Tag: Pineview Run

I recently had an opportunity to put three drivers of different experience levels in my Veloster N, and have them drive the same track on the same day. I logged the data on my Aim Solo, and by interpreting that in Race Studio we can see exactly how each driver went about their business.

The track is Pineview Run’s short course, and on the driving line, this is just shy of a mile long. Most race tracks are going to be double the size, so keep that in mind when I talk about time deltas.

The car is my Veloster N, completely stock except for the base model’s roof extension, rather than the Veloster N’s spoiler. I removed the spoiler for scanning purposes, and it wouldn’t change any of the results here. Because it was late in the season, I’d put the my track tires in the basement, and so the car was on Linglong Crosswind all-season tires. I don’t believe this affected anything in the test, but it would be interesting to see the results on a proper track tire. Maybe next year.

The drivers

Let’s meet the drivers:

• Green – Dan is a novice driver who has done a couple HPDE weekends, as well as a couple Track Night in America events. He’s recently been signed off for solo driving, and after looking at his data and watching him drive, I can confirm he was ready to graduate. His threshold braking is pretty good, and he has acceptable inputs and awareness. Dan also has a Veloster N, and so it was easy for him to get in my car and go quickly. The track, however, is all new to him, and so it took him a few sessions to throw in a hot lap. In the data, Dan has the green lines because, well, he’s green.
• Red – Jack is an advanced level driver who races in Champcar. He’s an aggressive driver, and so I’m giving him the red colored lines in the data, to signify the red mist. Well, it’s not really red mist, it’s just a driving style that’s reminiscent of a couple other teammates, Ben and Danny. All three of them break traction early in the corner, and then make multiple fast steering corrections to optimize grip, trajectory, and acceleration out of the corner. This style looks aggressive (and exhausting) on video, because it requires many quick inputs, but it’s actually a very calculated and effective way to go fast. Jack has also never been to this track before, and he’s also never driven a FWD car on track, either.
• Blue – I’m the blue lines on the speed trace, because blue signifies cool. Not because I’m a cool cat, but because I drive with a cool head and have a smooth and economical driving style. I admit that the aggressive drivers I’ve mentioned (Ben, Danny, and Jack) are all a bit faster than I am over the course of one lap, but during an endurance race stint, my style is much less abusive on the car, tires, and driver. Because of that, I get into less trouble than anyone I know (3 black flags in 11 years/26 races, and only one was my fault; pat-pat). My big advantage versus the other two drivers here is that I know the track well, because I literally wrote the book on it.

So now we know who the drivers are, we can ask these questions:

• How much does driving experience affect lap times? If we compare the Green and Red drivers, we’ll see that the advanced driver goes three seconds faster than the novice. This is mainly down to three factors, which I’ll explore below.
• How much does track familiarity affect lap times? For this we’ll compare the Red and Blue drivers, and see that track knowledge (and car familiarity) makes a difference of 1.35 seconds.

Novice vs advanced

The first thing we’ll take a look at is how a novice (green) and advanced (red) driver approach a track that’s completely new to them. I’ve put three callouts on speed trace.

1. Novice drivers are taught to brake in a straight line, and so the speed trace shows straight lines on deceleration. As drivers progress in skill, they learn to release the brakes while they turn in. This is called trailbraking, and results in a speed trace that has a “hockey stick” shape. You can see this at point A. Trailbraking picks up a small amount of time in the braking zone, but more importantly, it allows the car to be pointed down track earlier, so the driver can get on the gas earlier.
2. Another trait of advanced drivers is that they “back up the corner.” This means that braking and turning are done earlier, which allows them to get on the gas earlier. On the speed trace, I’ve drawn green and red vertical arrows that show the point where the driver has committed to full throttle. In most corners, you’ll notice that the advanced driver is to the left of the novice driver (backed up). The best example of this is at the 2200′ mark, where the advanced driver is at full throttle 100′ earlier than the novice driver; that’s over 7 car lengths earlier! The result of this is that the advanced driver gains 6/10ths of a second before the next braking zone.
3. Another telltale sign of an advanced driver is a higher minimum speed, or vMin. I’ve drawn two horizontal arrows here, and in this spot the advanced driver is going 5.5 mph faster than the novice driver, at the slowest point in the corner. If you think about it, this is really an 11 mph difference, because the novice driver slows down 5.5 mph more, and then has to accelerate 5.5 mph more just to get back to where the advanced driver started. Novice students are taught to throw away corner speed for the sake of safety (“in slow, out fast”), but advanced drivers know to keep their minimum speed as high as possible.

Finally, it’s worth noting that the advanced driver not only had never driven a FWD car on track, but he only drove one 15-minute session. On the other hand, the novice driver owns the same car and did four sessions. This shows just how much skill and experience level matter. But before we move on, let me point out this novice driver is better than most novices, given the amount of track time he has. Put a first-time track driver in the car, and my novice is going to put six seconds between them, easily.

Advanced knowledge vs advanced

Next let’s take a look at how two advanced drivers go at it. As mentioned earlier, Jack (red) is probably a little faster than I am, but I have car knowledge (my car), and track knowledge (my country club).

There isn’t really that much difference between us. I have a slight advantage going into Turn 2, and hold that while we trade corners back and forth. Going into and out of the Turn 11 (2500′-3000′) is where I gain all my time. With a couple more sessions to figure out that corner, Jack would be a couple tenths off me. Take a look:

1. I’ve put a color-coded circle around each corner indicating which driver had the higher vMin. I have five to Jack’s four, but two of my corners are considerably higher.
2. Jack brakes too early, too deep, and gets on the gas 50′ later than I do. He loses about a second going into and out of The Knuckle. There’s more difference between us in this one corner than the rest of the track combined.

It’s really just that one corner that makes a difference, and it reminds me of another person who is faster than me everywhere but Pineview: my identical twin, Ian. You might know him from You Suck at Racing (blog | book). One reason he’s the fastest on the team is he’s always the fastest through the corner that matters the most. What we’re seeing here is the exact opposite, which is that if you blow an important corner, you blew the lap.

There is one other wrinkle here, which is that Jack was in the passenger seat on my run, but he did his runs without a passenger. Jack is about my size and build (5’11”, 180cm), and I would have gone a bit faster without 180 lbs of ballast. But I’m just grasping at straws here, and with more track time, Jack would eventually surpass me.

Conclusions

In the end, there’s a difference of over four seconds between the three of us, and this on a track that’s only a mile long. On most tracks, it’s safe to say the delta might be 8-9 seconds. Of all the mods you can do to your car, driver mod is the most important mod. And as you can see from the data, you bring that with you, to unfamiliar cars, and to tracks you’ve never driven.