Carrera51

RSR Racer and a certain Mr. S are two very, very good drivers. They can be seen at Potomac PCA DEs, going very fast in Red Group.

Color change, if you are looking for a 996 TT driver to seek advice from, RSR racer is the guy.

924RACR

I've worked extensively with slip angle data, among others - yes, it does give you an excellent indicator of what the car's doing, better than all others. Haven't yet seen a GPS-based system that works and is as good as optical fifth-wheel-based systems. It's one of the few things, in addition to 4 wheel speeds, that truly tells you how the car is interacing with the road surface, IMO... really tells you where the car is going with respect to a fixed course.

ColorChange

Adam:
No, I am saying it is easier to drive a slower car than a faster car (all other things being equal).

RSR
Let me try to be clear. You are an inexperienced driver

Yes so far.

who has no fear of pushing a 3500 lb missile arount a track at well over 150 MPH.

How is it you can claim to know me and what I am afraid of and what I am not. Considering I have NEVER gone 150 in any of my cars around the track I find it absolutely amazing that you know an answer to a question that I haven’t even experienced for myself yet. Absolutely amazing!

It is fair to say that this is unsafe, to you and to those in front of you. I can't imagine what I would have done after 10 track days with your car.

Why don’t you just use the same Omniscient powers that let you know my precise fear level in advance of an actual event. Or was your point a personal attack and not a sincere constructive effort.

No, I don’t have data of catching a high speed wiggle. The closes I came was in my E55 at Gingerman at track out on turn 10, probably 90-100. Dropped a left rear wheel off at full throttle and caught the car as it did it’s dance. That is the closes as I have come. When I got out after the session, the instructor who was in the car following me said I made a nice save. That is the only example I have.

RSR, I would very much like to discuss driving differences, braking, line selection etc. as everyone seams to recognize you as quite good. Please let me know if you are interested. I can do it privately or on the forums, whichever you prefer.

Chris W:
OK, I can see that is how you would handle the car on race day as you have no telemetry. One change you should make is to use IR for real-time tire temps. This is superior to the pyrometer.

But now back to my original question, when you do have time to analyze the drivers performance, what methods do you use, besides segment times. If you are not on the analysis end, OK. I would love to talk to one of your engineers who is.

Thank you Mitch, in this crowd, to step up and say the right thing take character. Thank you.

Mitch, I am willing to take the time to show you some examples of how much driver analysis you can get from the data. Are you interested? It will take a lot of time on my part to put together, but I think you are a decent guy so I will do it.

ColorChange

Scott:
I'm interested. What's your background or what are you doing? I only have one speed sensor right (until we tap the CAN bus) now so I can't do much slip angle work. I would like to see what you do.

Geo

OK, so now you're giving a professional race car engineer advice on how he is doing things wrong?

The fact is YOU are dead bloody wrong. IR is worthless for tire temps. The probe type pyrometer is the only way to go.

I've sat on the sidelines for most of this because most of what needs to be said is being said and the fact I don't believe you will listen to anyone anyway so it's pretty much a waste of time.

From where I sit you are book smart and real world, well, not so smart (to be polite). And worst of all is you just won't listen to people with experience.

Z-man

I like ice-cream. There's a place down the road called Gelotti's. They make the home-made stuff. A scoop of coconut on top of a scoop of banana, and I'm in sheer-sugar-bliss! Their Oreo-Mint isn't too shabby either, and though I haven't tried it yet, their new flavor, 'Vanilla cake mix' probably has enough carbs to give an olympic swimmer enough energy to swim the 100 meter crawl!

Now back to our regularly scheduled (head-bashing)

-Z-man.

trumperZ06

Yep .That's a fair summation!

Maybe just a little too " Politically Correct"....

Professor Helmüt Tester

I laughed as I read the original comment on pyrometers. Somebody should call Ferrari's F1 team and tell them that the contact probe pyrometers they're using are inferior, and direct them to IR 'guns' to read tire temps.

IR guns are great for stuff like brake and radiator temps, but if you wander by any race 'tire service' truck in F1/Champ Cars/Touring Cars/NASCAR/etc with an IR gun in your hand, you will be laughed out of the paddock.

