Charles A. Toupin

Me too!!! At the last race of the season, I shared a car with a pro driver (that was not the first time with him that we share the car, though) and we went through data for the first time ever together. I was up there with him save at 2 turns. We could see a major difference on the data. We went for a walk on the track to solve the problem!!! Still there was difference after, but I'll put it on the ***** factor, not the driving skills

We are using the racepak data system.

c.

bobt993

I actually find overlays from reference laps essential. It is a quick way to focus on where the driver needs to improve for overall lap times. A couple examples come to mind: Paolo was pushing real hard at Tbolt and not picking up much time. I looked over his data to find him already at a very high level in some of the more risky corners, but losing time in the slow speeds. First thing we did is stop him from pushing where he was already near the limit and focused on the time he was tossing out the window elsewhere. At the end, he put it all together and it worked out pretty well. I also drove his car for 5 laps to see if it had any peculiar handling problems only discover he was doggin it in T1 by 8mph. Again data overlay. So we easily fixed that. Once he knew where and how to pick up speed he was able to remedy it quickly. His driving ability was already there.

I had another driver recently missing the apex speed of a very fast corner and he believed his car could not do any better, but I was able to add almost 10 mph at the apex during the
out-lap first time behind the wheel.

It is not that the driver is not skilled enough. Most often he or she is driving at a very high level, but a couple of mental blocks can ruin confidence to achieve their goal. If I did not look at my own data constantly, I would easily fall backwards and follow the same pattern.

Juan Lopez

Motec ADL and i2Pro + chase cam. Brady Refenning from 901 Shop helps go through the data to refine my skills. It has been of great use.

Veloce Raptor

Hell yes! Just as I do with clients!

ProCoach

Yeah, I can do that too (hop in and make pretty, reference-grade data and speed!) and I do for people who are stuck, but you hit the nail on the head when you said you "focus on the time he was tossing out the window elsewhere." You can identify trends that look like that on a speed vs distance graph...

90% of the value of data is to using it to jettison the 80% you're doing well and identify the 20% that can yield real improvement. I do a lot of that by applying Buddy's metrics to the driver's measured performance. Let's face it, most drivers don't use the brakes well at all. When they learn how, look out!

Maybe I've been looking at too many files, but it's very clear to me that there are multiple places I can identify as ripe for improvement for most all drivers, even without a "pro" reference lap. Maybe because the "pros" that I've worked with HAVE been able to fix issues that we identified looking at the data, on their own!

There is such a thing as "clean" data, and many times the reference lap has other significant flaws that I wouldn't want folks to emulate.

Not saying a reference lap is not needed or helpful, just observing that there is SO much room for improvement in everybody's data (8K files that I've looked at or logged in the last twenty years) that we have a lot of meat on the table before that tool needs to be pulled out of the box.

MelanomaMan

Finally took the plunge on Traqmate a few months ago, and am loving it. Paired with other tools like David Murry's webinar and Chris Brown's book 'Making Sense of Squigly Lines' I am getting more comfortable with the analysis. My last race weekend I 'found' .9 secs on the table in my data to work on from Saturday to Sunday, and actually managed a full 1.0 sec improvement.

Next step will be to pull in coaching, but that will have to wait a bit ;-)

Thanks Bob for the other book reference on Data Power. Will hafta check that out, too!

sbelles

I did one of Peter's data analysis seminars a couple of years ago. It was well worth it.

KaiB

Is the Traqmate HD setup capable of syncing two cams?

I think I'm sold on TM as a first tool, but would like very much to run two cams; one track oriented and another down into driver controls.

Or, better ideas?

rlm328

AiM Pista with a Smarty Cam. Coupled together theyt are very useful. The Pista records g forces, times, plus engine parameters. It will do a lot more but I haven't gotten around to getting them yet.

924RACR

I was impressed how good the Traqmate is for getting up and making sense of your data very quickly - for someone with little to no experience. The AIM stuff is excellent too, but slightly less intuitive - the Traqmate even tells you what to do in the manual!

I've since moved up to a RaceTechnology DL1, as I'm doing much more than just driver development with the new car (DSR)...

morsini

Thanks Matt!

Nordschleife

I use Motec and Bosch. Both are excellent, I would only suggest using these if you have a dedicated race engineer/data analyst - otherwise they are overkill. If the driver is a geek (s)he could handle it.

If you have ever wanted to roll your own traction control, or ..... this is the kit to go for.

The Bosch software is real nerdy stuff but you do get great support if you speak Klingon. Motec is less capable but then its easier to talk 'strine.

R+C

924RACR

Yes, I've learned technical German is another language entirely...

2BWise

My system is fairly limited at the moment. By that I mean, its not functioning properly, except for the speed data. Even with that though I'm been able to get a ton of usage from it. I've used it to optimize my gearing for my local track and to verify the engine model I put together. Next up is to create an aero map and model the drag for various wing settings.

The other thing that has been helpful is overlaying my data with Vaughan's. Our cars are class separately but there is still a lot of comparison that is valuable. After the last weekend we were able to find several corners in which I'm over slowing the car. Now it's just too bad there are six months to wait before I can put it to use.

ProCoach