This month I’m going to talk about the wealth on information you can find in your time slips. Not the actual numbers themselves, but the variances in the numbers from run to run that can help you to understand your car better and conditions better, and win more races.
If you simply have a look at you time slip after the run, compare reaction times and the margin of victory and then stick it in your race folder or bag, you really aren’t getting the most out of the information available to you. I can’t stress enough how important it is to record all of the information in your time slips in a log book, or for those with a laptop, an Excel spreadsheet or something similar.
What I want to concentrate on is the variance in the incremental times; 60ft to 330ft, 330ft to 660ft etc. The great thing about these numbers is we can see where we are making or losing time in a run and we can calculate approximately what we would have run in instances where we back off.
Some general guidelines:
- The variance in the incremental times gets smaller the further up the track we are. For example, the average variance in the 60ft to 330ft times should be much greater than that between 660ft to 1000ft.
- Even if you are car lengths ahead and you know your opponent can’t catch you, don’t back off until after you reach the 1000ft mark. The time at 1000ft is one of the most important pieces of information you can have.
- Every time slip is valuable. Just because you turned the tyres off the start line or had a stumble at half track does not mean you can’t use some of the information. Look at the variance in incremental times and see how they compare with other runs.
Below are some sample time slips. The first run is a qualifier and the next are 4 rounds of racing. Early on in the day the temperature was about 35 degrees Celsius and the density altitude was 3000ft. Throughout the day the temperature and the altitude steadily dropped until the sun went down at which point the temperature dropped suddenly.
Let’s look at each run and see how the variances in the incremental times can help us go rounds.
Run #1
This is a qualifier and I run it out the back door. Nothing much to note here except it was a nice straight run and will become the bench mark for the proceeding runs.
Run #2
The density altitude has dropped by 450 ft which equals about 0.025 in ET. The dial in is set at 9.60 for this round, down from the 9.624 ET in the previous run. I’m the slower car in this round and get to 1000ft, can’t see my opponent and back off, crossing the line with a 9.645.
Now using the incrementals I can see what happened during the run. I picked up about .02 in the 60ft to 330’ incremental and rest of the run is pretty much the same as run #1 except when I back off. I washed off about 0.04 so I estimate my actual ET would have been around 9.605 (my 1000ft time plus the 1000ft to 1320ft incremental from run #1) . This gives me confidence going into the next round.
Run #3
Although the altitude has dropped by 100ft from the previous run I am confident it will be very close to 9.60 again so I leave my dial in as is.
In this round I am the quicker car and get drilled on the tree by a few hundredths and should have lost. However, I run a 9.609 on my 9.60 dial in, forcing my opponent to breakout by taking too much stripe.
The thing to notice on this run is that the 60ft to 330ft incremental has increased by .02 over run number #2, even though the air is only slightly better. This leads me to believe that there are differences between the traction in both lanes; the right lane is quicker than the left.
Run #4
My opponent has the quicker dial in and sticks me in the right lane. Even though the altitude has dropped by only 50’, I reckon that the right lane is faster and lower my dial in to 9.59.
Luckily my opponent red lights and I take a free swing, recording a 9.598 on a 9.59 dial in. Looking at the time slip, I’ve picked up the 0.02 in the 60ft to 330ft once again from being in the right lane and carry that all the way to the finish line.
Run #5
This is the final run and the altitude drops 400ft in about 20 minutes. It’s much cooler and I think the car is going to go about 0.02 quicker this round so I drop the dial in to 9.58.
Once again I’m the slower car and I leave first. It’s a pretty close race and I take the stripe by about 3 feet with a peddle at the first mile-an-hour cone. This time I run a 9.591 on my 9.58 dial in.
Looking at the incrementals I can see I have picked up time all the way down the track except for the peddle at the finish line. From this data I figure I would have run around 9.57 if I had not backed off. I put this down to the decrease in altitude and potentially a cooling of the track which improved the traction.
Summary
I hope this article has illustrated the importance of recording your time slips and analysing your run data, particularly the incremental times. It's not an exact science but information you can extract from your time slips will help you win more rounds.
If you would like any further information about this article then send an email to kym@bullseyeracing.com.au.
Next month I will be looking into wind factors and how they can affect your ET. Until then, keep going rounds.
|
