Re: 2013 Season 2 | April 30 - July 22

[HWKII]

I Lime Rock.

[clacksman]

"for those that can drive this is great for practicing accident avoidance."

[group44]

Great race at LRP with Tom. Stayed on his bumper and got to watch him thread the needle several times (and then try to follow). Traffic on the final lap got us down to two corners to go and running side by side into the right hander at the top of the hill Little friendly contact kept us fro racing it all the way to the line, but still the most fun I've had in a while.

-blood returning to knuckles now-

[HWKII]

Tom from MySpace? ... he's is real!

[timneyb]

Incidents from my first 4 SPF races:

14-12-10-4

That's progress. Actually that 10 incident race wasn't too bad either. On that last one both my iRating and Safety Rating went up, a little, for the first time this week.

[timneyb]

Wow, living with the SPF for a season will be tough. The discipline and accuracy required are truly a step up.

The key to not making mistakes later in the race is to not make them early. Slipping back into slower traffic is a death knell for all my races. Rather than work back through the field I suddenly find the guy I'm now behind has more trouble with the car than me slides somewhere, or is crazy cautious, and I'm either distracted at the wrong time or forced to lift in the corner in a car that you can't lift in the corner with. This has been 75% of my incident points. If it weren't I think I would have retired.

My error rate by myself is good, but I need to get it better, and even better in traffic. I wonder if I should run some drill laps of driving off line for a lap or practicing how to slow down in known problem corners. Also, I've become so obsessed with targeting 0 incident races, that I have failed to just take to the off track regions early enough to absolutely avoid contact, thinking that the incident in front of me will have a path clear at track edge, until it's too late.

[clacksman]

Couple things here even though I never raced the SRF

... I suddenly find the guy I'm now behind has more trouble with the car than me slides somewhere, or is crazy cautious, and I'm either distracted at the wrong time or forced to lift in the corner in a car that you can't lift in the corner with.

Treat every track like a temporary street track; simply make yourself not follow within the danger zone. If you're tangibly faster or even just more consistent you should be able to generate a good/obvious run for the best passing place.

I wonder if I should run some drill laps of driving off line for a lap or practicing how to slow down in known problem corners.

I have done both those things. Knowing the line with someone on (ei)the(r) side of you is good. Furthermore, running farther out/offline than that at least gives you a frame of reference of what things look like if you need the space for 'avoid mode' if not telling you where bumps are or aren't on top of that. Doing some general 'bail practice' in a hard mode car can be good to train the brain to do it with less thinking, and should not be too track-specific.

[timneyb]

Couple things here even though I never raced the SRF

... I suddenly find the guy I'm now behind has more trouble with the car than me slides somewhere, or is crazy cautious, and I'm either distracted at the wrong time or forced to lift in the corner in a car that you can't lift in the corner with.

Treat every track like a temporary street track; simply make yourself not follow within the danger zone. If you're tangibly faster or even just more consistent you should be able to generate a good/obvious run for the best passing place.

I wonder if I should run some drill laps of driving off line for a lap or practicing how to slow down in known problem corners.

I have done both those things. Knowing the line with someone on (ei)the(r) side of you is good. Furthermore, running farther out/offline than that at least gives you a frame of reference of what things look like if you need the space for 'avoid mode' if not telling you where bumps are or aren't on top of that. Doing some general 'bail practice' in a hard mode car can be good to train the brain to do it with less thinking, and should not be too track-specific.

Hard mode training is good.

Turned my initial observation, of the first incident leading to more incidents, into Yogi Bera language:

"The best way to not fuck up at all is to not fuck up once."

[group44]

You nailed it with the SRF and avoidance timney. Too often I've had a major incident trying to avoid a minor one Can be difficult to create opportunities and stay out of the "danger zone", which I find is rather a large area for me. I know I should practice offline antics, but the quest for speed and consistency usually supersedes that. Should make sure I include some bail practice the next time I have time to enjoy the spec.

Lol (ei)the(r)

[Forgetful]

Raced the Kia twice last night and I'm a little disappointed. Not in the car, but in the series. It splits at 20 cars, likely a copypasta oversight from when they converted the Cadillac series to the Global Challenge, which is really dumb for a multi-class series. There were 7 KOptis in the first race and only 4 Kias in the second, which makes for a high stakes iR game. Both timeslots split to two races and while I was finishing 4th and last (which earned me a 'good job' from my clueless spotter) 10 KOps were racing free of any Cadillacs in the second split.

I was actually hoping to get away from the high-stakes poker I was playing with the small fields in the Solstice.

[timneyb]

I get a double downshift from my DFGT sequential shifter maybe once in a (long) day. I don't think I've juddered on the shift, but every now and again it seems to happen when I don't think I've done anything different.

Finally, I'm having a good race. One of those races where you're just in or out of a 0.5-2 second gap for a whole bunch of laps, down in mid 42s at "how do I tire" level or maybe better, and you remember why it is that you like doing this. I catch an error from him with 3 to go and slip into 2nd. I nail my best time the next lap and I think I might just keep the spot. Then at turn 5 on the last lap I'm quiet on the brakes blip down into 3rd, but suddenly I'm at 7000 rpm going sideways with my rears sliding because I'm now in 2nd

I caught some good luck in the form of the skill of my adversary to avoid my mess, so I can gather myself up and collect 3rd (I'm sure I would have just wound up sliding sympathetically, taking us both out, if roles were reversed).

