Thanks guys.
Ascutney 1 made it clear to me that, with my ignorance of the road, I'm going to pick up time most every run solely because my reptile brain has a little more faith that I know where the road goes.
You are thinking in a very segmented way, everything is connected.
I'm certainly analyizing it in a very segmented way. In the car, it feels like. maybe, 4 sections, with the "breaks" being the places where I have nothing to do (like between T24 & T25).
You haven't maxed the car out yet, you'll know you have when all your runs during for the day stay pretty flat with less than a second of time variance.
It's coming, but, at times, it feels like it will be years before I have that little time to "find".
One of the challenges is that I'm only going to learn the car's limits with seat-time. But, for most of my seat time, I don't really know where the road goes. Both items are getting better, and I'm enjoying the hell out of both, but I can't pick those two impacts apart.
Trying to improve one or two corners per day is a lot easier to accomplish than trying to get them all perfect.
That became really clear to me after Sat's 1st run at Ascutney 1. After the 1st run, the chasm between how well I knew the road vs how well I wish I knew the road was unbeliveable. After 2 or 3 runs, my main accomplishment has been to remember the places are where I might kill myself. After runs 3 or 4, I've gotten to the point where there aren't any corners that feel like any more of a train-wreck than any others.
At Ascutney, I focused on T13 - T16 because, from working there, the road was less of a mystery. On Sat PM, I hit the rev limiter on the way into T16 for the 1st time. Every run after that, I hit the limiter a little earlier. Maybe at Ascutney 2, I'll get through T15 well enough that changing up to 3rd makes sense.
It was fascinating, and only occasionaly terrifying, to experience how T16 "evolved" as my speed into it increased.
If your last name is Loeb, then I'd change that opinion.
What ever Loeb translates to, my name means the opposite thing.
you'll see that most everyone is quicker at Okemo 2.
I'm looking forward to Okemo 2. Having a sort-of, kind'a, part-of-a clue will be a new experience.
get into a comfy rhythm, you time will drop dramaticly.
Unless "rhythm" is the simple routine of line-up, brake, aim, turn, throttle, straight, I'm lost.
Right now if your time changes, you dont know why.
I'm absolutely certain each of my times is several each of "slightly better", "slightly worse", "wow, much better", & "oh sh!t" all added together. The good news is that my sum total of all that gets quicker over the weekend as the hill gets less foreign.
The thing I was most pleased with at Burke was that when I changed my plan, my time changed and, more importantly, when I changed my plan back, my time went back (roughly). This has happened a couple of times now so it's either the very early stages of consistancy, or being lucky.
I'm chosing to be ignorantly optimistic. ;)
Paul