What: A small addendum to the cardio training post, let’s expand on it with a real world experience that happened just a few weeks ago at Pacific Raceways.
If I knew then what I know now: Hydration, hydration, hydration – start it at least 5 days prior the first day on track and keep it up while you are on track. Simply drinking lots of water the weekend of, is not enough.
Most of my racing is a sprint format, but each Saturday afternoon, there is a 1 Hour Mini-Endurance race (referred to as Enduro’s but spell check hates this word). During the May 20th 1-Hour Enduro at Pacific Raceways, I decided to start a ‘workout’ using my Apple Watch to track my heart rate and calories burned, more accurately. In this mode, the watch samples movement, skin temperature, heart rate, etc. at least 1x per second, versus about 1x per minute, while generally going about your day.
So what happened?
First, Pacific Raceways is already a physically demanding race track – super old school, banked turns, big time elevation change and even catching air on all 4 wheels. Before I even looked at the data, this is how I felt:
Thank Goodness for the Dead Pedal: While you probably aren’t going to be able to tell from the video, the combination of braking, lateral g-forces, camber in the road and downhill ascent of 3a and 3b complex, make it super grueling as you are carrying a good amount of speed. I found myself hanging on for dear life, thanking my OMP seat, Schroth harnesses and most importantly – the dead pedal. After each session I found myself thinking – “man, if it weren’t for the dead pedal – I think I would have fallen out of the seat.”
Oh dead pedal, how I love thee!
Dehydration: That day was warm but not ‘hot’ with a high of 72 degrees Fahrenheit. I have a helmet blower system hooked up to my Stilo ST5 GT Wide Composite SA2015 Helmet with Noise Attenuating Ear Muffs (Large), of which after experiencing this – I don’t know how everyone doesn’t have one. And we were planning to run the Cool Shirt CS-12 Club System but we forgot to pickup ice. No worries, we went on regardless. Well after a day of two qualifying sessions, one 20 minute race and an hour race, I felt drained and truly dehydrated – with my lips feeling chapped, which is a rare occurrence for me. I’ve probably used chap-stick or lip balm maybe a half-dozen times in my life. I have a rule that 7 days prior to stepping into a race car, I don’t drink any alcohol (usually wine) and that week, I bent the rules and I think that didn’t help. While I only had a couple glasses with dinner, I could feel the difference.
Lower-Back Pain: Yeah – even this! WTF!?!?! I climbed out of the car with my lower back, not throbbing, but sure as crap not feeling great. During the race I felt sharp pains and while I’ve had back issues the past few years – a combination of physical therapy, cross-training, plyometrics, stretching and chiropractor visits have my back in pretty good shape. Even still, I had back pain. One theory, was that this was actually kidney related as it is common to have lower back pain, from your kidneys, when you’re too dehydrated and I felt it.
As an aside, the following morning I was pretty sore – especially on my right foot, calf, lower back, right shoulder, forearm and hand. These PRO3 cars don’t have power-steering or ABS, so they are quite the analog animal to manhandle.
The data says… holy crap!
This is the health data from throughout the day. You can see the spike when I logged a workout during the 1-hour endurance race. I didn’t log a workout during the earlier three sessions (two qualifying sessions and one non-points race)Here is an hour by hour breakdown of my heart rate – note that during the 1-hour endurance race, my heart rate reached around 160-165 beats per minute.
Think about this – when was the last time you did a workout and burned (approximately) 1,000+ calories? I am talking about just the logged ‘workout’ because in the previous three sessions, I didn’t have the Apple Watch Nike+ 42mm logging calories or else the full day of calories burned would have been 2,000+. That is a TON of calories and physical effort.
Conclusion
Competitive racing is a legit, physical sport that is incredibly demanding. We are using our hand-foot-eye coordination, reflexes, core-strength, neck-strength, arm-strength, leg-strength, cardio stamina and mental stamina, just like happens in many other ‘high intensity sports’.
If you are and an avid racer, actually competing and on a regular basis – I highly encourage you to have a regular training program and eat well at minimum to avoid injury and really, to help improve your performance. Yes, you need to know what to do with your driver inputs to go fast but you also need to be able to physically do this, consistently and over long periods of time – especially for all those endurance racers. If you aren’t exhausted when you get out of a race car – you’re just not driving hard/fast enough.
This is a combo article because I frankly fell behind righting as the race weekend took over.
Back to PIR to get the bad taste out of my mouth
The last time we were at Portland International Raceways (May 2017), the weekend was going great but on the main points race Sunday afternoon, the race was over by turn 3. A couple of Spec E46’s were tussling ahead, one got pushed off and insisted on getting back on track, immediately spun when the front tires grabbed and got side-swiped. While it sucked for the team, we fared much better than two other PRO3 cars which were nearly totaled.
