After picking up my SR1 last month, I've had it on track twice for some easy "get to know you" sessions. Love the car, but I'm still getting comfortable in the cockpit. Most notably, it was hard to get comfortable with braking and throttle application; I felt like I was having to reach for the pedals a bit compared to my previous race car (an SCCA SRF).
I brought it home from storage this weekend and spent a few hours on setup. I moved the seat forward one click, which put me at a comfortable distance from the steering wheel and brake pedal. The problem is that the throttle is a good 2" further away than the brake pedal, with the brake adjusted as far away as possible and the throttle adjusted as close as possible. I'm still having to fully extend my throttle leg and "ankle" the pedal to full throttle, which is not great for throttle control.
I had some 1/2" ABS sheet lying around so I fabricated a quick and dirty pedal spacer and bolted it to the face of the pedal. It is definitely a step in the right direction, although it could stand to be about twice as thick. Before I order supplies and start over, does anyone have any easy solutions that I've overlooked, or make something like this off the shelf? The pedal design seems silly to me, and a real detriment to drivers who have legs of equal length (i.e. everybody).
@speedsmith, Congratulations on the new car! There are several ways to tackle this but your approach looks pretty good. Many shops fabricate a "C" shaped piece of metal and bolt it to the pedal vertically to fill in the gap. But, if you have the room to move the seat forward a little more, you might want to consider doing that first and then adjust the pedals again. The reason I suggest that is because these pedals are VERY close together and it is very easy to mistakenly hit the gas pedal at the same time you are applying the brake. When this happens the car does not slow down as you are expecting and if you are not aware that this is a common problem your brain does not have enough time to realize that you are actually hitting the gas and the brake before you run off of the track. For safety reasons it is a good idea to set up your pedals so that when the brake pedal is fully depressed you still are not to the throttle pedal. This prevents (or at least reduces) the possibility of hitting both pedals at the same time.
Thanks Charley, it helps to at least have an explanation for why the pedals are designed the way they are. I'm a left foot braker so there's really not much risk of accidentally hitting the throttle at the same time. I don't want to move the seat any closer because the steering wheel would then be a little too close for my liking. I'm going to try a few sessions with it the way it is for now, and if I need a little more height I'll fabricate a thicker spacer.
@speedsmith @charleyhradicalsportscarregistry-com Wow. That's a real pearl of information! I've ALWAYS set my pedals up so that at maximum braking, the throttle was about level with the brake -- which helps one blip the throttle during downshifting on a traditional H-pattern shifter. If some unnecessary throttle is applied, it's not a big deal since the clutch is disengaged for a significant amount of time. But, now I see that on a paddle-shifted car where the ECU provides the throttle blip AND the clutch doesn't disengage at all, it's better to keep the throttle lower than the brake pedal so that one doesn't get into the throttle during braking.
That's a light bulb moment for me!
A couple of years ago, as I worked to optimize my brake points, I started to have what I call "brake accuracy" moments, where I didn't get my right foot squarely on the brake pedal and added throttle during braking. As a result, I had a few off-track events. My fix was to learn left-foot braking, and my lap times continued to improve. If I had known the proper way to set up the pedals for a paddle-shifted narrow pedal car, I might still be braking with my right foot. I guess, in the end, I'm glad to have been forced to learn to left-foot brake.
Anyway, Charley, thanks very much for that bit of information.
