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.
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?
Keys to success: visualize your goal, see it, feel it and it will happen
What do you know, it happened! It wasn’t automatic as in the first stint, I did go off and just barely touched a wall (for real, I promise!) so I reset the session. Turns 2 and 3 were absolutely killing me.
That is not exactly what consistency looks like. 🙁
That second session though ended up being 19 laps of clean laps, several with one wheel dropping, usually on the exit of 5 and even saving some super sideways action but, the great thing is that I didn’t make any contact and I felt like these were laps that would have been deemed clean in the real world.
Next best thing: A new personal best – 1:20.110!
So what happened? I’m not exactly sure but the way I am thinking about it is that by trying to establish a new normal, the things that happen at mid and high 1:20 lap times weren’t as startling and thus, I had the mental capacity to see opportunities for gains. Here are a couple:
Turn 1: Towards the end of the stint, I knew I was going to run low on fuel which would end the session but the last 4 – 5 laps, I found significant amounts of time entering turn 1 with just the lightest of brake application, getting the car turned to the apex and getting back on throttle. At it’s best, this was giving me a .3xx second advantage over my personal best.
Turn 10a and 10b – the chicane: I also found, though not able to consistently do this, just the right amount of braking needed to not over-slow and still hit the rumble strips on the apex of 10a and the right timing of lifting and turning to get to the rumble strips (often referred to as FIA curbing) for 10b. This would allow me to be on throttle right before or on the apex and full throttle the rest of the way.
In the end, those last few laps I had several predicted lap times in the 1:19.xxx range but just couldn’t put it together.
Now we’re talking! Well, except for the still getting sideways into turn 2!
I’m incredibly happy about this because again, I want my virtual racing driving to translate well into my real world driving. So if I can’t put down more than 10 laps without crashing, that doesn’t bode well for the real world. The next few days I will be at Pacific Raceways, in Kent, WA – just outside of Seattle. With a Test and Tune on Friday, practice, qualifying and a 1 hour endurance race on Saturday and final qualifying and the main race for the PRO3 championship on Sunday.
The weather looks awesome and looking forward to seeing how the training so far translates to the real world.
Loading up Thursday night for a weekend of racing at Pacific Raceways!
So yesterday, I made some massive improvements but after taking a break to calm down and try to establish a ‘new normal’ of high 1:20.xxx and low 1:21.xxx lap times, I failed miserably. I wasn’t able to keep the car balanced through a couple key corners, as I found more speed. So my goal today was to not care about going faster but just be able to easily produce lap times in that range.
The first stint, I just loaded up the car and went on my way and in the third lap, was able to hit a 1:21.040 and then a 1:21.077 and then a 1:20.877… SWEET! I’m doing this! I forget exactly what threw me off but I got a little sideways and touched a wall so I decided to get out, take a deep breath, visualize and go at it again. When I exited, I checked the data quickly on Virtual Racing School and I realized I hadn’t loaded the same setup as the rabbit I’m chasing, which is a good amount different AND I was running on 30 gallons of fuel to start.
Lap times for the first stint – not bad!
I loaded the right setup and went off… no, literally. I went off on the out-laps. Twice and had to restart. It didn’t bother me much at the time or at least I didn’t let it get to me but I really don’t like doing that. The goal is to simulate the real world conditions as much as possible and if this were the real world, there’d be a lot of repairs to do and I’d be drowning in debt to pay for them.
Final stint – let’s put get a good run in!
With my hour winding down, I went for one last stint. Breath, look ahead, visualize balance and go for it! I strapped in and on lap 1: 1:20.310 – new personal best!
Stay calm, remember – the goal is not to go faster but rather be able to knock out 1:20.xxx lap times like it’s nothing.
Lap 1: 1:20.310
Lap 2: 1:20.964 – dirty lap but barely
Lap 3: 1:20.680 – another dirty lap but barely again
Lap 4: 1:20.170 – dang it! Barely dropped a tire somewhere but would be fine in the real world.
Lap 5: Crash… hard.
That will not buff out.
I had to call it quits here because the hour was up and my wife and son were running around asking me to be a dad, of which I love! 🙂
Lesson learned: I know what it feels like to do these lap times, just need to hard-code them into my mind and body
We’re starting to get into some pretty decent and competitive lap times and at the traction limit more and more. This is near the territory of what separates the Pro’s versus the Joe’s who play a Pro on the weekends. I need to realize that it will take time and backing off a little to be more consistent. Yes, I improved my personal best but it doesn’t mean as much if I can’t consistently get near that or drive more than 5 laps without crashing. That’s not even good enough for a 20 minute sprint race.
The goal remains the same for tomorrow, don’t worry about going faster, just be able to drive consistently and stay out of the walls.
Well a pre-goal, was to actually drive. The changes I made (stopping OneDrive from syncing, installing the latest updates so they weren’t downloading in the background and not having a video uploading on another device) all resulted in no performance issues at all. Yay!