As an aside, another example of how important it is to know how to properly go off track and apply those techniques, every time – even in racing conditions. The reality is that going off will happen and applying those techniques will save you and everyone else a lot of money in the long run.
That race was run without a chicane (usually reserved for endurance races) and this would be the first of two race weekends with the chicane, aptly named the “Chicane Challenge” and I was really excited to see how the investment in simulator time would pay off.
Friday Test and Tune Day – .5 seconds faster right off the trailer
This isn’t a perfect comparison because of differences in weather conditions but when I looked at my first session off the trailer this Friday versus the same first session, in August 2016 (the last time I ran PIR with a chicane), I was ~.5 seconds faster and broke the 1:30.000 barrier for the second time.
What happened? Softer braking, which lead to higher min-speeds through each corner.
Looking at the data comparison below, it’s clear to see that I was able to use less brake pressure and carry more mid-corner speed AND get on throttle (and full throttle) sooner than a year ago. On this specific session, I remember letting the tires warm up and then attacking the corners and surprising myself that I had so “easily” hit a 1:29.xxx lap time. On the following lap, I tried to repeat it but found that while carrying more speed through the turns 4-5 transition area, the bumps in the road unsettled the car too much while I was on throttle, causing the left rear corner to break loose.
A comparison of my off the trailer, 1st session on a test and tune in August 2016 versus June 2017. Look at the brake pressure differences and the delta chart.
Also, I was driving on relatively old tires (Toyo Proxes RR 225/45/15’s) that were on their third race weekend and their 12th heat cycle. There is an urban legend that PIR “likes old tires” and my personal interpretation is that PIR is a very smooth and grippy track and thus older tires still work well but newer tires are still going to be optimal.
A track map of Portland International Raceways, with a Chicane
The rest of the day I stayed on the old tires and struggled to break 1:30.xxx as the day got hotter and grip went away but we focused on helping that rear left corner take the beating. With PIR being a 12 turn, clockwise track and only 3 of the 12 turns being left handers the car left rear tire is under constant heavy loads, trying to get out of nearly every corner as quickly as possible.
Saturday Qualifying, Points Race 1 and 1-Hour Enduro Race
This was a unique weekend with the Saturday Group 1 race being a championship points race, along with the Sunday race. So each day we would start with a clean slate, qualify in the AM and race in the PM.
First up was Group 1 qualifying, which went ok but I couldn’t find good track position, to get me a solid draft on laps 2-4, where the fastest lap times would come happen. I ended up with a 1:30.092 and qualified 4th. Not bad but not great, being .5 seconds clear of 5th place but almost .7 seconds from pole – ouch.
In Group 8 qualifying, we strapped on some new tires so I could scrub them in for Sunday’s race and boom, 1:29.635! New personal best and, it didn’t seem too hard. The big difference? Carrying a tiny bit more speed into the chicane, more speed into turn 7 and through turns 10-12.
Group 1 Points Race: 3rd Place
At the start of the race, I got a really good start and was behind a the Spec E46 of Dan Rogers, who has a ton of race craft. We were on the inside for turn 1 and more importantly, the outside of turn 2, which is the chicane. On these low speed, high G-force turns, in traffic, it is generally best to be on the outside, because you have less steering input and can get on the throttle sooner. This is because when going two or three wide, we aren’t going at normal speeds, we’re going 10-15 mph slower and thus nowhere near the traction limit.
This gave me a solid run through the chicane and coupled with an incident where another PRO3 car tried to squeeze through where there was no room, spinning both cars – I was in the lead by turn 3 and leading my first PRO3 race?!???!
Leading my first PRO3 race ever, holy crap! Maintain, maintain, maintain….
I lead for a few laps but eventually, Brian Bercovitz got me and pulled away. Then the PRO3 who spun the other car, caught up and when we were going around slower traffic, he got a clean run out of a corner while I had to check up and he got past. I ended up in P3 but further improved my personal fastest lap time.
Group 8 1-Hour Race: 2nd place for being greedy
The 1-hour races are basically more practice for me – I like doing them by myself because I can just focus on hammering out laps and hard-coding improvements. I always strap on the oldest tires I have on-hand and try to set fast and consistent laps.
This was no different and from the start I was battling with a regular foe and friend, Jeff McAffer. I was in the lead the majority of the race but Jeff was able to stick with me the entire time.
After the mid-way pit stop, I decided to try to push a bit more as I was hitting 1:29 lap times, on crappy tires and a greasy track. Suddenly, 1:29.7xx! I felt like that lap time wasn’t too hard to get, so I went for a repeat but the tires didn’t agree.
This could have easily been just my inputs but my hypothesis is that I over-pushed the tires and I was asking them to do a qualifying lap when they were in lap 35 of a race. I had the win in the bag and Jeff about 5 seconds behind but I got greedy, went off and ended up in P2.
This is not a good POV at turn 12 at Portland International Raceways
Now I know there is a reason for the saying…
“Go only as fast as you need to finish where you’re going to finish.”
Sunday Group 1 Race
One thing that I started doing this year is running just Group 1 and Group 8, which means I get a solid amount of track time and on Sunday, I only have one group to worry about. This way I’m rested and not rushing on the day that usually counts.
Sunday Group 1 Qualifying: 1:29.874 P4
Coming off of the Saturday’s lap times, where I got a 1:29.466 in the afternoon Group 1 race, with fresh tires but loaded up on weight for race trim, I felt that I had the potential for a very low 1:29 in qualifying and thus in the running for pole. I just needed to have good track position on laps 2-4, where I could get a draft on at least one of the straightaways. But it wasn’t to be – I went out and was stuck in “no man’s land” for the first part, then I slowed down and waited for a group of PRO3 cars to come by so I can get behind them. I was able to finally do so and had a low 1:29 going but got behind a PRO3 car that slowed down way too much for turns 10 – 12. It was still good enough for a P3 but I knew I had the pace to battle for the podium and possibly the win. If I would have had an average sector time for turns 10 – 12, I would have been easily with a 1:29.4xx with my rolling best lap being a 1:29.522.
Purple cells = rolling fastest lap and yellow cells = fastest segment times
Sunday Group 1 Race: P7 finish due to a late race off-track excursion
The race started well and hard for most everyone, with a clean first lap. I tried hard to make up at least one spot on the start but it didn’t happen, so I was stuck behind the #81 of Brad McAllister, who is a strong driver and PIR is one of his strongest tracks. He’s also a pretty tough pass, with a strong racing history in the SCCA Playboy MX-5 Cup, PRO3 and recently the TRANS-AM TA2 series.
Brian Bercovitz, one of the regular competitors I’m trying to best started from the back because he had a mechanical during qualifying and eventually caught up to us. The couple laps leading to Brian catching us, I had to brake harder than normal to not ram Brad going into the chicane, which over-heated (I think) my front tires. Going into turns 5 and 6, my front end washed out, and as I was waiting for the fronts to grip, the rear-end swung out and I went-off track.
It was not too bad but just enough time for a couple cars to pass me and by then the tires were too hot and the distance too great for me to catch up and make up the spots.
I ended up finishing 7th and I think if we can do a better job of tire pressure management (to give me more life towards the end of the race) and I can do a better job of not screwing up, there was a 3rd place finish in the stars and maybe better.
Overall, a great weekend and new personal bests!
While I’m not terribly happy with the Sunday result, overall we made a ton of progress on the car and my driving. There is one more race at PIR with a Chicane in August and I believe we’ve gathered the knowledge to fight for poles and a win. We know what we can do to drop some low 1:29’s and maybe even get into the 1:28’s, which is encroaching on track record territory. Let’s cross our fingers for some sunny and not too hot, weather in August!
This is the last day of iRacing before the big race weekend at Portland International Raceways. The goal today was the same – another 20+ lap sessions, with no accidents, pushing for consistent, fast but not personal best laps. Just get into a rhythm and pound out lap, after lap, after lap – all near the limit (or at least mine).
The session started off normal, with low-1:20 lap times steadily falling and then suddenly, lap 6 – BOOM! 1:19.410 – new personal best.
I smell blood in the water…
That lap was good but there were some small mistakes, I can do better. So I put my head down and starting pounding away trying to repeat it and make improvements. over the next 10 or so laps, I got close several times and even spinning at one point, but keeping it out of the wall.
I checked up, let the tires cool down, as I would in real life and went back at it.
More mid-1:19’s and suddenly… 1:19.351 – another half tenth shaved off. But I wanted more, especially with a low fuel load, I knew I could do it. So I pushed on but ultimately, I dropped a tire on the exit of the chicane and ended up with a 1:19.398.
Oh so close!!!
What happened?
I found that if I can slow down, just a tiny bit more, in the entrance of the ‘esses’ and turn 7 and the chicane, I was able to get the car turned faster and back on throttle and full throttle, sooner. Same lesson from before, just applying it better and better.
Check out the throttle traces of the graph below.
Slow down earlier, get the car turned and then get back on throttle.
Now seeing as that new personal best was done at the end of the session, with yes lower fuel – it was also well past the peak performance of the tires. Something I started thinking about today, as I have been preparing for the Portland race this weekend, is that I’ve noticed that many times, in a real world race, my fastest lap of the race comes in around lap 2-4.
This is when the tires, brakes and everything are at their prime conditions. I wonder what could happen if we did a low fuel run, with just 5 or so laps and fresh tires? I am thinking that the lap times would come down significantly!
I’m not going to lie – I had a long night of work on Sunday night and didn’t go to bed until just past 1am PST. So when the alarm went off at 5:30am, I could barely move enough to shut the alarm down. So I did not race at all on Monday, instead deciding to be as fresh as I could for the next morning.
And it was a good trade off – I was not only able to put together another 19 lap session with no crashes but I got a new personal best, mid-way through the session for a 1:19.476 – almost .3 faster than before.
What happened?
I’ve heard the following in various places and this is exactly what happened – whoever gets on full throttle first, without lifting, wins. I slowed down just a touch more for Turn 7, was able to get and stay on full throttle, just a fraction of a second sooner. This resulted in a massive drop in lap time as we approached the back-straight chicane and then, in this section, I worked on having a wider entry into the chicane, clipping both FIA rumble strips and getting on throttle as soon as I could.
All together, these two changes resulted in that almost .3 second improvement in fastest lap time!
Checkout the delta chart (second graph from the top) – you’ll see the dramatic decrease in turns 7 – 12.
Faster Average Lap Times and Average Fast Lap Times
More and more, this is what I am most excited about. Not just being able to put together one flying lap, but being able to be faster, consistently. My average lap times improved by almost .1 seconds and my average fast lap times improved by just over .2 seconds! Boom!
Specifically, it’s similar reasons as to how I improved my ultimate fastest lap – better runs into the back straight, the chicane but also, being able to get the car turned, faster and carry more speed through the ‘esses’.
Checkout the delta graph, throttle and brake pressure graphs. Getting on and staying on full throttle first, wins!
Preparing for the real world
I’m really jacked about the progress, especially with a big race coming this next weekend at Portland International Raceways, with the Chicane. This track, because we run it twice and has been one of my weaker tracks, is exactly why I chose to train with Road Atlanta as the test track. Getting on throttle, quick, for long straight aways and a chicane are what I need to improve on for this track and excited to see how this translates to on-track results.
I have been working on driving more consistent… err… consistently, with some success but today, it finally all clicked and came together like never before.
I woke up, tired as usual, did my stretching, some cross-crawls (thanks Ross Bentley and Speed Secrets!) and lazy eight’s, just like I do in the real world and got on my way. And for the first time ever, 20+ laps of just about all clean driving. I did drop some tires and got a little sideways but I forced myself to try to save the car, slow down and collect myself, just like in the real world. And it worked!
20+ laps of mostly clean running!
The best part? Nestled in there are five sub-1:20 lap times and I didn’t feel like I was risking life and limb to make them happen!
On average, what changed?
It was really just one segment – segment 7, which includes turns 10a, 10b, 11 and 12. The chicane in the back straight away and all the way to start/finish. With my next real-world race being at Portland International Raceways, this time being run with the ‘Festival Chicane’ in the annual Chicane Challenge event, getting a great run out of the chicane has been top of mind for me.
I made it my goal today to get the best dang run out of the chicane, on power and going to full throttle, without having to lift, the top priority and I think it’s worked! Here are a couple of proof points:
1. Braking earlier, settling the car, aiming towards the backside of the 10ab apex and getting on throttle faster.
The changes are small but they are making a difference.
2. No new personal best but the average fast lap, is faster!
Just barely but the trend holds true even for the fastest laps – I am braking slightly earlier, softer and getting on throttle sooner.
Comparison of yesterday’s and today’s average fastest lap. Small but there are differences in the right direction.
Today was one of the most satisfying days – not only was I able to get into a groove, I worked up a serious sweat and did not have a single incident – how it should be in the real world. I’m excited to keep this going and build momentum of sessions where I get serious laps in and while finding little nuggets of speed here and there.
When I first started a couple weeks ago, I would not have even dreamt of low 1:19 lap times. Now I believe they are not only possible but even 1:18’s are possible in the next 30 days!
With the weather and track settings held constant, I was excited to get out and drive with more confidence that whatever improvements (or not) that happened, were of my own doing.
One thing that I still don’t love, is that I am still wrecking the car, regularly early on a session. It feels like it just takes me a few laps (and a wreck) to get into things. Today was no exception; an out-lap, a decent opening lap and boom. I am in the wall. I need to figure out how to cut that out, whether that means starting slower the first few laps, knowing that my mind and body just aren’t up to speed yet. This might also be because it is usually between 5:15AM and 5:45AM when I heading out and have only been awake for 15 – 30 minutes. Regardless, it needs to stop.
