Lap timers

[Neil Haughey]

Whilst race car questions are in vogue on here I thought I would ask your opinions on lap timers, shift light setups etc. TBH I am not overly bothered about shift lights but an accurate lap timer I definitely want. I have been looking at the Otto LT100 on their ebay direct shop, 80 quid and it works of an IR beacon on the pit wall. An alternative system would be the Alfano magnetic inductance system but ISTR they don't have the mag strip in GP tracks such as Silverstone.

 

[944 man]

Rather than a shift lamp, Id be tempted by a rev limiter with a couple of inputs allowing full throttle changes and a simple launch control. If this has a lamp too then all well and good, but its use is limited. Demon Thieves have several for around a oner.

Before I made a choice over timers Id see whether any of the championships I had in mind required anything specific.

Simon

 

[Neil Haughey]

PCGB Championship regs say you have to purchase the timing transponder from TSL, the regs also talk about wiring for a race technologies data logger something I was thinking of buying anyway its just the 500 quid cost that is holding me back on that one compared to 80 quid for a lap timer you can put right in front of you and see during the race.

BTW traction control is banned in their regs.

Future Classics regs don't say anything so maybe Mark knows about their setup?

Castle Combe regs (another possible sw race option) issue their own transponders and provide instruction on their fitting, additional timing and data logging not mentioned from my reading.

Of course there is also what ppl actually do as opposed to what is written down, calling Paul Follet.

 

[MarkK]

I got my transponder from tsl timing $$$$$,it is permanently on wired in rather than a charge up battery one, then to see where i was in the race i used the in car stopwatch you get with the 944 digital clock,flicked it on before the lights went out so i new pretty much how long i had left to go in the race.

 

[944 man]

There isnt any automated 'control' with the kit that I was talking about. It is essentially a dumb rev limiter, with inputs for control switches, which activate a second lower limit, which is also user-selectable. This allows full-throttle changes by limiting the revs when the microswitch is operated (as soon as the clutch pedal dips) and works as a simple 'launch control' via the same method.

 

[sawood12]

I'm surprised there isn't an iPone app for this!

 

[Neil Haughey]

There are loads of iPhone or similar device apps that try to do the same job as the race technologies kit. The problem is they are pretty limited in the extreme. Something I was going to develop myself actually by integrating inertial nav and satelite nav sensors and processing (3 axis accelerometer built in to most Apple products these days). The problem is that you can't get true > 1Hz sampling out of cheap off the shelf GPS devices and this makes them pretty much useless for vehicle performance analysis, also makes fusing the inertial results more difficult or rather using the GPS samples to correct for the cumulative error drift in the inertial solution (both position and speed as differential GPS speed very accurate). Inertial measurement is very accurate over short time scales or if you assume a straight line aka 0-60 and 60-0 measurement like in the Gtech pro, very quickly falls apart into a big error if one tries to use it to do something like measure a lap. Luckily I didn't waste to much of my own time and money before I realised that an iPhone app was never going to be anywhere near as good as the race technologies kit (DL-1, videobox etc), but would be competing in the gutter of almost free iPhone apps against a plethora of toys.

Proper lap timers use either the magnetic strip across the track or an IR beacon on the pit wall, they are accurate to 1/100th of a second. Ppl trust the race technologies kit because it has a demonstrated record of being highly accurate and providing results that agree with traditional timing solutions.

 

[paulf968]

Neil

I have been thinking a bit in this subject area. I have been using a cheapish (about £100) IR laptimer, so you need to put the beacon on the pit wall & remember to collect it at the end of the day!! Frankly it has been a bit of a pain for the following reasons: occasionally someone else's beacon will fire it off (OK then change the channel), sometimes it is not fired as you drive past - probably due to angle of installation of either part, and finally I have installed it the easy way using PP9 batteries for both parts but this leads to issues. So hard wired is best in the car and a supplementary battery is required with the beacon. What I find is that if it is not working 100% reliably, then it somehow becomes annoying & distracting as it takes up brain space when all I want to do is look at it once per lap.

Am about to go down the Race Technology DL1 datalogger route, probably with 2 bullet cams and a throttle sensor plus brake on/off channel. If I get fed up with my beacon they do something called a DASH3 which does laptimes with no beacon & can display any data from the DL1 -- it also has shift lights -- package dets here https://www.race-technology.com/content.php?pcat=2&cat=30591 NB Went the DL1 route as it was suggested that the data channels on the Videologic product are a limiting factor as the DL1 can be configured for different data rates. Have got my package from Race Data Systems who are London based but incidentally have premises in Kimbolton -- not far from us!

You have probably studied all of this anyway

 

[Neil Haughey]

I have studied it probably to much Paul, have to do something to keep myself busy whilst being mega frustrated waiting for my car.

