Here's a few bad laps at MSR-H CCW

[762]

A couple points of reference... Mr BRG is using ASTs on a Miata. The 949 Racing team just recently won their class at the NASA 25hrs of Thunderhill in a Miata on ASTs. Granted I'm just a bench racer here, but I would think that 949 alignment specs are at least a good place to start.

I am sure they are an ok place to start, but certainly not the end all be all. Also winning an endurance race where things like tire wear are important factors can make a good alignment significantly different compared to an alignment for outright pace at a TT.

[SirHustlerEsq]

[762]

[altiain]

Easy way to figure out if it’s the car or the driver – have someone else (like Ken) drive the car. If they are faster, it’s the driver. If they aren’t, it’s the car.

In a non-aero car, mid corner speed is all about mechanical grip. If your tires have 10-11 weekends on them, they are generating less mechanical grip than a good set of street tires. You can’t go fast on crappy tires, and you’re wasting money trying to set a car up to compensate for crappy tires.

Greg makes a good point about setup – no two cars (or drivers) are exactly alike. What works for one may not work for another. If you want to learn to extract the most speed out of your fancy shocks, you need to constantly experiment with different setups – shock settings, toe settings, bar balance, etc. If you don’t experiment, how do you know you’re getting the most out of what you have?

[SirHustlerEsq]

Easy way to figure out if it’s the car or the driver – have someone else (like Ken) drive the car. If they are faster, it’s the driver. If they aren’t, it’s the car.

In a non-aero car, mid corner speed is all about mechanical grip. If your tires have 10-11 weekends on them, they are generating less mechanical grip than a good set of street tires. You can’t go fast on crappy tires, and you’re wasting money trying to set a car up to compensate for crappy tires.

Greg makes a good point about setup – no two cars (or drivers) are exactly alike. What works for one may not work for another. If you want to learn to extract the most speed out of your fancy shocks, you need to constantly experiment with different setups – shock settings, toe settings, bar balance, etc. If you don’t experiment, how do you know you’re getting the most out of what you have?

Yeah, I'd love to get a hot-shoe in the car...but that will never happen. All it takes is one missed shift or something to that effect and I have a $4k hit.

I spent quite a few hours getting set-up on this car and making notes, and ending up with a little more caster and more rear-tow in than most, plus a slightly tighter sway-bar in the rear. It seems like some people say to run these tires until they show cords, others say 5-days.

Thanks.

[ken o]

You could also hire a coach.

[ckearns]

Here's my best laps from Saturday



and Sunday



Chris

[altiain]

Yeah, I'd love to get a hot-shoe in the car...but that will never happen. All it takes is one missed shift or something to that effect and I have a $4k hit.

I spent quite a few hours getting set-up on this car and making notes, and ending up with a little more caster and more rear-tow in than most, plus a slightly tighter sway-bar in the rear. It seems like some people say to run these tires until they show cords, others say 5-days.

Thanks.

Another small suggestion - buy a durometer. Then you can start to correlate lap times to tire hardness and figure out when they start to drop off. From there you can decide how long you want to run them competitively.

As both you and Ken mentioned above, if you're competing for contingency you want to do it on the freshest tires you can justify (budget). If you have more than one set of wheels and the means to transport them, use older tires for practice and save the fresh tires for when it matters.

[SixAce]

I was not consistent and it cost me 1st. Finished .129 out of the top spot. My best was a 1:43.2, theoretical was a 1:41.7. Not one lap were I had more than 2 sectors as the best.

On Saturday, your TTB 2nd place time would have beaten the entire TTA field of 8 cars by 4/10s over 1st place. Sunday, they picked up the pace and you would have placed 2nd TTA (2/10s out of first) of the 8 car field. Unless I'm reading the results wrong..

I'd have to agree the hours of setup and fresh R6 seem to be working pretty well. Nice driving too. I was impressed that in your vid, the only place where you broke the rear loose was on what appears to be the worst possible corner to lose it in (the only wall on the track). Shows that you are pushing it everywhere and not skeered of no dang concrete wall


That TTB stook must have really been good. He would have been 1st TTA both days.

[SixAce]

Here's my best laps from Saturday

and Sunday

Chris

Wow, that's pretty nice. Great job Chris I'm guessing you were on NT01, and the Integra was on Hoosiers? I'm thinking Price may be an alien or sumpthin..

See ya at MSR-C.

[SirHustlerEsq]

Josh is smokin fast, the car is dialed, and he knows the track really well.

[SirHustlerEsq]

Another small suggestion - buy a durometer. Then you can start to correlate lap times to tire hardness and figure out when they start to drop off. From there you can decide how long you want to run them competitively.

Oh man, I never knew such an animal was affordable, I am going to order one.

[SixAce]

Yeah, I'd love to get a hot-shoe in the car...but that will never happen. All it takes is one missed shift or something to that effect and I have a $4k hit... {snipped}

Thanks.

