Burke June 2013 picture and video thread

[Chief Geek]

As one of only 2 members of the 3-Minute-Club, I was trying to understand what I was doing well and not. I found some YouTube videos, overlayed a clock on them, and pulled out sector times. This is what I found:



I picked Seth , #66, as the "standard" because he's nearest to break-out.

Launch is from the green light to the tree 50 ft up on the left with a white sign on it (@ Turn 1?).

For example, Steve's (#702's) Launch sector time was 23% slower/longer than Seth's, but, from Turn 1 to Turn 6, Steve's time was 8% faster than Seth's.

Observations:
1) Excluding launch, I'm generally 17% slower than Seth. I can live with that. I'm also 15% slower than Jason, the winner of my class. Not so good.
2) The two 4WD guys launch identically. I wonder how much variation there is within S1. If there's video available, I'd like to compare them.
3) Steve, are you flat through T9?
4) I thought I was a wuss for not doing T9 flat but, apparently, that isn't on of my big problems.
5) Apparently, Jason has the uphill between T10 and T13 nailed.
6) Kent must be getting through, and exiting, the combination corners really well.
7) I need to work on my exit speed, especially from combination corners. My slowness from Start thru T6 is mostly about needing more energetic squirrels under the hood, but the story T13 thru T19 has to be about my exit speed.

Please add your own thoughts and conclusions.

If anyone has whole-run video let me know where it is and I'll add it to the data set.

Paul

[KevinGale]

Energetic squirrels are OK but I hear the top people are using frenetic ferrets.

[sachilles]

Conditions are different year to year, but my non turbo run is on YouTube from last year. This year grip was very much of an issue from launch.
Without turbo, my car was 100% throttle past chk2, this year I didn't have the intestinal fortitude to do that...but I've also learned to take it much easier on Saturday, especially if conditions aren't the best.

Wrecking on Saturday is no fun.

[sdwarf36]

Until you got 30 runs on a road-you dont know it. Your sample is too small.

[Challenger392]

Interesting how Steve and Jasons launches are essentially Identical despite the horsepower split, it really shows how at low speed (and in mud ) AWD is a HUGE advantage.

[sachilles]

Until you got 30 runs on a road-you dont know it. Your sample is too small.

I don't know about anyone else, but I generally have to "sleep on it". Generally on Saturday, I'm feeling out how the car is behaving at the hill and re-learning the course. I generally try to focus on parts I don't do particularly well. By Sunday I try to piece everything together for a full run.
Conditions this year were not ideal. While AWD does offer an advantage at launch, I felt like I was slipping a ton relative to a more dry day. There was a slick layer of dirt at start.
That being said I was 4 seconds better than my best previous time, but I have 2.0 turbo vs a n/a 2.5 last year. Certainly felt like I could have been faster in those conditions, but it was saturday, I've learned my lesson no to push too hard on practice day.
So why am I babbling on about this......basically my long winded way of saying Sherm is right. The more times you go up the hill, the better you know it and the better you'll get.
I'll also add that it you can learn a lot by riding up with someone else and seeing how they attack the course.

I obsess over this stuff, especially over the winter, love seeing the data, so keep at it, just take the info with a grain of salt.
If you don't already have an app to datalog stuff, give it a try, you'd love the stuff.

[Kent Everding]

T6, hmmmm
T9, which one is this again?
T13 through T19, now you are asking a lot... LOL

Knowing the hill would be phenomenal.
Keep in mind Paul that your times got quicker throughout the day, consistent improvement is all you can ask for out of 103 rabid squirrels, especially at Burke!

[sachilles]

For giggles I put this together of my two fastest runs.
Speed over time.
The two runs were 2:31.42 and 2:31.71, so only a fraction of second difference between them. It logs the speed from my obd2 computer in my car.
You can see where I varied a few spots yet still ended up with a similar end result. I find looking at this type of stuff can help me find the faster ways through the course. Of course it's still up to me to repeat them.
If you log every run, you can see how you progress during the day, and see where you are getting faster(and slower).
While I did this as speed vs time, because the times were so similar, you really want to be graphing Speed vs distance.

[Chief Geek]

Sherm is certainly right. There is a huge amount of noise in my "data set", I was just looking for anything that was far out of place.

It does say something about my driving in that my "best" sectors, relatively, are the fast & straight ones. That isn't the way it's supposed to work for a car like mine.

Just for sport, I'd love to add a really fast time to my chart under the same conditions. Did anyone in the top 5 record a good run? I know there is a video of Sherman's best run last year, but that was in the dry and would be much too depressing for the rest of us.

Kent: I just used checkpoints as timing points, plus one extra for the "launch" sector. You'll notice the index card taped to the dash of my car. Those are my notes about which corners I need to slow down for and which are combo's vs single corners. I never got lost, but

Luke: I thought that similarity was interesting too. Steve may have more power than Jason, but I doubt there's much torque difference and, at low revs, Jason probably has the advantage. Also, Jason is probably lighter so the power/weight may not be that different.

Any constructive comments are welcome, good or bad.

Paul

[sachilles]

Course map with turn numbers for reference.
http://www.hillclimb.org/events/burke/b ... ad-map.jpg

The t10-13 section is very neat.
That section gets very steep, so I'm guessing vehicle weight can make a big difference there. So Jason should be lighter than Steve given they are different generations of vw. Both have previous experience at the hill.

I find it interesting to compare mine to Kent's as we basically have the same chassis, but different drivetrain setups. The downside was that it was Kent's first visit, so I don't think our experience there is comparable. Interesting to have some really big contrasts, and other sections there are close to identical.

While I'd agree it's not fair to compare last year to this year, i'd be interested to see how my fastest run from last year with a non turbo motor compares in the same sections.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYzHIMwvdNU