Page 3 of 5

Re: Burke June 2013 picture and video thread

Posted: Wed Jul 03, 2013 10:02 pm
by Kent Everding
Nice! Thanks for the map Seth. Ah ha, I found Okemo ...Brilliance eh? :lol:
Makes perfect sense know seeing the turn numbers and your data Paul. I only went quicker on the straightaways because I assume I have more squirrels. Seth, your skills and knowledge of the hill made it all up in the corners, putting the absolute hammer down on Sherman's theory, not that we doubted it.
I lifted between 5 and 6, went down to 3rd coming in to 10 and 11 when I should have stayed in 4th (was in 5th coming through T9 on run 5) because I thought T13 was arriving much sooner. T17 surprised me, every time!

Paul, I believe we are in the same boat. My car is suppose to corner well too, but not with me behind the wheel on this hill. Me just need runs, mas runs. And more data!! ;)

Re: Burke June 2013 picture and video thread

Posted: Wed Jul 03, 2013 10:43 pm
by Challenger392
I need a go pro so I can start adding some method to my madness. Currently I'm just sight driving and trying to remember what's next. Being able to review my runs would be nice.

Re: Burke June 2013 picture and video thread

Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2013 11:17 am
by Chief Geek
Kent :
I bet both of our cars would "find" huge chunks of time if we plugged in experienced drivers like Sherman or Kevin.

Luke:
I still haven't figured out how to make watching a video help with learning the hill, even if it's me. It feels like watching the video 20 times is 1% as effective as driving it one more time. Maybe I'm thick that way.
The video I used to pull out sector times was not from the gopro, it was from my Dad's old, obsolete point-n-shoot still camera, in video mode, that I hose clamped to my roll bar. It's VGA-quality video doen't impact it's educational content.

All:
The most interesting thing I learned was how much I have to temper advice from experienced drivers based on differences in cars. Here is what happened:

Run 1
Plan: Try to travel a "classic", parabollic line through the tight corners.
Execution: lines seemed reasonable, all heavy braking was done prior to turn-in. Began to open throttle just past apex. Could use very little throttle on exit, inside wheel spin was awful. The camber of the road near apex worsened the natural tendancy to spin the inside wheel. The open diff felt like it really hurt.
Result: 3:10

Adjustment
Several experienced drivers advised me that, by entering "wider" and apexing a bit later, I'd avoid the worst of the road's camber and reduce the unloading of the inside rear. Sacrificing a bit of mid-corner speed would allow much more, and earlier, throttle leading to improved exit speed. This matched the autoX advice Mike #5 & John S. gave me about trying to "scare" the back-side of the cone, not the front-side, which worked well at the autoX.

Run 2
Plan: Wider entry, later apex, hopefully more throttle, earlier is possible.
Execution: Felt "better", would have bet money on improvement. Apex moved 5 - 8 ft later in the tight turns. Distance traveled was slightly longer than run 1.
Result: 3:14

Adjustment
I must have hurt my apex speed so badly that it destroyed any benefit of more-throttle-earlier. Entry too wide?

Run 3
Plan: Less wide entry, aim for half way between runs 1 and 2.
Execution: Higher speed at apex than run 2. Had to fight inside wheel spin badly again. Distance traveled felt about the same as run 1.
Result: 3:11

Adjustment
The late-apex-advice I got came from people with higher power/weight cars (much, much higher in some cases). Probably, compared to advisor's cars, #13's suspension is softer and probably retains geometry over a longer range of travel. Proportionally, the road's camber at apex hurts #13 less than advisor's cars.

Run 4
Plan: Go back to a parabollic line.
Execution: inside wheel spin was really, really limiting again. Couldn't hit use throttle until I was nearly done cornering.
Result: 3:08

Runs 5 & 6:
Plan: stick with parabollic line, focus on apexing each corner in the right place, avoiding bad bump on entry of T13
Execution: felt like gains were coming from tidying things up as I learned the road.
Result: 3:05 & 3:02

Drivers with experience (and enough patience to read all of this):
Please support or dispute these conclusions:

- For a newbie in a stock Miata, trading apex speed for earlier, and larger, throttle openings is a bad investment. Larger throttle openings don't help enough.
- Focus on maximizing apex speed, exit speed will improve naturally
- Focus on shortening the distance traveled.
- Take all advice (however well informed) with a increasing grains of salt as the difference in vehicles increases. Comparing #25 to #13 is like comparing an F-15 to a Sopwith Camel. They're both figher planes, but you have to fly them very differently.

Thanks.

Paul

PS I volunteer to help verify/debug the comm system as much as possible.

Re: Burke June 2013 picture and video thread

Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2013 12:14 pm
by sachilles
You are thinking in a very segmented way, everything is connected.


You have a momentum car. Burke punishes mistakes made by momentum cars. Really goofing one corner can mess you up, and cause a LOT of time. The parabolic is a good average plan of attack. 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.
The advice given to you is still valid with you and your miata, but you have to keep in mind if you don't get it right, you'll lose time, and messing it up in one corner will likely overshadow getting the other corners right.

Trying to improve one or two corners per day is a lot easier to accomplish than trying to get them all perfect. Concentrate on a section of hill that you are confident in, and try to perfect that one. Let the rest of the hill flow naturally. Perfect that one section you are practicing, and it becomes muscle memory. Then move on to a new section. It's unreasonable to think you'll have a hill perfected in one day, or even one weekend. Perfect the lower corners and work your way up, as you get the corners right, you'll be carrying more speed to the higher corners.


Implementing the advice needs to consider road conditions. They improved as the day progressed. Tires can scrub in etc. In general you can expect to get faster through out the day.

My opinion is that 6 runs on a wet/slick/foggy Burke isn't enough time on the hill to learn it for us mere mortals. If your last name is Loeb, then I'd change that opinion.

I bet you still improve every run on saturday of Burke 2. It'll come, it just takes time.

Re: Burke June 2013 picture and video thread

Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2013 2:02 pm
by sdwarf36
Look over the times from Okemo1+2 over the years. Throwing out where one day was wet, you'll see that most everyone is quicker at Okemo 2. Why? Just more laps. I'd use this year for just learning which way the road goes. Is 17 a left or a right? MIss the bump on the inside or go over it? Exit a turn in 2nd or 3rd?
I'd use the 1st year as just going up the hill-pretend its not even timed. Once you get into a comfy rhythm, you time will drop dramaticly. If I had a nickel for everytime I've heard "wow-it was my best time + it didn't even feel that fast"... Once you survive that, you now have a base to go on. You have a clue what is happening around you -you start to get used to the feeling of speed-what your car likes or dislikes. The more runs in, the less of your brain is just processing the g loads + time compression you've never encountered before. Okmeo 2-Burke 2-Ascutney 2-you can start working on purpously changing what you are now doing. Brake earlier-different gear-etc. Right now if your time changes, you dont know why. Was it better thru 19? And then i screwed up 22? Next lap you screwed up 19-but got 22 right--and went 2 seconds quicker-now you think how you get into 19 is good because it was your quickest.
At this stage, Having a few runs all within a second is more importiant than trying to compare runs that are 5 seconds apart.

Re: Burke June 2013 picture and video thread

Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2013 4:35 pm
by Chief Geek
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

Re: Burke June 2013 picture and video thread

Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2013 4:46 pm
by KevinGale
Personally I found that early on most of the time that I tried to really analyze what I was doing I went slower and sometimes I crashed. I've found that when I'm in analytical mode I'm capable of ignoring all the signals the car is sending me and sticking to my plan. I crashed at turn 15 at Okemo that way. I was convinced that I should be able to have the throttle completely down at that point so I did so. In retrospect the car had been giving me very clear signals that this wasn't going to work. In other cases I've just gone slower. I might have made the one thing I was concentrating on better but somehow that hurt the overall flow.

So for me it's been more about learning to feel what the car wants and reacting to that. As that becomes more automatic I have been able to start changing things based upon some logical plan. On the other hand I can't just throw out the rational part of my mind out and let the animal take over. I've crashed several times doing that. The animal is fast but he isn't afraid of crashing and that turns out to be a major liability when I have to pay for and fix the broken car.

Knowing the course is critical to me. I hadn't driven the long course of Ascutney before the event this spring. To prepare for that I watched in car video from the top section. For a couple months before the event I watched videos each day. I still had to learn how the car felt on those sections but at least I wasn't guessing what was around each corner and that really paid off.

Re: Burke June 2013 picture and video thread

Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2013 8:24 am
by dsldubn
I've only been doing this for a few years randomly...but I just try to focus on driving my car and feeling comfortable finding limits. If I worry about corner numbers I feel it distracts me. Memorizing the hills will help a ton and I have a long way to go toward that goal but I feel the more seat time I get the better I know my car and our limits (the cars and mine) and that goes a very long way in dropping time of course..and experiencing runs that feel good. Focusing on just that is what works for me for now.

Re: Burke June 2013 picture and video thread

Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 7:48 am
by Rabbit Farmer
Just got home after two weeks in warm/dry weather.....
3) Steve, are you flat through T9?
Where is T9?

Re: Burke June 2013 picture and video thread

Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 9:07 am
by britracer89
used to be turn 10 just befor check 2