Kai, I will email you some stuff about suspension adjustments today or tonight...

 

No hurry Dave, I'm on the road all week and have my backpack filled with "Handling and "Chassis" books.

But a quick synopsis from another soul always helps....

 

Playing catch-up, email with attachments sent.

On another note, I had the privilege to recently work again with a repeat client. While we worked on learning a track new to him, the bigge rpicture was to continue to refine his skills regarding reading a track (any track), developing the right vision in corners, and finding ways to reduce the drama of weight transfer in the places where there are transitions, in order to make the car work better. His skills in all of these areas are already very high, but we made a couple of leaps forward in finding ways of placing the car much more gracefully, and of making up significant time in braking & corner entry without beatiing the crap out of the car. However, the biggest leap forward by his own admission was in vision: pushing it farthe rforward, being more disciplined about it everywhere on track, and scanning rather than looking. And his lap times (and not putting a wheel wrong in any way) showed it.

So the take-away is that looking farther ahead is not just some boring concept they teach us as Blue and Yellow students: it really works & is a major differentiator.

 

Driving experts, I've reached a plateau when running at Road America and despite efforts to improve I am not seeing any decrease in lap times. Before addressing, car, setup, etc, I'm hoping you can provide a few pointers on my line in the video below. I already know that I need to improve my race starts, so lets avoid that topic for the time being.


<iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/xbu2AiI8-QY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

Nice going generally! I have never driven a 914, but it seemed you may be overslowing a bit in 1, the Kink, and Canada.

 

Thanks for the positive feedback. I completely agree that I slow too much for turn 1 and Canada. I need to work myself out of my current comfort zone. Any tips for going about this?

 

Hmm. Again, I have never driven a 914 so i have no idea how it responds to brake pressure. However, one way to gently getting out of your comfort zone is to focus on using just a bit softer initial application of the brake pedal...in one corner. Do everything else the way you currently do it: same braking point, same downshift, etc. Make sure you don't double spike the brakes (add pressure after beginning to release it). What you're doing is gently carrying a bit more speed into, and then through, that corner, to show yourself you & the car car. Keep going softer... Over time & practice, this will really help you carry more entry speed & scrub off less speed, with zero drama and no loss in vehicle stability.

Another way is to force yourself to look much farther ahead in these corners. I am not sure where you're looking now, but I'll bet you can look farther, and I'll bet it'll clean those corners up for you.

 

Very helpful. Thanks!

 

I had an interesting conversation with a client yesterday. He races a 997 GT3, full remote reservoir suspension, slicks, etc. Very nice car, skilled driver, etc. He was commenting that the car is working much better than it has in the past, which was confirmed by some in car video he emailed me from a recent podoim-finish race of his.

One of the things he indicated was that the back end of the car was much more planted, and seemed to like a bunch more rear camber than probe-pyrometer tire temperatures have previously suggested.

The key take-away here is this: sometimes it pays to go outside our comfort level, and even beyond the conventional wisdom we get from various instrumentation such as pressures, temps, etc and try the slightly unconventional. This racer has done just that, and his results keep getting better & better.

 

Great thread coach, finally read the whole thing.

Could you guys share your thoughts on data, data/video systems? Any preference? Planning to work with a coach, so data/video is a must.

Not sure what parameters are most important, but I think brake and throttle

It's all a bit confusing, but am currently considering the following (open to other suggestions, of course):

- Vbox Lite: Local dealer; seems like an elegant, self-contained system; complete (?) solution; 2 cameras; not sure if it reads enough parameters; in-car display is extra. Total price approx $2,000, which is where I'd like to be

- Traqmate + POV camera (GoPro, Contour, etc.): Modular so camera can be used elsewhere, or could be purchased separately; comes with in-car display; a bit more complicated to sync

Better software? User friendliness? Expandability? Apple compatible?


If it matters: No racing... yet; car is very well setup 996 GT3; home track is Mosport (fast, flowing, not much braking).

Thanks,
Francois

PS VR, wouldn't mind also seeing the info you sent to KaiB concerning suspension setup

 

I strongly disagree with this, you're making the tire not 'work' as well as it should to cover-up a setup issue. Get the tires to work right, and use shocks, springs, sway bars, etc. to get the car to handle as you want. And then go back and confirm the tires are still 'working' as they should.

So yeah, it might be faster with the tire not working well, but that just means it wasn't setup right before.

 

Francios, please send me your email address at dave@racecoach.net and I will email you what I sent to Kai.

Those are both decent solutions. Another is RaceKeeper, which is extraordinarily user friendly pretty muuch out of the box. To me, throttle & brake pedal inputs, lateral & longitudinal G's, and steering input if you can get it would be the most valuable.

Mosport...one of my favorites!!!

Disagreement is fine. However, you're incorrect in saying his tires aren't working properly. Without going into details proprietary to this client, I can say that they were working properly, and none of them was significantly out of an appropriate temperature range. Nothing is being "covered up". Rather, an experiment was chosen, and it turned out to work.

Without experimentation, getting out of our comfort zone, nothing real would ever be accomplished...

 

I'll bite...

Decreasing radius carousel with a narrow lane at track out (T13 at MPH to be exact). The standard DE line is, of course, very late turn in and patience until one sees both the apex and track out point (and here, one must be precise).

What's the fast way? There is a video of R. Pobst here:


He brakes before entry, and then mid-corner.

 

Never been there. I suspect the best way is to sit on one of those giant grain silos and pop open a frosty one...

Seriously, though, if Pobst is braking twice, that is a major clue he is using the brakes for more than just slowing the car...to paraphrase Mario Andretti... In addition, watching the video, it appears he is trying to enter the corner in a way that allows him to have as close to one arc w/o significant additions to steering lock after entry as possible. It's all relative.

But, never having been there, I think it'd be best if someone else who has answers your question.

 

Dave, I'd be interested to hear your take, or any of the other instructor's, on the Mario Andretti quote about thinking the brakes are for slowing the car. How do you interpret it?