How do you compare your improvements vs other people?

[euro2fast4u]

Im curious if any one else compares them self to other drivers and if so how are you showing the growth or improvement? IE by improving your self and or improving your car.

Using FTD seems to be a rough way. But with this little amount of events its tough to see a pattern.

Curious how others are doing this.

[euro2fast4u]

Ignore FTD. I meant to say time differential. or Diff in the excel sheet.

[JoeTR6]

It's really hard to compare times with other drivers across different events. Courses can be easier or harder for certain cars. Some courses might look easy but the experienced drivers find the obscure fast lines (sort of true for the last Waldorf event). And sometimes you just have a bad day. If I'm driving well, I start out with a decent run and get faster every run after that without hitting a lot of cones. Sometimes I have the wrong line on some part of the course, and when I fix that my time improves by a second or more. Or I realize I've been coasting into a corner and go just a little deeper before braking hard. Finding big (and little) chunks of time on course is how i judge how well I'm driving. Basically I compare myself to myself.

When you think you've gone as fast as your car can go, let an experienced driver try a run in your car to find out how wrong you can be.

[JayPar]

Comparing with different cars is only meaningful if both have similar (and consistent) setups. Otherwise one car or the other is going to have an advantage with different course designs.

By far the biggest thing that has helped me gauge progress is comparing to other drivers in my car, whether they are regular co-drivers, or occasional fast guest drivers like instructors. The time differences between two given drivers in the same car are remarkably consistent over multiple events. Sure people sometimes have bad days or courses that are not suited for their skills, so there is variation from event to event, but not that much and it evens out over 2-3 events so that the same time gaps keep showing up. Usually the variability is around .5 sec, or 1 sec at most.

[euro2fast4u]

I have been dialing in the car slowly over the last few events. Changing tires, alignments, engine timing. I now feel its healthy enough for someone else to drive. I meant to do it at the Winchester event :/ . If i do that does it count towards one of my laps? Unfortunately i have to do another morning only this event but would love for someone to drive it.

Also are you guys checking tire temps and pressures after each run?

[Claff]

Also are you guys checking tire temps and pressures after each run?

If you know what pressures your car is happy at, you should be bleeding pressure down after each run as the PSI will increase as the tires heat up.

I don't check tire temps consistently. On a test day where I have a bunch of runs and can fiddle with settings it's useful to monitor that, but at CDC where there's little time to do much fiddling between runs, it's not that important.

[euro2fast4u]

Also are you guys checking tire temps and pressures after each run?

If you know what pressures your car is happy at, you should be bleeding pressure down after each run as the PSI will increase as the tires heat up.

I don't check tire temps consistently. On a test day where I have a bunch of runs and can fiddle with settings it's useful to monitor that, but at CDC where there's little time to do much fiddling between runs, it's not that important.

I have been able to bleed the pressures down but i am still unsure what is the best pressure's for the car.

I try and document the pressure before and after each run but you are right there is too little time.

need to finish my infared temp sensor system that would just datalog all tire temps over the event.

[Apexcarver]

I have been dialing in the car slowly over the last few events. Changing tires, alignments, engine timing. I now feel its healthy enough for someone else to drive. I meant to do it at the Winchester event :/ . If i do that does it count towards one of my laps? Unfortunately i have to do another morning only this event but would love for someone to drive it.

Also are you guys checking tire temps and pressures after each run?

It would either have to count as one of your runs or as one of the person driving's runs. The exception and best bet is to do this at a test and tune (Harry Grove Sunday typically) and have organizers drive your car during the lunch break (we call it "adult swim"). Then they do not have to come off of somebody's runs for the day. The added plus is that you can have a few different organizers try the car during adult swim and get a feel for some different approaches to it.

This weekend's event will unfortunately see some of faster organizers absent for the SCCA National Tour, so while there will be some of us there that may be useful, many of the best will not be there.

Regarding tire pressures, when I am serious I am checking them between each run in addition to monitoring tire temperatures and spraying (water to cool them off) if necessary (appropriate temps and need depends on the tire and conditions). How much time it is worth is up to debate, but do not expect an overly large time difference. This is why I dont tend to bother unless I am really trying to get the last 0.0x" out of my times. Usually there are much bigger fish to fry time-wise and I commonly find that working on visualization, concentration, and relaxation between runs to be worth more, even with 10 years of autocross under my belt. Our usual rolling grid can make adjusting pressures and spraying between runs pretty chaotic and that won't help your times. You can feel the difference as pressures raise though, so it depends a lot on how sensitive your car is to the effects. My mustang on V710's in the past was rather sensitive and you could really tell a 2psi difference, my Miata on ZII's is not overly sensitive and performance and feel was not largely impacted over a range of about 4psi. I think a lot of it has to do with vehicle weight, alignment, geometry, and how the tire interfaces the ground as a result of those combined.

Of course, the only real way to conclusively tell is through lots and lots of systematic testing with very consistent driving... Results will inherantly vary from car to car and from driver to driver. There is theoretically a "sweet spot", but actively determining it is hard and I would look more for an "effective range". On top levels you would do a testing day on a specific surface in specific conditions and utilize a pyrometer in conjunction with a stopwatch to determine alignment and pressures. The "sweet spot" for both alignment and pressure would vary depending on conditions and surface.

Dont get lost chasing your tail for a "sweet spot", especially when you arent throwing all effort at a national championship or something. This is the type of stuff that you can throw a fortune and a lot of time at hammering down to get the last Nth out of. Look for a "close enough" solution at an amateur (meaning non-national championship) level.

[DriftSS]

Dont get lost chasing your tail for a "sweet spot", especially when you arent throwing all effort at a national championship or something. This is the type of stuff that you can throw a fortune and a lot of time at hammering down to get the last Nth out of. Look for a "close enough" solution at an amateur (meaning non-national championship) level.

I agree. At autox its 90% driver, 10% car, and about 1-2% from tweaking the car. Focus on a basic car setup with help from an experienced autocrosser. Throwing $$$ at parts, HP mods and tuning is often futile and counterproductive until the driver component in the equation is consistent (i.e., if your times throughout the day are improving by seconds instead of 1/10s or up and down dramatically then tweaking pressure by a couple lbs between runs or changing tires/shocks is a negligible variable). Then focus on figuring out the line for your car during the course walk and how to improve on that between your runs from watching others, doing the course in your head while staging to work out a "strategy" to improve corner entry point, getting through the corners and off efficiently, maintaining a rhythm through slaloms, etc. At the end of the day its helpful to note tire pressures, temps and sidewall wear (to assess excessive roll from alignment, pressure and/or overly aggressive driving/pushing in corners) and tweak for the next event. Its not crucial to check/adjust after every run.

And a huge benefit to CDC events is the ability to ride along with others and have them ride along with you! Its the hands down best way to see on any given course what could be done differently, how much more you could push a car, technique, etc. Then have an experienced driver take a couple runs in your car so you can gauge whether its the driver or the car that is holding the other one up! Perfect way to "use" a test and tune is by dialing out the "driver" variable as best possible by figuring out the course in the first several runs, and then using the "learned" course to try to dial in consistency or improve times and then compare those "best" attempts to those of an experienced driver in your car.

Enjoy the testing!

Stephen Catlin
#126 2008 Black Corvette Z06