LOL, I'm sure Spa will be easier (said nobody, ever). Actually though, I think it might be easier, given you can't to fast enough to worry about a few of the corners.

[RackAttack]

Then at turn 5 on the last lap I'm quiet on the brakes blip down into 3rd, but suddenly I'm at 7000 rpm going sideways with my rears sliding because I'm now in 2nd

What that looks like in a real car (except mine was because I got 2nd instead of 4th on an upshift, which is definitely worse):
https://youtu.be/0eD7lfG7Gt8?t=5m35s

[Forgetful]

Nice little wave to the flag person...

[RackAttack]

Nice little wave to the flag person...

I was just happy I wasn't under him.

There's still dirt in various crevices of my car from that, and that was over a year ago. Though I suppose all that means is that I don't clean my interior very often.

[timneyb]

Then at turn 5 on the last lap I'm quiet on the brakes blip down into 3rd, but suddenly I'm at 7000 rpm going sideways with my rears sliding because I'm now in 2nd

What that looks like in a real car (except mine was because I got 2nd instead of 4th on an upshift, which is definitely worse):
https://youtu.be/0eD7lfG7Gt8?t=5m35s

Ouch. At least my iRacing membership seems to cover infinite headers, transmissions, clutches and frames.

[Forgetful]

Then at turn 5 on the last lap I'm quiet on the brakes blip down into 3rd, but suddenly I'm at 7000 rpm going sideways with my rears sliding because I'm now in 2nd

What that looks like in a real car (except mine was because I got 2nd instead of 4th on an upshift, which is definitely worse):
https://youtu.be/0eD7lfG7Gt8?t=5m35s

Ouch. At least my iRacing membership seems to cover infinite headers, transmissions, clutches and frames.

Oh, you haven't been billed yet?

[clacksman]

Then at turn 5 on the last lap I'm quiet on the brakes blip down into 3rd, but suddenly I'm at 7000 rpm going sideways with my rears sliding because I'm now in 2nd

What that looks like in a real car (except mine was because I got 2nd instead of 4th on an upshift, which is definitely worse):
https://youtu.be/0eD7lfG7Gt8?t=5m35s

Ouch. At least my iRacing membership seems to cover infinite headers, transmissions, clutches and frames.

Oh, you haven't been billed yet?

They'll warranty it, but you might have to argue with them for 3 weeks.

[HWKII]

Wait... wot? You went for 2nd and got 4th or went for 4th and got 2nd? If the former, I am very confused.

My favorite part was when you looked down at the gear lever and were like "... Yep."

[RackAttack]

Wait... wot? You went for 2nd and got 4th or went for 4th and got 2nd? If the former, I am very confused.

The latter. And then dumped the clutch.

[HWKII]

Wait... wot? You went for 2nd and got 4th or went for 4th and got 2nd? If the former, I am very confused.

The latter. And then dumped the clutch.

Right, got it. Good times.

[Forgetful]

First go-around with the shifter, and you can colour me impressed! Took the MX-5 cup to Interlagos to thrash myself in to learning to drive with the shifter and no shifting aids.

I started out trying to no clutch it around blipping and lifting to do my shifting, but it was pretty inconsistent, so after a half-dozen laps I started heel-toe'ing, something I had previously resigned myself to not being capable of. Only a few laps in it all started to make sense and I was pulling off decent threshold braking with heel-toe downshifts. I reeled off a dozen or so laps until I sputtered out with no fuel left. I've got some learning to do still as it's not supremely intuitive yet, but I'm almost ready to go racing.

10/10 would shift again

[HWKII]

Stephen, get out of my head!

I just spent the past hour in the SRF around Spa getting used to shifting with the H-pattern at race speeds and using the clutch. Wanted to punch myself every time I missed a gear and ended up in Neutral... But, got the car down to 3'00.X with time on the table which had me on the positive end of the bellcurve, behind the 2'57.X guys with a lot of 3'01-3'03 guys behind.

Have to agree with Stephen, 10/10.

It was Spa, so track familiarity, and lots of time to think behind corners/shifts contributed a lot, so I wouldn't consider myself race-worthy yet but damn is it fun.

[timneyb]

Grrr. A 4th crappy race out of 6 at Spa, which should be relatively easy. Actually, mostly it's pretty damn boring in this thing.

I swear the autoclutch automisses a small percentage of the time, no matter what you do. I got neutral twice, once at the start and another time out of La Source just as I was gapping one of the cars I re-passed. But worst was that as I was sitting on the grid, just having opened the window to cool down a little, the neighbour starts the lawnmower. I'm stuck racing deaf for 20 minutes, which contributes substantially to my control.

[timneyb]

I love it when you have that one more race to wash away the feeling of a really disappointing one, and instead of just having another disappointing or mediocre one, you actually have a fantastic, clean race.

4th to 6th, but a fantastic 3 way clean drive the whole way. 3 monitors, or at least a larger/closer monitor would help in traffic, to widen the field of view and duck under the tail of a car to try an over-under of La Source. Watching the replay I totally could have been more aggressive and picked up one spot.

[HWKII]

Grabbing more practice at Road America in the skip for the next 80 minutes ahead of trying to do some race. Come one, come all.

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