Tag: fanatec

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Building a Sim: I Want to Drive Better in Real Life!

With the explosive growth of simulator driving for not just training but actual competition, big time dollars and rewards attached, we get more and more questions about how to get started building a simulator setup and specifically, what to get.

Still wondering if simulator driving is really that worth it?  Check out this podcast from Speed Secrets and this video about William Byron – now a driver for Hendricks Motorsports, who didn’t grow up driving karts or cars but rather, simulators.

This can be a complicated space because there are a lot of options.  In this second post, let’s go down one specific path base on what we think is the most important question.

Why do you want a simulator setup?  I want to use simulators to accelerate my driving or car in the real world.

eSports is exploding in popularity with games like Madden, Fortnite and Halo being at the center global gaming tournaments.  Gamers from around the world train and compete against world-class gamers at in-person and virtual tournaments all over the world and for real money.

This is not a spoof! That is a real picture of thousands of people watching gamers compete on-stage!

There are even several universities who have athletic scholarships for student-gamers.  Racing competitions in eSports is no exception – competing and winning real money for simulator driving is real and it’s here.

This post is focused primarily for those who want currently or are planning to drive in the real-world and want to use simulators to accelerate their development.  Getting to the track in the real-life to get quality seat time, driver coaching, and car development is not cheap.  Simulators are an excellent path to do all of those things more often, at a lower cost and increasingly with direct correlation to what happens in the real world.

Recommendation: Go with a PC-based simulator like iRacing, Assetto Corsa (PC edition), Assetto Corsa Competizione or RFactor 2.  Yes, Gran Turismo and Forza have had tournaments where the winners compete in real life for chances to be race car drivers as a profession but those are the exceptions.

It’s time to get serious with triple monitors and the very best components you can buy.

Things to get:

There is no way to get around it – this will be more expensive because you are trying to replicate real life, of which a lot of what happens in real life is about how the car and track sound and feel of your inputs.

  • A quality PC that can keep up with the display you want. The main thing here is a decent processor and ram but the beefiest graphics card you can get and the bar at this level is a little higher than at the ‘simulator only’ level.  Here are a couple options:
    • A PC desktop with a decent i7 processor, 16GB+ of RAM and a 6GB Nvidia GeForce GTX1070 or equivalent from AMD. Get the absolute best graphics card you can get – it will be worth it.
  • iRacing, Assetto Corsa, Assetto Corsa Competizione, RFactor 2 or Project Cars 2.
    • Yes, there are a ton more simulators out there, but these are the heavy hitters.
  • The best peripherals you can buy because you want motorsports grade hardware:
  • Display that will give you the best field of view (FOV) you can afford. Here are my preferences, in order:
    • 24”+ triple screens – I personally have an older version of this model but it doesn’t have pre-drilled holes for monitor stands, which sucks.
    • 27”+ curved screen
    • Virtual reality headset (e.g. Oculus Rift or HTC Vive Pro)
    • 40”+ single monitor/TV: this is not really an option. If you want to really focus on improving your real-world driving, you need an immersive experience.
  • Sim rig with a seat
    • A sim rig/cockpit is no longer optional. You need the seating position, field of view and access to the driver controls to be as close to real-life as possible and you can only really do that with a proper and sturdy sim rig.  Here are a few options:
  • Motion platform
    • Yes, it’s now close to a requirement. Driving in race cars on tracks is a rough experience where you’re getting tossed around as you go over bumps and curbs.  The feeling of the car pitching forward when you hammer the brakes, the car getting upset as you take too much curb or the backend coming loose when you carry too much speed into a corner or get on throttle too quickly – you need to feel that.  All of those things in real life tell you what’s going on and they remind you of the mortal consequences of having more bravery than talent.
    • Want everything integrated and ready to rock?  There several companies who sell fully built and ready to rock motion simulators.  Here are a few:

Gama’s Motion Simulator

Pros:

  • There are few other things that will accelerate your driver development than quality motion simulator seat time.
  • The quality of your experience is completely dependent on the components you put into your PC and peripherals. If you want better graphics, get a better graphics card.  Want better FOV, change your display setup.  Want an even more immersive motion experience with real-time data streaming and coaching?  You can do that too!
  • The force feedback and vibration capabilities of the steering hubs and transducers on the market are amazing. You can buy components and configure then so that you feel everything on your feet, butt, abs, legs and hands as you do in real life.     You will have a generally authentic steering input and feedback experience.
  • There is a growing number of retail locations where you can rent seat time on very high-end simulators and get coaching from top-level coaches.

