T&T Racing

How many times have you experienced difficulty transferring your procoach's suggestions into lower lap times? Or, you did not retain the " fixed" track points, on and off the track surfaces, for corner entry, apex, and corner exit after the cones were removed? Or, you can not determine the "fixed" points when reviewing the video even at half speed? Or, there could be 100 more reasons.

I am brainstorming a Track Playbook to address the 100 and 1 reasons that drivers feel frustrated that they can ​​execute lower track times when the procoach is in the passenger seat but not solo. Would you purchase a track specific playbook that provides visuals of the lessons learned by integrating the track video; data acquisition track data, nice to have but not essential; and procoach's suggestions into corner by corner slide show?

​​​​​For each corner, there are individual 8 1/2" x 11" photographic-quality prints of throttle lift, corner entry, apex, and corner exit; "slices " of car movement from corner entry to corner exit; full overhead view of corner entry, apex, and corner exit on one print. The slide prints of each corner are placed in a 3-ring binder and separated by individual corner tabs.

I developed an alpha version for the Watkins Glen race track. The field of view of the video must record the driver's hands on the steering wheel and the right leg to determine throttle lift; and key points off the track surface. My video camera is a GoPro Hero2 and my data acquisition system is an AIM MXL Pista.

The work flow process is reviewing the video and any track data; for each corner slicing the car movement into a ​​series of still photographs, adding throttle lift, braking zone, corner entry, apex, and corner exit on to an overhead view of the track.

The value of the playbook is a quick reference to all the key points for each corner viewed from the driver's perspective plus an overhead view of each corner. Use the playbook to internalize each corner through fixed slices of the driver in the car perspective and for feedback sessions with a procoach or other drivers. The overhead view of each corner allows a fully visual tool to be used in the garage or in your trailer.

The $64,000 question: How much would you pay for an individualized Track Playbook that can be updated and used as a reference tool at home and track-side without needing to review video.

This is an entrepreneur venture and my post is to get feedback from Rennlist followers and others, ask your non-Rennlist buddies, as to the market for this product and the entry price point you are willing to pay.
FEEDBACK CAN BE POSTED OR SEND ME A PM.

Thank you,
Tom

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Frank 993 C4S

What you are describing I usually get from my coaches. They each seem to have their own track specific notes and video. I make my own from their material.

jdistefa

A few thoughts in no particular order:

1) Part of integrating new knowledge is best done through writing your own track notes. Things stick better when you do them yourself - the experience is richer and hence better encoded.

2) Always useful to read other notes, data, video - caveat is that some of it is car specific, tire specific, driver specific, although there are fundamentals that will be consistent among all those variables.

3) Analysis-paralysis re. data and information overload. Sometimes it is best to just drive the car with the right brain rather than left. For pilots out there: First, fly the plane.

4) If lap times are consistently better with a coach in the right seat then true learning (i.e. can you independently execute past lessons) hasn't truly happened. The coach is driving the car from the right seat. The driver can execute when prompted but isn't retaining. The fix often requires a concerted effort on the part of the driver to improve strategies around bandwidth, focus/attention, critical reflection skills, purposeful practice, etc.... in other words sport psych tool kit. I'm not sure that a set of good reference notes alone help to augment these important ancillary skills.

5) There's no shortage for kinesthetic wisdom aka butt feel, seat time, quality practice. Sometimes drivers try to shortcut the learning curve with excessive attention to cognitive factors (planning, track notes, data), visual orientation (simulator training) and end up being limited by the physical act of driving the car (sport specific skills).

ProCoach

+1,000,000!

All of these...

ProCoach

Shane tried this a few years ago... YMMV.

http://winecountrymotorsports.com/pr...9eb1b676d8b137

gbuff

Boy, I'm all over THAT, Matt.....while I'm only driving in DE/lapping day/open track settings, and while I do religiously keep a journal describing all the pertinent info and events/results of the day, at day's end for me it's all about 3 things:
1) seat time
2) more seat time
3) yeah.....

Gary

Veloce Raptor

+1 Matt

RennPart

Go to a skidpad and have and get a good feel of a spin coming on, oversteer, understeer, how you can modulate the throttle/brakes to provoke understeer/oversteer. So much of good (fast) driving is a seat of the pants feel for being the edge of grip, and to get to the point where you subconsciously make corrections to stay on that edge.

ProCoach

The former? Absolutely true.

The latter? The best use of car control is to have the confidence to go in a little too hot KNOWING that your correction (note: singular) will be timely, appropriate and autonomic.

THIS is what separates good pros from ams. And why seat time is ALWAYS the most important ingredient in any driver's progression.

My concern is that I see WAY too many people using informal, unstructured skid pad training in a way that causes them to crash HARDER.

It's NOT about adding power, when one end becomes unstuck.

It's NOT about maintaining a "showboat slip angle," for as long as you can.

It's about tuning your a$$, and committing to memory and reflex the appropriate response.