TBH I will probably stomach the cost and buy the DL-1 because it can just do so much and the scientist in me will go mad analysing the data I am sure of that. I noted they have put this software license thing together so guys like us who already have a video camera can get something like the videbox capability, without having to spank a grand on a videobox setup.
http://www.race-technology.com/3rd_party_video_import_2_30620.html

...not really bothered TBH about having more then 1 camera, throttle brake and steering inputs I would like but I would much rather have that in data then look at another camera input.

 

[Neil Haughey]

Something like this kit, still goes right against my money saving instincts though
http://www.race-technology.com/content.php?pcat=2&cat=30590

 

[Big Dave]

Hey chaps.
Its OK getting all this fancy data logging kit, but itl only frustrate the heck out of you...
Because itl just tell you,,, your not going fast enough....[][][][][][][][][][][]

Need to be faster ......[8|][][8|][][8|]

 

[Neil Haughey]

True but the hope is always that it will throw up obvious areas to improve or skills that are missing that you didn't know you were missing.

Paul has recently found this for himself when he realised that;
1) He was carrying to much speed into the corners and then not able to get hard on the power early enough.
2) He needs something to tell him to push as he was driving well within in his own envelope without perhaps realising it.
Paul can take solace from the fact that he has shown he can do what he needs to do he just needs to apply himself, its a bit different from just looking at a results sheet and getting despondent.

Most of us will suffer from fairly simple flaws as none of us are Senna or Shumacher but if you didn't believe you could correct or improve on those flaws we might as well all give up on this racing lark. For sure looking at a load of data that makes you look rubbish is a bit of a leveler/ego destroyer but at least it tells one where and how you are slow rather then just looking at a time sheet that = looser.

Anyways in the immediate future I have more pressing problems, such as how can I comfortably heel and toe with 6 point harness on as I found recently it was causing me extreme thigh pain, and wasn't a problem at all when my S2 was a road car. I will almost certainly need to look at modifying the peddle setup.

 

[Big Dave]

Neil.
Take a break mate.
I was having a joke.[][][][][]
Or was my northern humour lost on you....[8|][8|]
I think ,, first you need to get the car on the road , then track, [ numerous different ones],,, then race....
Its all well + good theorising about it all + driving on the Xbox, but theres nothing like actual seat time....[Im sure Mr Eackok will tell you the same thing.]..[][][][]
Keep taking the pills...

 

[Neil Haughey]

No worries Dave, for now I will be just putting my video camera in the car and using that. Loads of other more important things requiring spending on but sooner or latter I will be going down the data logger road. Many suggest that spending your money on tools like these is a much better investment then on the car. Kev btw tells me I should get stuck straight into Future Classics.

I don't have an Xbox btw []

 

[944 man]

*nods*

Beyond a certain point (which is reached long before many realise), a good driver will make far more difference than a better car. Ive seen Oulton laps that leave vastly superior cars standing...

 

[944 man]

Speaking of Oulton Park - didnt John Felstead lap a number of Impreza Turbos and WRXs there in a normally aspirated Impreza Sport? I think that it caused quite a stir on SN and PH at the time.

 

[sawood12]

There is no substitute for practice in my view. There is no such thing as a textbook driving technique or style - different people adopt different styles. Some people like the slow in/fast out method, whereas others are comfortable piling into a corner carrying what appears to be too much speed and 'sorting it out' once you get in there. No technique is right or wrong, it depends on the driver. Motorsport is littered with champions with their own unique driving styles. When i've been karting I've realised you can sometimes overthink and overanalyse these things and the occasions I got the best times and best performances was when I just went out there and drove and didn't think. This type of thing is instinctive, you don't have time to think, so money spent on tracktime is better spent than with any gadget! I always find that driving behind someone who is faster than you is also a valuable learning experience. When i've done this in the past in a kart my lap times usually improve.

To me gadgets like this are really only useful and intended to polish the performance of an already very good drivers rather than as a teaching aid.

 

[Neil Haughey]

Senna tended to use lots of throttle adjustment and drive the car that way, Shumacher at his peak used more small steering corrections. In reality the difference between them in terms of line and when and how much the throttle and brakes are applied will be tiny. Different styles but only around a tiny variance, anyone who has talked to or studied and read experienced racers would understand this before even setting foot on a track.

Piling into the corner too fast and then sorting it out is what idiots who don't know how to drive do on track days.

One of the best sounding bits of advice I have heard is to sign onto something like the week long intensive course at Silverstone (a guy with something like 15 years racing experience told me this). Practice makes perfect and all that but no amount of driving is going to improve someone who is doing it wrong and doesn't know how they are doing it wrong.

PCGB are currently using a similar system as a teaching aid on their track days
http://www.porscheclubgbforum.com/tm.asp?m=544392&mpage=1&key=&#545707
its the future for sure.