Cons:

  • No longer “welcome”, you are right in the middle of the slippery slope! It is now the cost of a small car to get a decent motion simulator up and running.  It starts in the $5-10k range and goes into the $50-75k range.  There are simulators well above those ranges but those are reserved for commercial applications.
  • Driving consistently well in a simulator is hard and even more difficult with motion. Most people are lucky to end their first 30 minutes in a simulator simply not crashing or losing control.  Stick with it!
  • Pretty much everything is more complicated to setup. There is almost no plug and play experience for any component.  You need to connect them, install drivers and configure/calibrate.
  • The physics and tire model are better than the console world but vary across simulator platforms.
  • There is even more you can buy, which can be good – for example, buttkickers are sound based vibration devices that give even more feedback to the seat, pedals and generally corners of the car.

Example setups: I’ve only built one motion rig and would be considered “entry level” for a quality motion experience.

  • Example 1: Entry level, motion with a rig: Everything here is exactly what I have on my current motion sim but my graphics card cost a bit more a year ago than they do today.
    • Total Cost: $8,741.39 (doesn’t include taxes or shipping)
      • Custom built desktop gaming PC w/Nvidia GTX1080Ti: $1,200
      • iRacing subscription: $80/year
      • SimXperience Accuforce Hub and steering wheel w/button box: $1,299.00
      • Fanatec SQ Shifter: $199.50
      • Derek Spears Design (DSD) pedals: $895.00
      • OMP Racing seat: $799.00
      • Logitech 5.1 Speaker system: $49.95
      • Next Level Racing Ultimate Cockpit: $800.00
      • Next Level Racing V2 Motion Platform: $2,999.00
      • 3x AOC 24” gaming monitors: $139.98 x 3 = $419.94

If I knew then what I know now, what would I do differently?

The Next Level Racing cockpit is pretty good, and I don’t entirely regret my purchase decision, especially because their motion platform integrates seamlessly BUT if I were building another rig (which I will in the next 6 months or so), I would try the DOF motion cockpit because I don’t love the following about the Next Level Racing cockpit:

  1. The flex in the chassis, especially under heavy braking. First, it flexes and since it wasn’t designed to flex in the first place, the amount of flex is variable.  This isn’t great when you are trying to hit your marks lap after lap or making minor adjustments to brake application to shave off tenths of seconds.
  2. Lack of adjust ability. Having the seating position, steering wheel, shifter and pedals in the perfect position for your body is critical to driving fast and driving consistent.  Any unnecessary mental energy used to figure out where things are or having to adjust to not having the controls in natural/intuitive positions will make you go slower.  The NLR rig is essentially fixed in place after you set things up and for me personally, we had to add a wood block to the pedal box so that my heels could stay planted and reach properly.  The manual shifter position is okay, but I really wish I could move it another inch or two closer to me.  Lastly, with the motion set, the slider doesn’t work.

You listed the Fanatec pedals but you have some other fancy looking pedals.  What gives?

Yes, when the Thrustmaster wheel hub failed after about a year of use, I upgraded to the Fanatec hub but I wanted as close to the real-world race car pedal feel as possible.  On this rig I currently have the Derek Spears Designs pedals which are amazing and use real Wilwood racing pedal box components.  You don’t need these if you are only simulator racing.  I also have two other rigs with the Fanatec V2.5 Clubsport pedals, both the floor mounted and the hanging configurations.  They are solid and when you add the bump stops for the brake pedal, they are close to the DSD pedals but still substantially lower cost.

 

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Day 15 – I can’t believe this is happening

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!

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Day 14 – A day late but faster

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.

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Day 13 – Less than 20% Unclean!

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!

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Day 12 – A New Normal

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:

  1. Getting on throttle sooner and staying on throttle
  2. 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.

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Day 11 – Warmer = Slower

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.
  1. I lost time across the whole track, except 1 section (section 3).
  2. 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.

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Day 10 – Powering through!

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?

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Day 6 – Two more steps forward!

