camera for $15 plus freight. I have included this optional mount to those kits folks buy from me that tell me or might want to go from car to many cars.

I bundle the camera wire with the Catalyst mount arm, plug in the cig lighter plug and add the suction cup mount for a completely portable setup that can be moved from car to car in less than 60-90 seconds.

ProCoach

Good points and easily possible in almost all cars, including yours.

I have had people ask for additional camera cables.

I use only the one that came with it on my portable setup, loop the upward facing wire from the camera over one of the fasteners for the passenger side sun visor and down to the excess wire looped and secured to the Catalyst mount. No muss, no fuss, but if switching from the same two cars, you could get extra plastic cable anchors around the periphery of the windshield and it would be neat and tidy, using the one camera cable.

While Garmin does warn that the suction cup mount can slightly impinge on the camera view, it's only at the very top and not at all in the way in the video or proper function of the device.

All of the aiming and calibration (up/down, level side to side, target area (25-50 feet in front of the car, track width in the white box) and template to avoid aiming at the car's hood) are done in a few steps using the onscreen wizard. A snap.

ProCoach

So, I'm going to put my coaching hat on for a moment.

Yes, the AI can only surmise what you're doing, but it is offering insight that is valuable here. It's suggesting it might be better to accelerate longer, MAKE a speed adjustment and then get on with it again. A prolonged period of "nothing."

There is an extended period of coasting, off throttle but still losing forward thrust due to steering scrub and not enough throttle to counteract the scrub, for an extended period of time (yellow circle).

The yellow arrow indicates the place where you can surmise the speed (rise time) and amplitude (height) of the forward accelerative forces (throttle).

In the optimal lap trace, you can see three little upward bumps (presses of the throttle) resulting in slightly faster progress through the corner AND higher speed through, off and sooner in the exit, quantified by your measure of a gain of .4 second when you were able to DO that (the purple trace).

You might want to use the Longitudinal G (Braking) tab to see this more clearly, then enable the Pro Coach to coach you on THAT objective next session using the button at the bottom of the page.

ProCoach

Someone asked me if there was something the Catalyst would NOT do for drivers seeking to improve.

After thinking about it, I told him that it would not help the fundamental need to, when the wheel is straight or near straight, maximize the commitment to WOT (wide open throttle), including coming off the corners and RIGHT up to the brake application for the next brake zone.

One of the things that separates the good drivers from the great is making it automatic to ask the car to accelerate as much as it can, for as long as it can, between braking or "speed adjustment" areas.

That commitment is influenced by comfort and confidence. Drivers need to have both to really commit. Still, there's enough inconsistency in drivers of all levels, of all experience, for the Catalyst (and the VBOX, and the AiM) to find opportunities to improve.

This is why even the best drivers who've used the Catalyst have found time with it. It's also why a driver that does ONE flyer in nine laps, all the others being seconds off that flyer, won't really see a lot of opportunities.

Driver optimization technology is not a one-way street. It takes a driver that is seeking to incrementally improve, and "become comfortable being slightly uncomfortable," in Ross Bentley's well-chosen words.

Then, the sample base of the session or sessions becomes supercharged. Ripe with opportunities. The Catalyst will show you those, and never run out of them to show you...

T&T Racing

Peter,
I believe you are in "Seventh Heaven" so to speak with the Garmin and its capabilities. A great time for rejuvenation.
Cheers,
Tom

ProCoach

Tom, like a lot of long time instructors and coaches, I’ve asked people to do things outside their comfort zone for years. Plus drivers are creatures of habit. Sometimes, bad habits.

Most respond, eventually, but you don’t know what you don’t know!

I LOVE the fact that even nineteen years ago with the first Race Technology DL-1, really the FIRST GPS based club level logging system, drivers could put their mind to it, sift through the data and see where there was “low hanging fruit.”

Unfortunately, that paradigm has not changed in the interim.

All this stuff that’s out now tells you what happened (some a lot easier than others) but none of them, until now, GAVE YOU A CLEAR, CONCISE, PRIORITIZED, TARGETED and ACTIONABLE way to go, IN the car and POST session. Sorry about the caps, just get excited!

Yes, it’s exciting. Will it replace in car instruction? No. Will it put very experienced pro
coaches out of work? No. Does EVERY instruction prompt verbally or post session opportunity breakdown make sense or is absolutely correct? No.

But make no mistake. This IS a game changer, if only for it’s AI capabilities and ability to “grow” with the increasing performance level of the driver. Plus it IS dead-nuts simple.

I am over the moon that a device like this is finally here. Six or eight years ago, I spoke to two well-funded exploratory ventures looking into developing exactly this type of thing. Not quite as sophisticated, for sure, but something to lead or at least prompt a driver to work on the right things and would automate (and learn) what pro coaches do with their clients. Nothing came of either, but that’s ok.

This is here and I’m sure it’s early days. What a great effort, and super result from Garmin. Shocked!

Thanks for your patience. As we all learn about its capabilities, it’ll be interesting to hear more of people’s takes on the ease of use and value.