ColorChange

Boy the stupidity here is rampant. The IR sensors are mounted in the car and measure tire surface temperatures in real time, as the driver drives the track. This is exactly what the F1 and other high end racing teams do. Man oh man! You don't put it in your hands you morons, you measure real time ... on the car.

Geo

Stupid is Rennlist
Experience does not count
Ferrari dumb too

DJ

CC knows it all
If Schumacher would listen
He could be World Champ...

FormulaOne10

Ok, now I am interested a bit in what is going on (if we could cut down the useless posts). Why is a real time IR temp monitoring useless? To do it properly you would need 2 on each wheel, one to measure sidewall and one to measure carcass temp. I guess additionally what do probe pyrometers offer over real time IR monitoring? This is something I may consider in the future so its of interest to me.

RedlineMan

Ummm... Color...

Or anyone else so involved; You're missing something here. There are two types of tire data for different purposes being taken here. Why do pro teams use BOTH types of tire temp data? Why do you see tire engineers generally using only the probe type? You must know... Don't you?
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Regarding the larger picture here; Color - You are a much missunderstood entity. This is not really anyone's fault but your own, of course. Your insistance on Your Way or The Highway runs against popular and experienced thought. True, there are always new ways of improving things, and the old/common ways are not immune from the need for review. However, there is also indeed strength in numbers where the group opinion is concerned. So much of everything we do is dependant on experience. You can NEVER count that out.

I understand you, so it is not really a problem for me to look past the traits that have garnered you so much attention.

Your ideas and theories are like cement. Please remember that it is a very scientific mix that makes that cement work in its intended use. To make the right cement for the job takes experience.

Boil it down, and fast drivers are so by instinct alone. It is nuance, touch, feel. Racers rely on the age-old Fight or Flight mechanism. No amount of coaching can stoke that fire. It is up to the driver. Instinct can be honed and expanded through experience, but not created by it. It must exist previously.

Racers turn this old axiom on its head. They thrive on the battle, fairly running to it. They turn it into Fight AND Flight. Very few species go faster so they can CATCH UP to a battle, or create one.

Who are the most successful drivers? The ones that can communicate to their engineers things that cannot necessarily be explained. Why do racers talk with their hands? Again, same answer. The information is so esoteric as to often be unexplainable in terms of language. That's because it is down to feel. Try to make someone else feel what you feel. How do you do that???

If Engineers only needed data, then communication would be unecessary. But data does not have or explain feel. As it is, communication is PARAMOUNT. Data is only a tool, no different than a screw driver. When nuance becomes imperceptible, and the driver reaches the limit of his comprehension, data looms larger, and opens a door to personal expansion. Whether the driver can access that new frontier is the next question to be answered. Until data can drive the car, it must take a back seat.

Your search for electronic ya ya's is fine. No different than building model airplanes, or any other hobby. Whether you or your protagonists are right or wrong regarding its theory & implimentation is extraneous noise to me. I'm not smart enough to understand it all. Still, I drive pretty damn well for a dummie. It was about that, yes?

If you would reduce your insistence on it being the best way to teach yourself how to drive, you would drive better, faster, sooner. Since you have money and I don't, why don't you hire ME to instruct you. I'll have you going faster, safer, inside of a day.

Might even find out your a great guy after all! It doesn't really show here to well. Communal exchange is not your forte, eh?

smokey

A propos nothing in particular, I present the following:
- Steve Podborski, one of the "Crazy Canuck" downhill ski racers in the 1980's, apparently moved from the green to the red group in one weekend at Mosport. Serious downhill racing (90 mph) has the same speed/line/acceleration as auto racing using street (non-downforce) machinery.
-Many (most) technical geniuses are borderline autistic.
-Learning is a left hemisphere activity; performance is a right hemisphere activity.
-Top people in any field make it look easy, and can't explain how they do it. (See above.)
-Bye bye.

Z-man

Based on RenlineMan and smokey, I have come up with the following conclusion:

ColorChange is a digital man attempting to live in an analog world.

-Z