Yesterday, I had made progress on the ultimate lap fastest lap time but it wasn’t very satisfied with how I went about it.  Very little consistency and that was the goal of the whole morning!  So today, I came in with a calm and relaxed approach – focus on consistency.  It’s okay to give up some speed and time in the areas I was struggling on the most (turns 2, 3 and 5), as long as I can consistently be in the high 1:20 to low 1:21 range.

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!

 

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Day 5 – 30 Days of Racing

Two One Step forward

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.

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Day 4 – 30 Days of Racing in a Row

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Fooling my mind even more

One thing that I noticed over the first few days, even on Day 3, when clicked off a session of nearly 20 laps in a row, was that I wasn’t sweating as much as I usually do when I drive in real-life.  One reason might be that usually before I get into a real race car, I get all suited up and then do light plyometric exercises, stretches and even a planned jog to and from the bathroom.  9 times out 10, before I get into the race car, I already have a healthy sweat going.

Right now we live in an apartment, with people above and below us.  I am doing my simulator driving between 5:30 and 6am, of which most people are still sleeping, so I haven’t been doing my warm up exercises but what I started were two things:

  1. Meditating: This is something I’ve taken up over the past 8-10 months, using an app called Headspace.  This is for a different post but I can’t be a bigger proponent of meditation and how it’s improved my overall quality of life.
  2. Wearing a racing suit: I got a new racing suit last year and that meant I had my original racing suit just lying around, so I decided to bring it back into service by wearing a full layer of clothes underneath (to mimic the fire retardant underwear I wear in real life), the suite itself, a pair of karting gloves I got for Christmas and ideally, my original racing shoes (of which I keep forgetting to get out of my RV).

Did it work? Yes, I think but definitely did not hurt.

I think so on a couple levels, first – I was definitely warmer and built up an actual sweat.  Not like the sweats I’ve built up in actual iRacing races but enough to know my body is working to stay cool.  I can’t say that I felt more or less in the zone but it sure as heck didn’t hurt.

I also decided to strap on the Next Level Racing 4-point harness that came with cockpit and while I don’t love it, the other day I was moving my car on our new property with no seat belt on, and that felt weird.  So I can definitely tell when I don’t have a harness on and by putting it on, that is one less variable that might crawl into my brain as I’m driving.

This year the harnesses in my BMW PRO3 car expired, and a new set of Schroth harnesses were installed, so there is a used set that I will eventually install on the rig, along with some metal mounting bars and plates so that it feels the same as in the car and I actually have an old Sparco seat, that I used before getting this cockpit.  I am not a huge guy, so it feels like I am not as secure as I am in my racing seat.

Two steps forward: Another .5 second drop!

So how did the actual driving go?  My goal was to keep doing the same things I learned in Day 3 and be able to hammer out regular 1:21.xxx lap times, versus the regular 1:22.xxx times I had on Day 2.

Success! Literally, on the first flying lap, I was able to get back near my personal best and then I improved it again, dropping to a 1:20.628, another almost .6 second improvement.  HOLY CRAP!!

Another big improvement and only the last lap was a ‘dirty’ lap, where I crashed. 🙁

I didn’t do anything really different, I just decided to apply that technique of braking sooner, lighter and rolling more speed into the corners to all the corners.  Here’s where the gains were made:

See the highlighted areas to understand the story.
  1. Look – no brakes! The first thing is that the s-curves, I found a way to get the car pointed on the downhill section of ‘The Esses’.  Huge gain there.
  2. Less brake, the line? I am actually not sure what happened in the chicane there but I think it might be a combination of just ever so slightly less brakes, more steering input to get the car turned and going.  Thoughts?

One step backward: Consistency at the limit

That’s awesome but I took a break after that stint from the excitement, recollected my thoughts and went again to try and just replicate this new 1:20.xxx lap times but it didn’t happen.  I was making mistakes all over the place and the worst section was Turn 3.  As I was carrying more speed out of turn 1, through 2, I wasn’t getting the car straightened before braking and that caused it to either get sideways at the top of the hill or even worse, to cut the corner too hard on turn 3, which would upset the car horribly.

Ugh… 6 of 7 laps were dirty and a crash. That’s not good or cheap.  Glad I’m in the virtual world.

I tried multiple times and just felt myself getting frustrated, so I decided to call it a day as my hour was up.  Tomorrow’s goal?  Come in with a cool head, focused and not looking for more time, just a solid run of high 1:20.xxx and low 1:21.xxx lap times.