The real goal: Drive like I do in real life – putting down a string of consecutive and consistent laps. I’ve found in the past in iRacing that I go off A LOT more than I do in real-life, usually having multiple incidents with walls in a given practice session. That’s not what happens in real life and while I am not driving anywhere near the same car, I believe I should be able to drive in the virtual world as I do in the real world; safe, consistent and somewhat fast. 🙂
After a day more focused on setup and updates on the machine, my goal was just to put down a true initial baseline of what I can do in the Mercedes AMG GT3 and Road Atlanta. Ideally, I wanted to drive the entire 60 minutes without an issue but I was only able to make it just past 30 minutes with no crashes. The good news was that I improved my personal best AND I put down several laps within .5 of my personal best, clicking off a consistent string of 1:22.xxx lap times and while trying different things.
I wanted to use this baseline of data to be confident in what I could do when analyzing the data with Virtual Racing School data packs.
22 laps without crashing! Not bad for not driving as much as I wanted to the past 6 months.
Lessons Learned
Pareto lives! I am down 2.197 seconds from my reference lap and one segment alone accounts 0.809 seconds, almost half of the lap time. Two segments (4 and 7) account for almost half of the delta.
By default, in testing, a car starts with a full fuel load – in the Mercedes AMG GT3, it was 30 gallons. The car in the reference lap was running with about 10 gallons and 9 gallons in the lap I am using for reference. That is a ~15 gallon and 90 lbs. difference. THAT IS HUGE – though, I still have much more work to do aside from losing car weight.
The data exposes all – the major theme of comparing the two laps is clear. I am braking too hard for the most of the significant turns where I am losing time and then getting on throttle sooner and harder than my rabbit.
I need brake slightly sooner, lighter and carry more speed through the corner and this will require coming on throttle softer.
This is consistent with what I’ve seen in real-life, comparing my data with a super fast driver like Olivier.
One thing I am going to work until I can get it
Segment 6, which includes turns 6 and 7. Brake sooner, lighter, carry more speed in, know that mid-corner will be not as planted and I will have to be more gentle with throttle application on corner exit, because I’ll be carrying more speed. The goal is still to get to throttle as fast as I can but I’ll be more at the limit.
I’ve seen several articles on taking on a new thing by doing that thing for 30 days in a row, such as running a marathon (30 marathons in 30 days), stretching 10 minutes a day for thirty days, meditating, doing 15 burpees per day for thirty days and so on.
Why?
Usually it’s help start a new habit, kick a habit or accelerate development in something. No difference here, I’m doing this to get faster and have fun!
The goal: 1 hour of racing per day, everyday, for 30 days.
While I wish I could race a real, physical race car each day, I don’t have that kind of scratch or logistics setup but I do have a pretty sweet sim racing setup and iRacing.
So everyday, usually in the early AM’s, I’m going to practice and/or race on iRacing. Through the next 30 days, I’ll also have at least 2 full race weekends where I’ll be racing in the real world. So for those days, I won’t be on the simulator but instead on a race track, in my race car! Yeah!
What do I expect to happen?
I’m not exactly sure but I am at least hoping to get noticeably faster in the virtual world, hammer out details on my sim setup and be better at learning to get fast.
To stay focused and reduce variables, I am going to focus on just one car and one track. The Mercedes AMG GT3 and Road Atlanta. Why? Having a rabbit to chase. I’m a huge believer and advocate in the power of data + video.
Literally thousands of virtual laps of this track but have yet to actually drive it.
Here is a good review of the car, right before it was released by the crew at Inside Sim Racing.
There is a new service that recently launched, Virtual Racing School, and while I’m new to it also, I am in love with the premise and potential of what they are doing. With a simple download and activation, VRS logs all of your iRacing data and video and saves it to your profile. No downloading, uploading or anything to deal with. Just install, activate, drive and you’re all set.
As part of the service, they also have data packs for certain cars and track combinations and even setups, that you can automatically use as a reference point to work towards. This is massive! Having someone else who is much faster than you, in the same car, same track and similar conditions is one of the best ways to learn and learn fast.
Getting ready
So I decided to start the journey, one day ahead and get my day 1 as smooth as possible. I booted up my computer, installed updates to Windows, iRacing and NVIDIA. My goal was to be able to simply wake up the next morning, do my morning routine and be up and running, in a race car within 15 minutes of getting out of bed.
I’ll create a post later on with the details on my current sim setup, so you all can get the full details then but at a high level, here is the setup:
Custom built PC – my first.
About a decent level up from minimum specs to be able to handle Oculus virtual reality.
Intel i5 processor (can’t remember the exact model)
Logitech 5.1 surround system but I can only get 2.1 to work. 🙁
3 AOC 24″ Monitors – got them on Best Buy on sale. They’re pretty good but the back sucks for mounting them to a triple monitor stand. More on that in a separate post.
So, while I technically have a motion simulator and I have an Oculus and have used them for iRacing, I will most likely not use them very often over these 30 days. Main reason: we live in a tiny apartment and I’ll be doing most of my daily racing in the early AM, while my wife and 2 year are asleep, 15 and 40 feet away, respectively. The motion simulator isn’t super loud but it makes noise and my wife has complained about it before.
The Oculus is AWESOME but I sweat easily and have found that when I’ve worn it for 20 minutes plus of intense driving, I sweat pretty bad and the lenses start fogging up. So I’ll be using the triple monitors and headphones, without motion.