New Personal Record! Wait, huh?
With very little warning or expectation, on the very next outing, second flying lap – there it is, a new personal best. Barely but still – a 1:19.606. Looking back at the data, we can see why this happened but at the time, I was very confused. So much so that as I tried to repeat the feat, I kept dropping a wheel, resulting in dirty laps.
Consistency – not something you’ll find here.
Eventually, I got too sloppy and hit the wall again. A little frustrated, I decided to back off – not fixate on the fastest lap time and just get in good, quality laps in the mid to low 1:20’s and if 1:19’s happened – awesome! And you know what, that’s exactly what happened (well, after one more wreck).
Over the next 16 laps (I had to cut the session as my kiddo was up), all but three laps were nice and tidy. I was on such a roll, that I decided to pull over to the side and intentionally end the session versus being forced to end the session because I had crashed and my time was up.
I can’t say that I truly made progress in terms of a going faster, as in qualifying lap faster, because while I did improve my personal best, it wasn’t by much and I am not exactly sure how I did it. However, I feel I can confidently click off low to mid 1:20 lap times, of which even yesterday, was a tall order.
Not only can do I ‘feel’ this way – but I can quantify it. Check out this really cool way of comparing laps that Virtual Racing School has; you can compare the ‘Average Fast Lap’ and your ‘Average Lap’, of which in both measures, I improved by about .3 seconds. This is great because most people (including me) in the real world, if they’re looking at data, fixate on the fastest lap of the session, which usually happens once and no other lap is close, where we should be focusing on how to improve what ‘typically’ happens.
Comparison of my Average Lap from today versus yesterday.Here is the comparison of my average fast lap today versus yesterday.
I love this analysis and VRS even creates a speed trace and accompanying channels for those averages – beautiful! You can pretty clearly see that the reason I am on ‘average’ faster today versus yesterday is two fold:
Getting on throttle sooner and staying on throttle
Staying flat through the last turn (gut check time! Even in the virtual world)
Look at the throttle trace to see the story of why the lap times dropped
I’m still exhausted from the last race weekend but jacked about the progress that is being made, little by little.
If I knew then, what I know now: I would have bought a Miata or E30!!!
Check out:Proformance Racing School if you are in the Pacific Northwest. One of the best driving and racing schools around with everything from half day track days to 2-day competition licensing school and more.
It has been almost 15 years since the first time I drove on track for the first time. When I started thinking about writing about it I was like, dang, it has been a long time. How am I going to be able to recall some of this stuff. I remember it like it was yesterday! It was a really nice day in June and my Dad had gotten both my twin brother and I “racing school” for a combination of our 18th birthday, and graduation presents from high school. It was a wicked good gift! At the time I had a Volvo. It was an 850, and did actually have a manual transmission. In all fairness, it was a terrible car for a track day. But for me, at the time, it was a great chariot for hustling for the first time. I started off the day a bit jealous. My brother already had a way cooler car than I did, and even though it was broken, he got to use another cool car which was an E30 BMW. I had my Volvo. Never the less. it was school day, and time to get after it!
We both attended the Proformance Race School at Pacific Raceways in Kent, Washington. I have actually been through their one day course, 2 times and each time was great! The second time I paid for it myself, and it was still worth it! It is a good balance of classroom instruction, low speed car control skills building, then a half of a day on the track with an instructor.
I remember being pretty intimidated when we started the classroom session. Lots of people there. Lots of serious machines also. None of that ended up mattering. Each instructor is set with you, for the day. They don’t care what you are driving, they just want you to learn how to drive the snot out of it, safely.
1. Classroom sessions
The classroom session was the part I did not care for. Having done some auto-x in the past, and lots of race watching in my past and felt I had a pretty good idea of what the flags were, and what a turn station was. Things got deeper than that though, and it was much more informative than I was expecting. The classroom session was not long and was out of the way first thing in the morning. Once you break in the class room it is time to get into the cars and start driving.
2. Low speed car-control skills
The first part of the driving curriculum is the low speed car control skills session. This was a lot of fun. We went through a few different scenarios and I found that later in life, these skills paid off in spades in the real life. There were emergency lane change drills. Braking and turning sharp (like making a ‘J’ with your car), Threshold braking, which is very different depending on if your car does or does not have anti-lock brakes. My Volvo obviously did. We did eyes up drills using a man with a flag, and a slalom course. These skills seem so basic, but being taught how to use them, and then implement them at higher speeds will make a huge difference in your skill set both on and off the race track and street.
This brings us to lunch break at this school. During lunch my brother, my dad and I got to chat a bit about the morning. Both of us were more excited with driving on the track that afternoon though.
