here is a video of me at Mid-Ohio. i'm driving an AP2 daily driver with bilstien pss9, track pads, and kumho v710's. i feel like i should be able to achieve better lap times with this set-up. what am i doing wrong? thanks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTP8EVLw-n8

 

I have never driven that track but a couple things come to mind:

1) brake later (a lot later)

2) learn how to heel toe (it will help when you start braking later)

3) shuffle steer

4) it sound like you are short shifting (get more power down to the wheels)

5) it does not really look like you are pushing it that much in the corners


Looks like a fun track and your overall driving style is smooth and in control.

 

Even if you're solo approved and in an advanced group, get an instructor to ride with you. Try multiple instructors, and pick-and-choose the bits that they tell you that help you go faster. They're human, so sometime they'll tell you stuff that just doesn't work for you or your car.

 

You looked smooth, but it looked like you were only running 7/10ths. If you want faster times, run 9 or 10/10ths. I agree with TubeDriver... it looked like you could've braked later and harder (unless the video was just misleading).

I know that at one HPDE, I thought I was braking pretty hard & pretty late, but what I didn't notice was that I was actually rolling off the brake 20+ feet before I started turn-in. My instructor noticed it, and told me to brake later & harder. I can't quantify how much it helped, but I'm sure it shaved some time off my laps.

 

I guess the first question is why do you feel that you should be faster than what you are right now? Are you seconds short of another similar car? Are you uncomfortable in certain parts of the track? Do you think you can push harder? Since you're asking the question, you should already have a feeling on what you can work on to improve.

Overall you look smooth and more or less look to be on the right line. Other than that, without any data, video doesn't tell me a lot, as there is no sense on how the car feels. This is where I find having a datalogger to be invaluable. With a little experience, it shows where you're slow/fast, whether you're maximizing the cars abilities and what effect a change in driving or car setup results in.

But I do agree with the others, it looks like you are not pushing hard enough. Smooth is required to get the first 90%, the last bit takes aggressive driving to maximize full throttle, late hard braking and corner speeds. Also every track has its specific speed secrets, like where the gripper part of the track is, using elevation changes to hold the car, when to or not to use the curbing, what corners to sacrifice to optimize other parts of track, etc. That you get from experimenting and/or having the fast guys spill their secrets.

There is also car setup. Do you check the hot pressures of tires? Set the wheel alignment to your and the tires liking? The suspension setting giving you the right balance of oversteer/understeer? What are the spring rates of the PSS9's? I thought they were softer than stock (i.e. more comfortable street ride), which would be an odd match up for uber-sticky v710's.

 

Looks good to me, and fast since you are getting V710's to squeal while being smooth. Lap times are slow because of the slower traffic (amazing how even one pass can hurt laptime). For further improvement, brake before downshifting (helps if you heel and toe properly, and allows you to brake later than you are now, though hard to tell). If you can't heel and toe, just brake and time your downshift before you get back on the throttle (one of the fastest guys I know does this). Also lower your hands to 9/3, not 10/2, to improve feel and control. I wouldn't recommend shuffling for the track where corners aren't tight. Just my opinions.

 

Richard is right about the hands, for sure. They are too high. Also, you do seem to shuffle them around too much, especially in the hard right-hand turns.

He's also right about braking and then downshifting (whether using heel-toe or not). Get most (or all) of the braking done first, then downshift. Doing it the other way will upset the car and possibly overrev the engine.

 

sorry but what is shuffle steer?

 

Taking your hand off the wheel and putting it back on a different part of the wheel (and or sliding it along the wheel) while you are turning. As opposed to just leaving your hands in the same spot on the wheel no matter how far you turn it (and thus getting your arms crossed).

 

In addition to shuffle steering, an instructor taught me the technique of prepositioning the steering wheel before a turn. The idea is that you set yourself up before the turn to have your hands be at 9 and 3 midway through the turn, then just unwind the wheel through your hands to be 9 and 3 on the straight. For instance, for a right hander, you would preprosition your left and right hands to 8 and 2, respectively. I feel it works very well