Jan 16 FAST Open - Post-Event Discussion

[tdinfl]

Thanks Doug! Looks like it was a tough day for both of us in S0. Fun course though, and I felt like I drove pretty well. Got to pick up ~3 seconds though???

[twistedwankel]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say:

"There were a few upsets today."

Tony and I were off our game and would have finished 2nd and 3rd in S1 and about 8th in S4

Congrats to Sam Marion for finally getting his head around that GT3.

Doug

[Loren]

Thanks once again to EVERYONE for helping us put together another great event!

[Loren]

"There were a few upsets today."

Well, I certainly got MY ass handed to me from 3 sides today.

Results are up on the website, btw.

[15GTrob]

Here's an in car of two of my runs. The first I got a little squirely going into the slalom. The second was my best lap @54.5. I was really surprised how manageable the car was being supercharged and being on stock tires and suspension! For what ever reason you will see that the cross over was my nemesis I couldn't seem to get that into my head I feel like I lost a lot of time there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHGNMEH7eps

[jbrannon7]

My run 4, 48.2xx, good enough for 3rd in M2 and 8th overall. Should have been a little faster to catch Freakin' Drew.

https://youtu.be/-_BcC_pgBVE

[Loren]

Something I've noticed in most of the videos that I've seen so far. Subtle, but worth a tenth or two...

The outgoing slalom was spaced about 62-62-66-70-75. (on the map, it's 62-62-62-75-75... we adjusted the 3rd cone at setup to make it more of a consistently increasing slalom) So, it was pretty much a "maintenance" slalom through the first 3 cones, but once you were around the 4th cone, you could be on the gas.

Most of the videos I'm seeing, you don't hear people getting on the gas until they are passing the LAST slalom cone!

Perhaps it's because I drive slow cars that have taught me to do everything possible to get on the gas as EARLY as possible that I see things like that. (of course, I designed it... that helps... but, y'all should be pacing off your slaloms when you walk the course and thinking about what the distance is doing and what you might be able to do with it)

The other thing that a lot of people messed up (not seeing it in the vids yet) was the sequence before the finish. They were (I assume) trying to carry too much speed through the last right turn or braking to late for that. Pushing wide, getting all out of shape and making the turn back to the left toward the finish "dramatic" or worse. Keeping the car under control and "staying ahead" of that left-right element set you up for a straight shot past the very last apex on the right. If you got it right, that was a straight. If you messed it up, you were having to turn to clear that last apex. (Joe's video is a good example of getting this right, he braked way early for the left-right and was on-throttle and straight through the finish with no drama)

[NervesOfThrill]

Watching Joe's run reminded me just how much I loved the sound of that S54 engine.

Rather than posting my fastest competition run I'd rather post 2 videos for comparison, input and observation since I'm still in massive learning mode. First video is Drew's run in my car, the second video is my fastest run (sans the cone I crushed at the end) which was my 2nd run after riding with Drew, nearly 2 seconds (raw) faster than my fastest morning run and the one I felt like I strung the best passess through the most sections in.

Obviously Drew did pretty much all of the sections better, but the 2 that stood out the most to me compared to my morning runs were the last section before the first green crossover cone and the turnaround; which you'll hear my admiration of in the video. After riding with Drew I feel like I implemented much of what I saw but could never reproduce Drew's results in the turnaround. I think he was trail braking with a smooth transition to the throttle out, whereas I tried to brake just enough to get the car neutralized, maintenance throttled through and then throttle steered out. My way sucked all but once.

PLEASE BE WARNED THERE IS SOME COLORFUL LANGUAGE WHEN I HIT THE CONE IN THE 2ND VIDEO. If you are offended by a brief explosion of profanity please skip it. It was my best run and I'm too lazy to edit the audio, so no getting around it.

Drew's run:
https://youtu.be/iKeLyO3z-fk

My "best" run:
https://youtu.be/UIvkUmRBzzY

[CaptainSquirts]

Here's my fastest run of the day, 50.274. I still see a nice chunk of things I could've done better. If you see what I could do to improve then let me know. I like Constructive criticisms.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_LI7NJ6pKo

[NervesOfThrill]

Well look at FAST getting all media savvy on Facebook now. Here is an expletive free run if you are looking for more to post.

https://youtu.be/N0mSKO-rSQY

[AScoda]

First video is Drew's run in my car

That was a 50.7xx if anyone is using it for comparison.

