Kart Data-loggers can be a shortcut to success and improving your race timing or, it could be a total waste of your time.
Here's an insight on where to focus your attention to make sure you don't get buried under a mountain of useless numbers.
One usually expects the timer and the data logged to tell them exactly the driver was going wrong and how to fix it. That's a mistake many make. You could get lost amongst an indecipherable bunch of lines and numbers.
However, using a data-logger has practical uses and can make learning the fast way round a track so much easier, but only when you cut out all the gibberish and focus on two things.
Look at the speed channel, and use it to find out which corners make the difference to laptimes.
The beauty of kart data aquisition is that it can show you exactly where on the tracky was fast, you were fast and how that affected your laptime. And the most important data is your KPH trace, or your RPM trace. Lets say you do a 10 lap session, and inexplicably did a lap half a second quicker than the rest. So, you look at the speed trace for that lap, compare it to the rest of your laps and look for the corners where you were carrying more speed. Now the temptation is to look at throttle, braking and lines mapping and give yourself an information overload.
Instead, you need to spend the practice day with focus on those quick corners so that you can 'home in' on the quick way round the most important corners. And when it comes to a pressure situation you will resort to that knowledge and carry on banging in quick laps, rather than overdriving and blowing the race. Another tool which can shortcut this process is a video camera with video analysis software
In practical terms, here's a procedure you could use to quickly get up to speed on a new track
1. Do a couple of sessions and use the data-logger to find the most important corners using the speed channel to identify those corners on his quickest laps
2. Concentrate on one of those corners at a time and experiment with your methods for that corner, so you can find a formula to acheive the highest speed on that corner.
3. Experiment with set up to acheive the quickest speed through that corner, you will have a good feel for the corner and will want the kart to work really well there, and therefore be quite demanding about set-up.
More often than not, the most important corners are long fast sweeps which require careful speed control, or ones leading onto the straight...however, this isn't always the case and your data-logger can reveal hidden secrets to quick times around your track, which is info your competition will rarely pick up.
Now working in this way with the speed channel is going to give you a great feel for using your data-logger and you will then start to want more information to work with, then you can refine your approach and start to look at more channels.
Here's an insight on where to focus your attention to make sure you don't get buried under a mountain of useless numbers.
One usually expects the timer and the data logged to tell them exactly the driver was going wrong and how to fix it. That's a mistake many make. You could get lost amongst an indecipherable bunch of lines and numbers.
However, using a data-logger has practical uses and can make learning the fast way round a track so much easier, but only when you cut out all the gibberish and focus on two things.
Look at the speed channel, and use it to find out which corners make the difference to laptimes.
The beauty of kart data aquisition is that it can show you exactly where on the tracky was fast, you were fast and how that affected your laptime. And the most important data is your KPH trace, or your RPM trace. Lets say you do a 10 lap session, and inexplicably did a lap half a second quicker than the rest. So, you look at the speed trace for that lap, compare it to the rest of your laps and look for the corners where you were carrying more speed. Now the temptation is to look at throttle, braking and lines mapping and give yourself an information overload.
Instead, you need to spend the practice day with focus on those quick corners so that you can 'home in' on the quick way round the most important corners. And when it comes to a pressure situation you will resort to that knowledge and carry on banging in quick laps, rather than overdriving and blowing the race. Another tool which can shortcut this process is a video camera with video analysis software
In practical terms, here's a procedure you could use to quickly get up to speed on a new track
1. Do a couple of sessions and use the data-logger to find the most important corners using the speed channel to identify those corners on his quickest laps
2. Concentrate on one of those corners at a time and experiment with your methods for that corner, so you can find a formula to acheive the highest speed on that corner.
3. Experiment with set up to acheive the quickest speed through that corner, you will have a good feel for the corner and will want the kart to work really well there, and therefore be quite demanding about set-up.
More often than not, the most important corners are long fast sweeps which require careful speed control, or ones leading onto the straight...however, this isn't always the case and your data-logger can reveal hidden secrets to quick times around your track, which is info your competition will rarely pick up.
Now working in this way with the speed channel is going to give you a great feel for using your data-logger and you will then start to want more information to work with, then you can refine your approach and start to look at more channels.
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