3. Track Time!
After lunch it was track time. We took two laps in our cars with the instructor driving to show you the basic line and where each corner goes. After those 2 laps it was game time. My first session in the car was great. I was going fast, relatively anyway. I was turning laps on a race track! It was an amazing feeling. Not having to worry about cars in driveways. Kids playing the street were non-factor. You just get to haul ass!
I started getting into it more. My instructor was great, and encouraging throughout the afternoon as I picked up pace. We picked up enough pace to send my street welly tires strait to a fiery hell. They were by all accounts and purposes a street all season tire. By the end of the second session on track, they were screaming for mercy on every brake zone and corner. I also started to run into a fuel starve, or electrical issue. When exiting a left hand corner (of which Pacific has a majority of) the car would bog down, and then get on its way. It started to get frustrating. I felt like it was dampening my total experience, but it really was not. I needed to focus on skills building at that time, not how fast my car was going.
The start of a lifetime of motorsports
By the end of the day. I had not broken my car. I had not crashed into anything and I had learned a lifetime skill set that, as I said before, would show itself to pay off many times over in the real world. Mainly by avoiding idiots trying to crash into me! I was hooked. As it may be apparent. I found sport driving and racing to be what I truly love to do. It is a way for me to show aggression and not be physical (like boxing or wrestling, or martial arts). I can work my butt off in the car and it is a good work out. The mechanical symphony that is a race car is fascinating to me. I know this was going to be fun!
Today was interesting. I woke up pretty jacked about making a big jump in a personal best lap time and my goal was just to continue being able to get low 1:20 and high 1:19 lap times, with this new found level of performance. At first, everything started as normal, with pretty easily being able to get into the 1:21’s but then something strange happened. I could not get under 1:20.368. In fact, once I got that lap time, I could barely even get close to that lap time.
Frustrated but not deterred, I came off the track and checked the setup. All looked good and I went back out to run a stint until I ran out of gas. 18 laps later and mostly 1:21 lap times, I had an off and decided to call it a day.
What the crap is going on?
I immediately went into the Virtual Racing School console to see what was going on? What was I doing that caused me to completely lose the progress I had been making the past several days? Was it a learning too much, too fast, hangover? Was I feeling under the weather?
The weather! It took me several minutes but I eventually noticed this below. I had been using iRacing with the default ‘dynamic weather’ setting, in the ‘on’ position. I don’t know exactly how they decided to set the weather and track state but this session ended up being a warmer session, with the track temperature being 8 degrees warmer.
How did it get warmer in the virtual world?!?!
The impact of weather conditions on performance
For most cars and tire compounds, especially high performance or racing tires, we know it can be too cold. Too cold not only does not let the tires come up to temperature and become that nice, somewhat sticky and tar-like look and feel but it can also make the tire rubber compound brittle. e.g. negative traction.
But it apparently can also be too hot or maybe not too hot yet, but at least there is an inverse relationship at some point, between heat and grip. Similar to like when you accidentally light up the tires or lock them up, the tires get over-heated and need some time to cool down before the expected grip returns, apparently, higher ambient air temps and track temps, have an impact on tire grip and I imagine, engine performance and thus, power output. Engines want cool, dense air.
So, what happened specifically?
Truth be told, I am not sure exactly yet. I don’t know how to quantify grip potential (yet) or power output (yet) in general or based on changes in track temp or ambient temp but, it appears the following happened:
The impact of a ~10 degree temperature increase.
I lost time across the whole track, except 1 section (section 3).
I lost .3 seconds in section 3, which is primarily the end of the esses and turn 6. I braked earlier, softer but wasn’t able to get back on throttle sooner. In fact, I was only able to get back on throttle later.
And this was on my best lap of the session. When I looked at a more typical lap of the session, a 1:20.652, the losses were even more pronounced.
My hypothesis is that even a 10 degree change in weather, at some point near the high end of the operating temperature of tires and engines, has an impact. I imagine that going from 50 degrees and dry to 60 degrees and dry has an impact but maybe not as big as going from 70 degrees to 80 degrees and dry.
Moving forward: Hold variables constant
Since I am focused on improving my driving as best as possible, I’m going to do something that is complete crap in the real world – I am going to establish and hold the same weather and track conditions from now on. Right now, I am trying to improve as best as I can as a driver, make changes in myself or the setup and be able to trace a connection between those changes and my performance. I’ve already tried to hold as many other variables constant by driving the same track, the same car and now, essentially the same setup. This will not be any different – I don’t want to go faster by accident because the air temp is cooler.
After this 30 days is over and possibly before hand, I’m going to turn that random selection back on so it forces me to adapt to changing conditions but for now, its time to play superhero and control the weather.