Plus, I’m using mine in my car for five straight days starting Wednesday!

sbelles

Lots of cool things coming out. At last weekends AER race everyone tried out the "Flagger" system. Real time flag info with GPS so you get local flags as well. I liked it a lot. Now if we could just mandate a system that tells the driver: YOU ARE BLOCKING. Knock it off or you get a black flag!

ProCoach

Yep, pretty cool stuff. The Atlanta crowd, some of which have been involved in past DAQ ventures for a successful company there are the principals behind Flagger. It’s a great idea!

Matt Romanowski

That was a good test. Trans Am tested it early this year / last year as well. I think some of those systems have great potential and the AER test seems to have worked well.

There are some great developments going in the motorsports world. Some more known than others. Time will tell how they all play out!

cenotaph

Wait, there's no way to attach an external GPS antenna? That seems like a missed opportunity.

ProCoach

Not so far...

ssburns

Another review from satisfied customer!

I ordered the Catalysts based on feedback from this thread and received it last week. Installation was straightforward. In my Cayman it was easy enough to find a spot to mount the unit where the suction cup didn't block my view too much and the unit was visible and in reach. I mounted the camera behind the rear view mirror, so it was completely out of my field of view. I also paired it up with Airpods for the coaching

This weekend I went to an event at Grattan, which is a track I've been to many times. I turned on the Advanced Race Coach right away. It didn't take much time to get used to instructions and feedback. A few observations I have on the Advanced Race Coach:

• As far as I can tell it's learning from what you're doing and taking the best of whatever you've done and interpolation that to an optimum. So it likely can't predict the optimum approach interdependently if you are way off the proper line. Same would be true if there are multiple ways to take a corner. you'll need to try it both ways for it to have data to make a decision on the best approach. In other words I think you still need to experiment a bit as normal vs blindly listening to the instruction.
• The instructions (e.g. apex earlier or later) for the current lap are relative to the last lap. So if you make a mistake in a corner or run into traffic so that your line is altered, don't be surprised by the feedback on that corner on the next lap.
• There were a few times where the instructions don't make perfect sense when taken literally. So you still need to use your best judgement on the intent. An example, during one session it kept telling me to brake earlier after the "jump". Well braking before the car lands and settles really upsets the car. So I interpreted this as it wanting me to brake less hard. Once I did this the instruction changed to brake less... Another example is the right/left combo leading onto the front straight (the most important corners on the track). Several times it told me to brake less for the left. Well I don't brake there, however if I don't get the transition from the right to the left perfect I do end up lifting there.
• Overall I reduced my best lap time by 1.2s, and it wasn't a one-lap miracle. I had several within a couple tenths of this. As I said I've been the Grattan many times, so this is substantial.
• The instructions and feedback weren't anything surprising, but reinforcement of fundamentals and a few tweaks to lines, braking point, etc. This also helped to reduce lap to lap variation throughout the day.

I didn't spend as much time as I should have on reviewing the opportunities in between sessions. When I did it was very much in line with the instructions received on track. Looking at the track map views most of the differences to the optimum lap were pretty subtle. I need to spend more time looking at the data traces to ferret out more insights there.

Also the large screen makes it great as just a predictive lap timer.

Overall a very happy customer!

ProCoach

Yes, from the remnants of TM ashes comes something simple and that works well. Fancy that.

The nicest thing about the technology is the here and now. There's always known and unknown coming. Every day is precious.

The market will decide success, but one thing I know for sure about technology. One size certainly does not fit all!

See you at VIR.

ProCoach

Great review. Good advice about not being a passive participant, too.

Can't wait for you to use the session review. Three opportunities, three measures within those three opportunities, plus the option of being coached JUST on those measures next session.

I will repeat on this braking advice thing. If it senses a long lift or detects some slowing due to scrub not offset by positive acceleration, it can come up with that advice. As outlined in the Willow Turn 8 dissection earlier in the thread.

Congrats on your performance improvement!

LuigiVampa

I had the Catalyst at Summit Point this weekend and kept it on my car for the practice session and qualifying. Here are my thoughts:

1. The large display should whether I was improving my laptime or not was awesome. Although my full AIM system does the same thing it was easy to keep on eye on this without it being distracted. In that regard I always go instant feedback on how I took a corner as I watched the time either go up or down.
2. I like that you can play video of your best segments to see where you did something correctly.
3. The ability to take the unit out of the car, like a video game, and just use it in the paddock is phenomenal.
4. Video quality is very good.
5. I ran two session with a bluetooth earpiece in and the unit doesn't say a lot. I'm actually thinking I would want it to be MORE intrusive in that regards.
6. The more simplified data for a left brain person like me if great. That being said, I honestly wish it had a "and let us explain it again in crayons" mode to really dumb it down. Something like "brake at the 3 instead of the 4 you coward!"

Overall I think it is a great unit and am happy I made the purchase. I hope they will retrofit a tether to the unit and come up with a better mount to allow for a permanent mount instead of just the suction cup. Lastly, I hope they tweak the AI and coaching just a little more to get the most out of it. That being said, it has been pretty amazing out of the box.