What do you guys do to keep improving your times?

I know at my level practice and taking an instructor out will help a lot, but I was curious if anyone does anything specific to critique themselves and improve their times. I usually hit a wall mid day and can't improve any further, not sure if it's just getting tired or what.

For reference I just ran a 2:10 at Buttonwillow 13CW in street class ( I was pretty stoked with it). I know I should be able to get that time down to around 2:05 at least but I had trouble finding spots where I could improve after my 3rd session today.

 

datas really helps! Not just yours but comparative. Have a faster driver set time in your car, then try to target the same entry mid and exit corner speeds.

A pro coach can help tremendously as well.

Do an open track day not broken sessions.

Make sure your tire temps are where they should be or else adjus

In car eyes up, telex shoulders on straights, good breathing, make sure I'm balancing the car...... You ought to subscribe to the Ross Bentley tips.... You will find thousands!!! Read some of his and others books too!

 

Find fast Miata drivers and talk to them, ride with them, try to maintain momentum where they do. Fast Miata drivers waste no energy from the car!

 

Orrrrr ride with the usual suspects:
Psychoazn
Sebring ap1
Martin
Sean

While Miata guys no how to drive without using the brakes, they don't know what to do with extra 100-120 hp

Grab some footage; footage with data is even better post it up and let the guys shit on it.

Here's some of the studying I do in between track days for mental preparedness:

I study Charles Ngs s2000 cr video of buttonwillow cw13 or Sebring ap1s wingless sub 2 (for me and my car this is reaching a little)
Note the following pieces of info:
-track position of car (left, right, center)
-gear changes
-turn in points

Mentally run the lap repeatedly in your brain till you can recite involuntarily.

If you can nail down these consistencies another 3 seconds can be found in just studying and mental preparedness.

 

Thanks for the kind words, they are much appreciated.

Best advice I can give is to make sure you get the fundamentals down. Keep the car stable, use all of the track, keep your eyes up and look ahead. Maintaining your line as a beginner is everything.

From there you can work on throttle application, and braking, and lastly mid corner speed. You need to cognitively approach all of these one at a time to make big strides in your learning. This is why having a coach who understands the steps in development can get you where you want to be faster.

The last bit, and the part that eludes everyone - is that the speed will eventually find you when you're ready for it. Going fast will not feel fast to you once you get there. You will adjust to the speed if your control and comfort is capable of achieving it. Driving beyond your means is almost always a bad idea (and if you're being totally honest with yourself, you know exactly when you're reaching beyond your limits) Some things just take time, and that's okay.

 

It seems you are asking two questions which have two different directions:

1. How to improve (just in general)
2. Hot to improve during the day

The latter is a little harder, but possible (and will intersect a little with the first). The best thing is to have data along with video. In the least, video. With video, you can study your lines and see where you can make adjustments. This will also let you compared your line to others' videos of the same track. You'd be surprise what you can see when watching your own videos back again. Your line will look completely different to what you thought you were doing.

Data... This is the best thing to help you improve. Being able to know why you were able to go .5 or 1 second faster on a certain lap compared to all the others will help you becoming more consistent (as well as faster overall). You don't have to invest in a fancy data logging system right off the bat. If you have a smart phone, then you have what you need to get started; you just need to purchase an app like RaceChrono:

http://www.racechrono.com/

Smart phones aren't all that accurate, but they are better than nothing. You can combine this with a OBD2 Bluetooth adapter which can give you vehicle data to sync with your videos. You can use an external GPS to add some accuracy but IMO, that begins bordering on just buying a full data logging system. All of these together will allow you to review your laps and see what made you faster or slower on particular laps and what to address for your next visit.

Now, those won't help much while you are at the track unless you bring a laptop with you to analyze data between runs. The best thing to do while you are at the track:

1. Experiment
2. Get someone to ride along with you

Experiment... Try some corners a different way and see how it affects your laps times. Don't try too many different things in a single lap. Work on one corner at a time so you can directly see the affects in your lap times.

Someone riding with you... This can help give you an outside perspective on your driving and line. Keep in mind, the person doesn't always need to be a faster driver than you to be able to provide critiques. However, the person needs to know you are looking for critiques rather than them just riding along for fun.



I'm not a huge fan of recommending watching other videos for the sake of learning. Unless it's of your car with someone else driving, the comparison is not going to be all that useful. If your car is all stock aside from brakes and you are watching a video of a Time Trial gutted car with Penske shocks on slicks, it's not going to be all that helpful. I'm not suggesting ignoring all online videos which aren't yours, but I'm suggesting not using those as measuring sticks.

 

^ That is a great reply. The only thing I would add is making notes after each session. After a long weekend on track it can be hard to remember what you were working on in each session, and if you rely solely on memory when reviewing your data after the fact you might credit the wrong technique or line for a variance in lap time.

 

Also forgot, some nice reading if you like books and such:

http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Speed...sap_bc?ie=UTF8

http://www.amazon.com/How-Drive-Ulti...ds=ben+collins

http://www.speedsecrets.com/speed-secrets-weekly/

 

To add to this, I use racechrono pro (think $25), an external gps (qstarz 818xt $80) and an obdlink LX ($60), and have a fair amount of data (minus brake input). So assuming you have an android smartphone and a gopro, you're talking a little over $150. It's really quite cheap. Keep in mind the 06+ have a much faster OBD refresh rate than the pre-06s. Maybe someone can chime in on 05 and earlier how well this works. It's a shame more people don't post video w/ datalogging overlays. Just looking at video w/o data it's hard to tell what another driver may be doing differently. An s2ki member made a nice racerender overlay for the data: https://www.s2ki.com/s2000/topic/109...-tach-overlay/

 

I'm a big fan of
Harry's Lap Timer + Iphone

I use to use an AIM Mychron Lap Timer + a GPS recorder + a Contour camera. Guess how often I overlaid the day data....I think I did it once, as it's a very cumbersome process.

Harry's Lap Timer + iPhone is already out of the box good enough for 1hz which is the rating of the stock iPhone's gps module. Adding a bluetooth gps can increase the resolution and sampling rate from 5hz or 20 hz which is plenty of resolution for the average weekend warrior. You can also extend the capability by using a WiFi ELM 327 compatible obd2 scanner which can send certain telemetry to overlay to the harry's lap timer app (i.e. engine RPM, throttle %, brake % (not available on the S) and if you program the gear ratios, interpolated Gear indicator). All this and you get up to 1080p recording @ 60 fps with 1 touch overlay of video and data.

Now you don't have to hardwire stuff, format memory cards, aim gopros and simultaneously start all this garbage then post process all this data.

My only gripe about the harry's lap timer is that it's as robust and stabile as it could be.