Yesterday and this past weekend, was a real-life race weekend and while it was all in all, a very successful weekend, it was exhausting! So exhausting that last night (Sunday), I was sound asleep by 9pm and it when the alarm went off at 5am this morning, I just couldn’t do it.
So my racing for the day didn’t happen until this evening, after a full day of work, being a dad and before dinner. Being so tired and having to jump immediately back into my day job, I didn’t even have time to think about what my goal should be today. So I just decided to start driving and see if and what would translate from my weekend of real world diving.
Holy crap – new personal best!
It was kind of weird, I just started driving and almost automatically, everything felt “normal”. It is not like I feel overwhelmed with the speed of the Mercedes AMG GT3 car, even though I’ve never driven anything like that type of car in real life but with how hard we drive the PRo3 cars and how physically demanding Pacific Raceways is, driving the AMG GT3 felt not as stressful.
The first few laps felt good and I was immediately able to get into the mid-1:20.xxx lap times but then, boom – 1:19.908! I was so startled that I was able to find this pace so quickly that I dropped a tire on the exit of turn 12, so it technically didn’t count. On the following lap, I was able to brake lighter and carry so much more speed into turn 1, that I found myself .25x seconds faster than my personal lap and… I crapped my pants and proceeded to spin out as I carried too much speed into Turn 3.
New personal best and no clue why or how this happened!
Calm down, breathe and carry on
As I mentioned yesterday, my main focus of the weekend was to brake earlier, lighter and have reduce my brake to throttle transition times to as short as possible. Trail brake and… throttle! No wasted time! So, that’s what I think carried forward and I think, just having more seat time with a high volume of information coming at my at a fast rate.
So I had crashed, exited the car, took a few steps to calm down and said “ok, just relax – I can clearly do a sub 1:20.000 lap time but just focus on the basics.”
It took me a few false starts where I was too excited and got in trouble but finally, I was able to put together a stint of 7, mostly clean laps where the low 1:20’s and then… two, clean, 1:19.xxx laps came through. YES!!!!!! 1:19.758 – new personal best!!!!!!
New Personal Best Lap Time!
How did this happen? The shoes?
I have to admit – before this session, during and after, I did not look at data at all. Whatever caused this to happen was some cumulative effect of my training over the past 10 days and the intense and positive, real-world experience in racing I had the last few days. My best guess is the cumulative effect of repetition and “chunking” learning experiences – I’ve not only had racing on my mind each day for the past 10 days in terms of actually doing, but I’ve been thinking about it regularly throughout the day, the things I am working on and learning but I’ve also forced myself to think about my experiences and learning differently because of these articles and the videos I’ve recorded.
Maybe it was because I went all full immersion by wearing racing shoes?
Someone smart once said that a way to truly ensure you understand something is to not just practice that thing but to teach it to other people. That process of explaining it to others, with a variety of analogies or other techniques, forces a deeper level of understanding and I think that has been helping.
I’m planning to write a blog post just on the skill of learning, based on these experiences and some books I’ve been reading about learning but if that isn’t what caused the improvement, maybe it was the shoes?
It’s race day! Although I had races yesterday, today was the big race – the race that counts towards the PRO3 Championship, one of the most contested and desired club racing crowns in the pacific northwest and if this series was national, I think it would be up there with a Spec E30 or Spec Miata national championship. Big fields, hard racing and really needing to drive these cars to the limit, without losing momentum to go fast.
Taking the green flag on race day at Pacific Raceways
The plan of attack
Yesterday, I improved some of my personal best lap times by over a second and in worsening conditions. I turned a 1:37.2xx in the afternoon, which was nearly 10 degrees warmer than during qualifying in the AM and repeated that almost exactly, in the second half of the 1-hour endurance race… with tires going on their 11th and 12th heat cycle!
So today my goal was to keep improving and try as best as I could to crack the 1:36.xxx range of lap times, of which in my going back through official race records on the ICSCC.com website, there are less than ten people who have ever gone under 1:37.000 in a PRO3 car, at Pacific Raceways on official record.
Part of this is that up until a few years ago, the track surface turns 8 and 9 were absolutely horrendous. They were the original concrete or whatever the surface type was, full of bumps, pot holes and smoothened over years and years of beatings.
Pacific Raceways – it’s a beast!
It got so bad that a few track day organizations essentially boycotted holding events there because they had customers, with really nice cars, suffer bent wheels and damaged tires. The reality was that it wasn’t great, not the worst ever but because it was deterring people from coming to the track, it needed to be fixed. Here is a video of Cody Smith, of Code Red Racing, who also won the PRO3 Championship in 2013, flying through Pacific Raceways. Cody is fast and smooth!