[Loren]

I've been media savvy for years, I'm just lazy.

Most of the YouTube videos that I see get added to the FAST Gallery, because that's super-easy. http://drivefast.org/gallery/videos/

Sometimes if I see a FAST video in my Facebook feed, I'll share it to the FAST page. Y'all can do the same!

[Carracer]

I don't have video (yet) but I do have pictures! Feel free to use them for whatever you want.

https://flic.kr/s/aHsksXoTVS

Thanks to everyone that spotted for me!

I also started a facebook page, I plan to start posting more about the "photography" end of autocross. https://www.facebook.com/Philipsphotographs/

[ImpostorDan]

Matt made my car look so good... so proud!

His "2" was really ug-ly but I guess that met the timing booth's needs... really, I mean I'm not bitter or anything. Nor am I keeping a list or anything, really... nah, nothing.

EDIT: As always Philip, great photos!

[puncturina]

Hey Philip -- no pictures of that tortoise that was headed for the runway? Thanks for rescuing him.

[twistedwankel]

First video is Drew's run in my car

That was a 50.7xx if anyone is using it for comparison.

I had a 50.632 on that same course so I was .06 second faster in print. You can wait for the movie to come out if you want? I think I got you off the line.

Doug

[Loren]

That was a 50.7xx if anyone is using it for comparison.

I had a 50.632 on that same course so I was .06 second faster in print. You can wait for the movie to come out if you want? I think I got you off the line.

Ben ran a 50.5xx in Soraya's Honda Fit. You probably had him off the line, too.

(I also ran a 50.5 in the same car on an extra run. I wonder if Soroya got video of either of those... mine would include the moment where I remembered that her car had ABS!)

[Loren]

PLEASE BE WARNED THERE IS SOME COLORFUL LANGUAGE WHEN I HIT THE CONE IN THE 2ND VIDEO. If you are offended by a brief explosion of profanity...

I was expecting so much more.

[Carracer]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_izmkSKhlQ

My best clean run and my best dirty run. My only clean run was when I was feeling out the car didn't hit 1 mark, darn it. I'm amazed it was as fast as it was for the driving. Messed up my only 49. I think outside of my terrible finish ( braked about 35ft late ) on that 49 my driving actually wasn't that bad. If anyone could provide some tips on how I can get more time out of my run it would be great. Now that S4 has yet another fast car I really need to figure something out.

Hey Philip -- no pictures of that tortoise that was headed for the runway? Thanks for rescuing him.

I got a picture

turtle.jpg (181.22 KiB) Viewed 10885 times

[friskyflea]

That was a 50.7xx if anyone is using it for comparison.

I had a 50.632 on that same course so I was .06 second faster in print. You can wait for the movie to come out if you want? I think I got you off the line.

Ben ran a 50.5xx in Soraya's Honda Fit. You probably had him off the line, too.

(I also ran a 50.5 in the same car on an extra run. I wonder if Soroya got video of either of those... mine would include the moment where I remembered that her car had ABS!)

I have video of both your and Ben's runs in little Chispa. I will post them soon. This weekend has been a blur: starting from Friday at 5 AM til now, I had 2 trips to Orlando and back [with no speeding tickets, woohoo ] , one 8.5 hr advisory board meeting for a big pharma company, two very pre-dawn mornings with routine past-midnight bedtimes, one 75 min nat'l level meeting presentation with the unavoidable 1 hr post-lecture unscheduled Q & A session, and 1.5 AX events: I had 3 runs with PCA during their afternoon half - it was martini day for me with 2/3 runs dirty, but loved my raw times. Still fine tuning my driving with the newly tinkered front end suspension change. Got home at 6pm today and promptly faceplanted on the couch for 2 hrs. Just finished getting caught up with email & FB and will be messing with videos next.

PS - I also have telemetry data logged from the guest driver runs... y'know, breaking zones, throttle position, speed... blah, blah, blah, to mine for information between now and the Enduro (working the 30th). And before you ask, I use an external 10 Hz GPS receiver, not the phone's 1 Hz function (OK for getting start and finish coordinates, or your Sunday drive to Aunt Bessie's ) Geekiness has its advantages.

Race Render is calling my name... BWAH-hahahahaha!