Tag: race weekend

Today is the first day I have driven in the real world since I started this 30 day challenge. As I mentioned in the race reports for the April 6 Hour Endurance race at the Ridge Motorsports Park and the sprint season opener at Portland International Raceways, I primarily compete with ICSCC in the PRO3 racing series.  It’s like Spec E30 but with more room for modifications to the car, which translates to them being slightly faster.  Today was Test and Tune Friday, a regular part of a race weekend where can test things out on the car, get the setup all dialed in and practice ourselves.

The goal: Running solid, get a baseline set and scrub in new tires

It’s been since last July 2016 that I’ve driven at Pacific Raceways, a track that is a throwback to the old days of race tracks.  Walls, trees, earth and not much run off are the characteristics of the track.  We’ve made some significant changes to the setup and balance of the car from last year, where we saw big improvements at The Ridge Motorsports Park and PIR after the changes.  So the expectation was that those changes would also benefit Pacific Raceways and coupled with driver development, we’d make some big gains in lap times and overall pace.

Here is the video last year’s August race, where I finished 4th in class

Setting a baseline

During the test and tune, we had four sessions for the day and unfortunately, I would have to miss the 3rd session because of a work conflict (jumping on an important conference call).  That left three sessions to make sure the car was running well, I was back up to speed with the track, make some progress and scrub in some sticker tires.

• Session 1: After the first few laps of feeling confident the car was running well, I started to pick up the pace but a driver that was taking out his new (to him) PRO3 car out for the first time, had a mechanical issue, which caused a black flag all.  On top of cutting the session short, I did not see two of the black flags and was later given a talking to and I promised to be more watchful.  🙁
• Session 2: Go time!  I was able to get make my way through traffic and on the second lap, back in the 1:38’s!  My personal fastest had been a 1:38.2xx during the race above.  More 1:38’s and finally – BAM!  1:37.766 – now we’re talking!  I only got one lap in the 1:37’s but I knew I had figured something out and the rest were in the low 1:38’s.  A new normal! 
• Session 3 (the last session of the day): As much as I wanted to keep the other tires on, I had to be disciplined and put on some sticker tires, knowing that the only goal was to get a healthy heat cycle on them and dial in the tire pressures so that they could be used during qualifying tomorrow.  So I put them on and despite them being new, still easy 1:38’s and a 1:38.064.  KABOOM!  Insert super excited emoji here!

So how did I shave .5 seconds off of my personal best lap time?

There are likely more than this but here’s my take:

1. The weather: Today was mostly sunny, light breeze with a high of 71 degrees Fahrenheit.  It was 81 degrees Fahrenheit on July 24, 2017.  Warmer weather usually results in less power and a slippery track.
2. Car balance: Last year, we noticed that I was struggling with rear wheel spin getting out of almost all corners, so we made a late-season change by lowering the ride height of the rear and artificially putting more weight back there, to get more traction.  That made a huge difference immediately.  Over the off-season, the folks at Advanced Auto Fabrication installed an absolute work-of-art fuel cell, in conjunction with the OEM fuel tank.  This had two benefits:
   1. Endurance ready – We now had a fuel system with enough fuel to run 3 hours straight!
   2. Weight balance/distribution – due to the new hardware, we could remove the nearly 100lbs of ballast in the passenger seat area and moved all that weight back, where we need it for more traction.  We also can add fuel to the fuel cell, along with ice and water to the cool suit which was moved back there too, to make sure we’re at minimum weight.  More weight backwards is a good thing!
3. The driver and the driving: My goal was to carry over the learnings from iRacing and Virtual Racing School analysis to the real world.  Brake earlier, softer and longer to carry more speed into the corners, mid-corner and get on the throttle sooner.  And I think it worked!

Specifically, here is a comparison of my speed trace from last year’s fastest lap and today.  Note, this is an alpha product of Track Attack that won’t be released but something similar is coming out soon and super excited to share more about that.  Note, Racer on Rails is a completely separate entity from Track Attack, but I am also on the Track Attack team as a co-founder.

Notice how in segment one, in the red line, I braked earlier, softer and carried more speed into the corner and it also translated to a higher top speed at the end of that zone.

In segments 2 and 3, I also braked earlier and got on the throttle sooner. In segment 4, I carried more speed into the scariest part of the track (turns 5a and 5b) but I lost a little bit in the exit. Lastly, in segment 5, I braked earlier, got the car turned and back on throttle sooner.

So what change corresponded with how much of the improved times? I have no idea but I think all three helped and since I’m not doing any more major updates to the car, I’m going to believe in the driver changes and continue grinding on the data and video.