How’d it go? 1:37.104!
This time, we decided to start towards the back of the field and use the first few laps to warm up the tires, build tire pressures, get a solid lap in and then adjust track position. We did just that and towards the middle of the session, I fell back to latch on a to pack of PRO3 cars running together. Though I didn’t know for sure, I felt like I was faster than the whole group, so I fell back, created some space so that ideally, I’d be catching them the hardest at the end of the lap and getting the tow from them on the main straight away.
So close!!!
And it worked! I actually had a 1:36.9xx going for most of the lap but on the turn 8, I got just the tiniest bit of sideways and I think that caused the lap to not be better. Regardless, I was happy to get it and in the end, it would have been a stretch, in that session to go faster. The consolation for me was that in that session specifically, I made an improvement but the competition ahead and behind did not.
So how did I make the improvement?
Data and video. I recorded the video below to go into more detail but essentially, I focused on three things (see below the video):
Comparing with a faster driver: I had the benefit of getting a hold of data and video from another driver, who was faster than me (and won the PRO3 championship last year) and leveraged an alpha tool we’ve been working on with Track Attack. Essentially, with Track Attack, we’ve figured out how to make data from different systems, comparable with each other. Olivier uses RaceLogic’s Video VBOX and I use AIM or Track Attack on iOS. In the video below, you can see how I used this tool to compare the data and see where Olivier was gaining the advantage. Conclusion? Corner entry and mid-corner. Oliver was consistently able to roll more speed into a corner, maintain it mid-corner and then carry that advantage on the straights. He was and still is, much better under braking and controlling the slide of the car.
Understand the line and what the differences looked like: Similar to Olivier, I am also a very visual learner. Though I understand data, graphs and tables, I have an athletic background, where muscle memory and training are critical. So being able to see what a faster lap time and specific segments look like from outside the car and from the driver inputs, was incredibly valuable. I was able to see in the track map comparisons, the differences in the lines taken. He would usually brake earlier and turn in later for most corners, trying to carry as much speed as possible. You could visibly see how he had to dance with the car in mid-corner and be more precise getting on throttle, to not light up the tires.
Theoretical fastest lap: Lastly, one awesome feature we have in the Track Attack alpha product, is the ability to generate segment times AND the video associated with each of those segments. Further, we stitched together all of those segments, to show what the theoretical fastest lap time actually looks like. I generated this video and watched it over, and over, and over and over again, trying to program the muscle memory of that lap into my eyes, mind, hands, feet and core. I wanted that low 1:36.xxx lap time infused into every fiber of my being.
When will this be available?!?!?!
Soon! Racer on Rails is intended to be un-biased about products, so I won’t talk about it much here but know that we’re working on this with the Track Attack team and that this summer, this type of analysis and capabilities will be available to everyone and support all major data acqusition system file types (AIM, MoTec, Bosch, RaceLogic, TraqMate, Alfano and Unipro).
Race Result: Qualified P3 and Finished P3
This was an awesome race, see the video below. The high points are that I got a decent start, positioned myself exactly where I wanted to be and was able to make a really fun overtake on lap 2, turn 2 to get into 2nd position. I knew that if I got behind Brian Bercovitz, I would have to stay with him and pressure him into making mistakes because he is a good driver and has a rocket ship car (not that mine is a slouch).
I found myself in just that position a couple laps in and determined that I had an advantage on him under heavy braking (for turns 2, 3a, 3b and to a lesser extent, 8) but he did a great job through 5a, 5b, 6 and 7. So at the end of each lap, we’d end up about the same distance and with me being close enough to tuck under his draft. Trying to go for an overtake going into turn 2, I decided to try to get an incredible run out of turn 8 and while doing so, carried too much speed into the corner, got sideways, saved it but let two cars by.
That was just under halfway through the race and while I had a better pace than those to cars, with the rear tires getting lit up during that drift, I had to baby the tires and by then, the gap was too big to overcome. I technically finished 4th but due to the 2nd place finisher being disqualified for being under-weight, I inherited 3rd place.
Taking the green flag on race day!
Although I was disappointed a little with my mistake, overall, the weekend and day was a great success. We made improvements on the car, the driver and lap times. We established that we can compete for wins and just need to be more consistent. Thanks to the whole crew for all the work before, during and after the weekend. This hardware is for you all!
: Mix this stuff into your water to stay hydrated and the fuel you need to drive on a hot day. Way better than Gatorade.
: Some of the best helmets you can buy with a helmet blower adapter to keep your head cool.
: Great for keeping cool and even as ballast if placed properly.
: Mix this stuff into your water to stay hydrated and the fuel you need to drive on a hot day. Way better than Gatorade.
