pmason

All great input, being a sponge and trying to absorb it all, all about learning.

M758

It can be tough to do that and if you drive a slower car like me pointless. The last place I want to be is gridded in front of all the faster class cars. I will then spend all the laps letting the faster guys through. So for me I have to pick a spot in space where it have few faster cars in front, but not the fast in a straight line only types as they wil kill my corner speed.


As a rookie... don't worry about that... Just show up and try to run some good laps being aware of who is comeing and when. It is nice to allow some one else room to get by cleanly if you are not on a flyer. Use point bys as it can help the other guy know you see him comming so that way he can stay on the power minimizing any impact to his lap time. At the same time if you are on the hot flying lap don't pull over either. Yeah qualfying can be very tough to master.

jrgordonsenior

Joe I agree. What I was trying to emphasize was the importance of finding your niche amongst the other cars. I used my car as an example but your explanation makes it clearer.....

SG_M3

Exactly, its funny, there is usually a race before qual to see who can get to the grid first lol

A lot of the time much faster cars on slicks take a lap or two to come up. A car on r comps is up to temp in 4 hard corners or so, people just need to work together to get the best qual laps for everyone.

Biggest hint: Qual is not a race, its not a practice session. Don't race anyone, back off and find you a clear space, don't go out there and do the whole session.

paradisenb

My friend runs 3-4 quali laps and comes in. He knows his target time for each track. He hits it and pits, adjusts tire pressures hot and is ready to start the race. He never stays out for the session.

arrivederci

Two things to take note of based on the PCA races I've been in...

1) Gridding for qual may be determined by lap times in a prior practice session. Be sure you don't get DQ'd due to weight, etc in that practice session or you'll find yourself gridding at the back of the pack (especially painful for an enduro).

2) On the out lap for qual, it is a green flag.

Rookie advice from me? I ran my first year with Toyo's to get comfortable 'racing'. In the second year started the move to Hohos...

Greg Smith

Pick a tire and stick to it, different tires are going to require different setups.

Jim Child

Strongly agreed about not running the whole qualifying session, but with two notable exceptions:

• If its your first time at the track and you're still learning and getting faster with every lap.
• If it just stopped raining and the track is drying up your fastest lap will be the last one of the session.

John H

Dry track. We must be a whole bunch of really bad drovers.

M758

To counter you....

First one on a new track. Second one on a often visited track. Sure it is not hard and fast, but in general it holds.

Lemming

Dry track and summertime temps in Southeast.

John H

I think my results I posted above probably had as much to do with everyone doing the last race of the year and just using up whatever tires they had. I know mine had so many heat cycle marks, I quit marking them. However, I often notice my fastest laps are late in the race or practice session. Maybe it takes me longer to wind my car up to speed.

these results don't count because I can tell by the lap times, the track had to have been wet.

SG_M3

I'm not sure what good posting all these mylaps shots is, or what it is in reference to.

Of course these are just general thoughts, if you are new to a track then running all the laps you can will obviously help more than the degradation in tires.

M758

Qualfying sessions. Fast lap # vs total laps run in the session.

So it is try to support when most guys set thier fast lap.

jrgordonsenior

Or slow learners? .....