onefastviking

I wonder how many students would consider doing a Traqmate rental program. I have considered renting them out on a per weekend basis.

AllanJ

Advanced autox schools include DA as part of their fee. Show them how data can help their learning process and the response should be decent.

mglobe

Folks might be interested, but (and maybe I'm being paranoid) I would be very careful about this lest someone try to imply that we're running a timed event.

FWIW, I think yellow students will benefit more from video of line, hands, and feet than from detailed analysis of traqmate data. White students on the other hand would get a lot from both. JMHO.

ervtx

of course!

But remember, I asked first

95ONE

I was just remembering why I didn't feel like going to the classroom much. And of course, I see an impossible solution to try to take care of everyone's needs in one class. So no hard feelings.. But I found myself not relating to much of the class. (flag safety and track awareness always a winner for everyone to pay attention to) I was hearing things like, "try to stay in the gas and be smooth between 5 and 6" - so far so good... "so you can be up to full speed for turn 7..." There in lies the problem. My car is up to 130mph before turn 7. - the usual C.C. direction. I needed a little help in braking before 7. Turn in early for camber, then brake? Brake right before camber? Nothing that seat time wouldn't show me eventually. But still left me all by myself. I just made up for it by finding instructors with more powerful cars that knew what I was going through, and I learned much. (Thanks Weston - crazy ***! - don't brake, just wish for the best and correct the oversteer lol. ) I was lucky in that I knew many people out there and was able to find them in a hurry..
Maybe classroom instructor can be ready to refer a more matching / proper instructor who has a specific type of car the student owns? Highly modified.. stock.. anemic, etc. I just can't stress enough how much more I learned after one session with a matched instructor than I had learned the whole year.. just an enormous difference.

Riding in my first instructors 996 truly did nothing for my driving.. I just took what I could out of it by paying more attention to corner workers and such. He was preaching his line quit strongly, and I knew it was never a line that would satisfy my cars needs. When hopping into an instructors car that was very much like mine.. I was very pleased to see what I truly needed to learn, and it launched my driving style in my car by leaps and bounds. Now, even with this fantastic match, I still received advice that I used, but realized didn't work for me. He advised to stay in a lower gear and use the speed. Problem was, he had a 3 liter with MUCH more torque down low than my 2.5. Using the lower gears was important for my motor to stay out of the turbo lag and into the power. So, while there is never a perfect match, it seemed to help so much more (exponentially) when I got in the instructors car that was closest to mine.

mglobe

You're on!

onefastviking

We can't, and don't, stop students,instructors, and spectators from timing cars in the event. PCA as a group does NOT time the events, therefore we do not run a timed event.
Besides, you can use the data without the times, it's really the data streams that tell you what needs to change. Just reading accell, coast, brake traces would be a huge help. You know this Mike.
I would also guess that most people would rent 1 or 2 weekends and then just buy their own when the see the value in it. Or even buy between 2 friends and swap from car to car which is easy enough to do.

mglobe

I completely agree about the value of data. And I would certainly think people would enjoy and get benefit from trying out data acquisition. Like I said, I'm probably being paranoid about the timing issue.

amr89c4

I would consider a rental provided someone was available to interpret the results and show me how to apply those results. Synching with a camera should be even better. I was considering data logging but it was suggested that an in car video camera might be more useful at this stage. I also like the idea of try before you buy concept.

RonCT

We've discussed this in our chapter - the whole "timed event" thing. I think it depends on what your definition is. I think pretty universally a "Timed Event" means all participants are timed and it's competitive. Many insurance companies use wording like that "Competitive / timed event". AutoX is a "Timed Event" where DE absolutely is not, even if some people are using a stop watch, data acquisition, or even a video camera that displays the elapsed time. Timing yourself for future analysis does not equate to the event being a "Timed" one.

ervtx

Just to put a finer point on this important distinction... some life insurance companies consider "timed" and "competitive" as equally negative in determining risk, and significantly riskier than just doing DE's. This doesn't matter too much if you get life insurance only through an employer, but if you need to buy your own, or want to supplement what you get from an employer, or buy whole life as an investment strategy, it makes a big difference in premiums / ROI. Personally, I would have to take a real long look at the financial cost of participating in DE's if they ever became officially timed.

Shall we time each other's laps in each of the 2 cars?