Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Dean
I do see/know the value, and said I would want one of the accelerometer based ones in my first post in this thread, and have previously threatedend to buy a G-tech pro which as I recal was met with much skepticism, though that was at least partially tuning related. Now all of a sudden lap timers and accelerometers have value. Hmmm.
Assuming everyone is aware of their insurance status is not a valid assumption. I know you know, but not everyone on the board does necessarily. I wonder if Cody did before his off at RFR?
I'm just trying to bring another point of view to the discussion.
|
You wanted a G-Tech Pro for tuning, a task for which it's barely useful at best. However, if you want to talk about the G-Tech Pro RR datalogger as something to help lap times and evaluate driving technique, well that's a different thing entirely. 'Course, I think there are still better tools out there for that task than G-Tech's offering, but I'm just getting into the research for these things. What I've noticed is, accelerometers alone don't really work, as there's too much noise from vibration and not enough accuracy. But couple it with wheel-speed indicators and a start/finish transmitter, or 5+hz GPS sampling, and you've got a useful tool, for far cheaper than the professional telemetry systems.
And, I didn't assume that "everyone is aware of their insurance status", I said that everyone in this thread understands the implications of using a lap timer. i.e. we're not discussing insurance, we're discussing lap timers and daqs. I couldn't care less what Cody thinks about his insurance coverage at RFR because it's got zero bearing on what lap timers are better than others. Give me one reason why the DL-1 is better than the Traqmate that involves Cody and State Farm.
How about contributing some tech towards the topic? I have to imagine with your involvement in motorsports and HPDE's you've got to have more insight into this discussion than "yer all gonna crash your cars". What have you seen in use? What's the talk around the campfire?
I'm interested primarily in driver improvement. I want to go faster and drive better, and I want to quantify my improvement. It's easy in autocross, there are lap times and trophies, and laps are short with long breaks inbetween so I can directly corellate fast lap times with my recollection of the run. That's not something I can do on track, even with in-car footage.
It takes almost as long as the footage itself just to compile a list of lap times, and it's tedious work. And I still can't reliably tell by in-car alone which lap I carried the most speed through turn 12 in, for example. A daq tells me that at a glance. With recorded telemetry, I can see where and when I was braking too soon/late, I can see where I was slacking, and I can see where I wasn't smooth. I can complile my best sector times and see what my theoretical best lap looks like. And given the right inputs, I can even see where the car needs help setup-wise, even though that's not my primary use for something like this. Finally, something like the Traqmate is easily tossed into someone else's car, providing a way to directly compare laps with another driver. I'd really like to see why Matt's 5 mph faster down the back stretch that I am, or why my line tends to hit the apex more reliably, or why Mike's brakes are faded more than the rest of us. Since we all drive very similar cars, having overlaid lap data could be a boon for figuring out what line works, or what tires are best, or how hard you really can brake for T5... etc.
The bottom line is, I need a tool with which to self-evaluate my on track performance that's better than "well, that lap felt pretty good". I've logged tens of thousands of hours over the last 13 years in computer driving simulators, and all of 'em have had a lap timer (if not a full blown telemetry viewer as well). I'm used to having that feedback as a tool for improving my performance, and it's something I'd like to have access to in the real world as well.