Saturday, July 26, 2008

Classic Skylines Australia Track Day - Winton Raceway

My aim for this track day was to keep doing what I was doing before and use RaceChrono data logging to see where I could improve. Due to the poorly run day, I only managed two sessions. I think that if we had the opportunity for more sessions, I could have performed on the fly analysis of the data and evolve my driving style with each successive session.

Practice Session
Due to the traffic in this session, I did not get one clear lap. Therefore, I am discounting the times for the session.

Session 1
The track still felt slippery despite being mid afternoon, and the track had not been swept enough like it would have had there been morning sessions. I also felt that the tyres were not getting enough heat into them either. I only managed to get with half a second of my PB of 1:43.600.

1:54.5000
1:45.0000
1:49.0200
1:45.0300
1:46.1700
1:44.0600

Session 2
This session felt much better, the track surface was grippier and the tyres felt like they reached optimal temperature within a couple of laps. However, I still only managed to come within 0.15 seconds of my PB.

1:57.4700
1:46.4000
1:43.9700
1:43.7500 *BEST LAP BUT NO PB
1:44.6700
1:45.3600

Below is a map of the track with speeds at each corner:


My speed vs distance graph with numbers on graph corresponding to corner numbers in the track map above:



Silas' speed vs distance graph for comparison:




After comparing my speed graph to his, Silas suggested that I'm braking too late on some corners. In particular:

- Turn 1: ~80kph (me) vs ~60kph (Silas)
- Turns 4, 5 & 6: I should take turn 5 slower in order to take turn 6 faster and get a faster exit on to the straight before turn 7.
- Turns 7, 8 & 9: I have corner speeds approximately 10kph less than Silas on each corner so I'm either braking too much or braking too late and then suddenly needing to apply more brakes than required.

Therefore, I must remember the slow in, fast out rule for rear wheel drive cars and try harder to get faster exit speeds on to longer straights.

Full results:
http://www.natsoft.com.au/cgi-bin/results.cgi?26/07/2008.WIN

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