Like many have echoed on here before, this thing is a blast. I'm still rather new to the track scene so I'm still coming to grips with the car. First session out my best lap was a 2:01. By the last session on the second day I was down to a 1:45.
The DE event coincided with a PCA Club Race - the fastest cup car was only 7 thousandths quicker on his best lap. There is so much speed left on the table. I will be back at the same track 4 more times this year and I can't wait to see what else I can unlock in the car.
For the curious observer here is the best lap we got on video:
The GPS data and video didn't work well in my last session - I suspect my passenger had a hold of the cabling to the system and was causing a poor connection through the twisty bits.
Thanks for sharing the video, looks like you were enjoying it. Driving a Radical is a lot of fun and very challenging.
There is a NASA event there at the end of May that I am going to attend. I will be watching that video many more times. You don’t have the Aim data do you?
I definitely do. I will be at that event as well. Message me your contact info and I will share it with you.
Congratulations! Great video. I’m glad to hear how much you are enjoying the car! Have you done a color map showing the G’s in the corners? They are really helpful in recalibrating your brain to what the car is capable of.
Charley
I have not - I've been studying the AIM data in Track Attack to see what corners I can continue to improve on. I suspect I can continue to move my braking point closer to turn in and the series of corners at the end could use a little tweaking as well.
My main focus for the next outing is to learn to get the car up to temp quicker. My best laps were often the last lap of the session (10 - 12 lap sessions typically). On the few sessions where we only got 8 laps I wasn't really able to push the car as I hadn't gotten the tires and brakes warm enough.
AiM data in Track Attack ...
Off to google that!
John it's very similar to Race Studio I just like the cloud based nature of the program. I take my laptop with me to the track but do my video editing and later thinking on my workstation attached to a big TV. I also find the interface a little more to my liking for looking at lap times, splits, etc.
Here's a screenshot of all my sessions for the weekend loaded in with the best lap traced for each session.
Garrett, I just got the date imported and have been playing with it. I really need to master using this to improve. I can see I was getting lateral g-forces in the 1.3 to 1.5 range on high speed corners -- but I don't really know what the limit of the car is. I seem to remember it being in the 2.5 range, so I'm nowhere close to the limit.
On the other hand, my neck is telling me I found its limit. 3 days of neck pain from 2 days of fun at the track, lol.
What sort of longitudinal acceleration are you seeing on braking? I'm seeing numbers maxing out around -1.3. Does that mean I've got a lot more brake than I'm using?
John if you message me your email or handle on Track Attack I'll share my sessions with you - I believe that will let you see my data.
On my fastest laps I was getting close to -1.4. There were a couple spots I got to -1.5 but I also locked the brakes going into those corners. I was in the same neighborhood on lateral as well - ranging around 1.4 - 1.5.
The Radical literature claims 2.3 is possible - I'm running at least 3 year old Dunlop slicks that have at least 15 heat cycles in them. I suspect on sticker slicks properly warmed with a single driver in the car (I'm still running with an instructor) that I could get closer to 1.5 or 1.6 more regularly.
Here's the scatterplot from the sessions with the highest quality data on fast laps.
Here's mine from a sequence of 3 good laps...
For me the tool that was very useful for re-calibrating my brain to trust the downforce was the color map. I could look at a corner and internalize that at 90 to 100 mph the car is capable of 2.0 to 2.5 G and I am only going 1G. Or in this example going through the bottom of the corkscrew at Laguna Seca where there is good compression I needed to be pushing more that 1.27G. Of course that oak tree at the bottom of the corkscrew sure is intimidating. 🙂 By looking at these color maps between sessions I was able to convince my brain that it was safe to drive faster. Convincing your brain that the speeds are safe is one thing, but the real challenge is getting your right foot to do what your brain is telling it to do 🤣
Charley
Charley would you mind posting a map with longitudinal acceleration on it rather than lateral? The more I study track videos and my own data the more it seems like there isn't much left in braking but lots left in carrying speed into corners (relatively speaking of course - I know I can do better on the brakes).
Charley would you mind posting a map with longitudinal acceleration on it rather than lateral? The more I study track videos and my own data the more it seems like there isn't much left in braking but lots left in carrying speed into corners (relatively speaking of course - I know I can do better on the brakes).
I can give you an example of Longitudinal G's, but I can't necessarily give you an example a great driving 😉