LOL. I remember watching the last hot shoe you let drive your car at ECR. Prolly 100+ mph off at the end of the back straight (right in front of me).

Nice job dropping 1.8 on Sunday's time. Ken O's suggestion on coaching is valid and something I'm considering as well.

Up to now, I'd say the 2 best things that have helped me are: 1.) Having MER cornerbalance/align/setup my car. Crazy difference and well worth it IMO. And 2.) Data. Being able to share and overlay with faster drivers in simialr setup/cars helped. Even when Ken O. just shared his data once at TWS, it helped. Even though we have different data setups/cars and can't overlay, I could focus on sectors to see where he was kicking my arse. Still kicks my arse, but I'm faster because of the sharing..(Thanks again, Ken.)

[ckearns]

Yeah - Josh is fast. The Integra is fast as hell in a straight line too.

I've got to figure out another 6 points of worthwhile spending to max out TTE.

Re: Durometer - this is the kit I picked up. Durometer and depth gauge in a dainty aluminum box. http://www.ogracing.com/longacre-durometer-tread-gauge.
Re: scales and corner balancing - I picked up scales over the winter, so if any of you yahoos want to DIY your ride heights and corner weights, I'll make them available for a reasonable rental fee.
Re: data - that racekeeper box I got last year is the absolute best go fast part I've put in the car. Look at data after every session, correlate positioning, gear, all kinds of crap to results. The one thing I don't have is an in-car lap time display, and I'm not sure I want one yet. I'll pursue consistency for another year before I start trying to throw down a bin it or win it style lap. Continuous improvement or multiple laps within .1 of each other makes me a happy guy.

I spent this weekend getting familiar with the track and trying to suss out good lines - next time I'll try to scare myself a time or two. There's a couple of places where I'm leaving a full second on the table - exiting keyhole and over the launch down through gut check and the follow through at the end of the back straight. There's a bit of time to make up in diamond's edge by late braking and a hard rotation at the back of the corner, but that's got to be easier to get wrong than it is to get right.

I'll fiddle with the suspension at Cresson a bit more too. Wanted to get the car feeling comfortable to learn a new track rather than having it on edge.

All in all a great weekend - I was very much satisfied with the times I was able to post.

Chris

[SirHustlerEsq]

I like that in-car lap time display, but I only saw the actual times when I pulled off the track. I could only peel my eyes from the track to see the over-under on the back stretch and exiting Sugar & Spice. Apparently my brain doesn't work as quickly as "real drivers". However, the adjustments that I was looking at on track in the third session were studied in more detail in Chris' awesome trailer and that's where I had the time to think about what made XYZ lap faster, and why. By the 4th session with the logger I realized that I could use the over/under display to check myself for over-driving and sloppiness. It also told me when to throw away the back half of the lap and focus on the next lap.

I've already said it, but I'm so envious of your Race Keeper. It takes several dozen clicks to compare two laps, it's a real annoyance to compare laps from different sessions, and I can only pair video if I buy a $150 license and then sync the video (which takes time, and can only watch one vid at a time. Yours is awesome to open two laps, and hit "play". I'll eventually get the set-up you have.

I'm still stunned to see how powerful data is for us weekenders. Simply comparing time and distance from one session tells me which line is fastest, lat-g tells me if I'm inconsistent with steering angle, long-g tells me if I'm braking properly distance/time tells me if there is speed to gain with a straighter exit or more corner speed. I predict a significant improvement this year, and I'm really interested to see what this data tells me about Hallett which is the only track I really know well.

Sadly, data also told me that I have to shift ultra-fast if I want to pick up some time. I always thought that since the car was moving, I could granny shift and not suffer too much of a penalty, that's not true. Each up-shift cost me about .2-.4 seconds depending upon gear; with 6 upshifts per lap that's one full second that I could cut in half.

[762]

There are also other opportunities to work on setup outside of the road course environment. While autocross may not be the end all be all of setup for a road course car, if you can work to get a car to put down power properly in such a technical environment it will help for a more open one.

[ken o]

This is my data of my laps at speed.
Attachment 5549
Attachment 5548

[SirHustlerEsq]

Can I get a track-map with sectors so I can make sense of that thing?

[Sharpie]

Trea, watching your tach is fun. I know how boost feels on the top end, you're moving.

[SirHustlerEsq]

Trea, watching your tach is fun. I know how boost feels on the top end, you're moving.

Yeah, these gears are great. 1-5 is a touch tighter than a 5-speed/4.30, then 6th is a touch taller than the standard 5th gear by running 3600rpm at 80mph.

I like watching the tach through Gut Check. Remember that I have old tires on...it was scary as hell. I went through that corner a few times without braking and just breathing on the throttle to load the car on entry and I'd tell myself, "there is no way I'm doing this every lap". It might be easier on fresh tires.