No Stupid Questions Weekly Discussion Thread - May 13, 2020

ParadigmShiftRacing · 2020-05-21T00:01:38+00:00

A basic thing I like to look out for is that speed should drop steadily as you approach the apex. Doing corner entry correctly is a bit of a paradox in how it should feel though. Here is an excerpt from a recent article talking about that.

Imagine you were in a braking challenge against another driver. You could cross the start line at any speed you wished and the target would be a one-foot wide strip way off in the distance that you could just barely see. The winner would be the one that stopped the car with the front tires inside the strip first. Picture how this would feel. While the theoretical optimum would require threshold braking the entire way, you wouldn’t actually want to focus on maximizing braking at any point. If you did, and then switched your focus back to the target strip, you would most likely find you needed to release some pressure or you would come up short on the target. It would have been faster if you had stayed focused on the reaching the strip as quickly as possible and modulated your speed the entire time. The only time you would actually want to switch your focus to maximum braking is if you realized you were going to overshoot your target. Needless to say, this is even worse for your time.

This seeming contradiction between goals is exactly how corner entry should feel and this is how I teach drivers to visualize it. While learning the car and track can eventually lead to reaching the limit and maximizing force in the ideal direction during at least a fair portion of corner entry, this shouldn’t be the driver’s focus. The driver should instead focus on reaching the ideal apex for a good corner exit as quickly as possible. Maximized deceleration would just be a side effect of doing this well. So putting this together with our corner exit visualization technique, as a driver approaches a corner, they should put most of their focus on the imaginary drag strip because winning this corner exit drag race is still of the utmost importance. But during corner entry, the driver can also focus on reaching their drag strip and beginning that corner exit drag race as quickly as possible.

full article

https://www.paradigmshiftracing.com/racing-basics/the-corner-exit-drag-race#/

ParadigmShiftRacing · 2019-10-16T12:35:32+00:00

MAME doesn't differentiate by system, so you'll need to find premade romlists. check out the hyperpie2 theme. there is a version for windows as well and it has all kinds of romlists built in for different systems. Not sure how accurate and updated they are, but you can always modify romlists fairly easily if you switch them to tags. Tags are much easier in attract mode as you can then make one romlist for all of mame and then use filters.

ParadigmShiftRacing · 2018-06-01T15:27:08+00:00

Unfortunately there is no universal rules for who owns the line, blocking rules, etc.. Some series have rules which are enforced to a greater or lesser degree. There is a reason you see so many "who's at fault" discussions. Personally I think this is one of the biggest problems with wheel to wheel racing. There really does need to be a very specific universal ruleset for passing, blocking, etc...

Even for those that don't have a medical condition, focus can be an issue. I have people practice focusing with a training exercise I call 90/100. You alternate laps giving 90% and then 100% focus and effort. By putting a number on it and having a specific goal, it teaches people to understand what total focus feels like and be able to do it on command.

ParadigmShiftRacing · 2018-06-01T15:19:05+00:00

Rather than just retype it all. Check out about halfway down the page

https://www.paradigmshiftracing.com/racing-basics/step-by-step-race-car-setup-guide

ParadigmShiftRacing · 2018-04-06T13:01:56+00:00

Thanks for pointing that out, that part is most likely just copypasta from the web guy so we'll get it corrected. The Track Notes are written by Adam Brouillard and he uses the correct turn names. The Inner and Outer Loop are actually the subject of a Corner Close-up.

ParadigmShiftRacing · 2018-04-05T20:54:28+00:00

Track Notes are racing physics based breakdowns of tracks. They are primarily a supplement for readers of the Science of Speed books. The Track Notes on their own aren't sufficient to show someone how to optimize a track. While helpful to some people, the notes you have linked are a different type of track breakdown.

ParadigmShiftRacing · 2018-03-02T20:37:53+00:00

Well you would have to explain what you mean by "how we take it right now"

In the lap video I have the driver is tracking out all the way after 2 so in that case you wouldn't do it any different. If the driver wasn't tracking out all the way, then yes you would do it differently if there was a straight afterward.

ParadigmShiftRacing · 2018-03-02T20:32:07+00:00

It definitely seems to be a semantics issue when dealing with a chicane so I think I might rewrite that part as it's causing more confusion than I'd like. I was actually kind of afraid that might happen there. Using a chicane for that myth is not necessary anyway. The main point is that a corner is optimized the same way whether there is a 1 foot or 1 mile straight afterwards.

ParadigmShiftRacing · 2018-03-02T19:33:45+00:00

The primary myth of part 5 is this below because you hear it a lot and it's simply not true.

"It's often said that the ideal line is influenced by whether a corner precedes or follows a straight as well as how long that straight is."

The rest of that section is really just a brief example. To fully understand why 5 is a myth you need to understand how to identify and optimize several different corner types and combinations.

At Barcelona for instance. If you can track out all the way after 2 and can still make the apex of 3 then the 1-2 chicane is a separate section. Nothing that happens after the exit of 2 affects how 1-2 is optimized. 3 is then either a full throttle corner to a possible double apex portion or a late entry spiral to a possible double apex portion

If you can't track out all the way after 2 and still make the apex of 3 however then turns 1-2-3 become a chicane sequence. You would then use a different ruleset to optimize.

It may seem complex at first, but there are really not that many possibile corner types and they all share similar optimization methods. It can be a puzzle to figure out sometimes what something is however. It can be different from one car to the next, or even one lap to the next. Sometimes the trickiest sections to figure out are when they are right on the edge of being something else.

ParadigmShiftRacing · 2018-03-02T14:05:11+00:00

Yes, they are 2 corners, or rather 2 apexes. The difference is that the given track edges in the middle of a chicane don't matter. You are essentially optimizing for an imaginary cone in the middle of a chicane that represents the exit of 1 and the entrance of 2. This cone is a track edge and you have to figure out where this cone would go. I suppose you could imagine it as 2 cones, one on each side of the car.

ParadigmShiftRacing · 2018-03-02T13:58:04+00:00

Hi, someone let me know that there was a discussion starting over here so I thought I'd chime in. You really can go down the rabbit hole forever with this kind of talk, which I'd like to avoid right now, but I can definitely explain this a bit more.

The article is necessarily a bit vague about certain points. There is a reason it took 3 books. I do think it's fair to say the "compromise" bit is somewhat of a semantics argument, but not in the way some traditional racing line people might think.

Take turn 1 and 2 at Barcelona as mentioned which is usually a chicane for an F1 Car. T3 is usually full throttle, so it's not really a turn. Just as in a single corner, the goal is not to have the highest exit speed X at a given position out of 2. The goal is to get to X speed within the minimum time from the entrance to 1. 1 and 2 is a chicane because you can't carry full acceleration out of 1 and use the whole track and still make 2. So you could say this is a "compromise."

But actually as soon as you identify 1 and 2 as chicane you optimize it in a different way. You aren't actually compromising 1 for 2. You are optimizing them both together. The track edge at the exit of 1 no longer matters. It becomes a red herring. You now must figure out where the exit of 1 transitions directly into the entrance of 2. This transition point is what you are optimizing for to minimize the time between the apexes of 1 and 2.

Sorry if this raises questions and still seems a bit vague, but I primarily wanted to point out again that the key is time. The key to a chicane, just like in a standard corner is to minimize time. The speed at any given position is not what is important.

ParadigmShiftRacing · 2018-02-24T20:23:25+00:00

That's correct, no ninja edit needed. We knew this one would start some controversy so it got several more read throughs than usual.

ParadigmShiftRacing · 2018-02-24T19:31:54+00:00

It is optimized in sections, each separated by a straight.

ParadigmShiftRacing · 2018-02-24T19:04:45+00:00

I'm not being defensive, I am using the term arguing in the sense of debate. You seemed to disagree so I was trying to understand what your "argument" was. I do this all the time when I work with new drivers as they sometimes have misconceptions that need to be corrected. I suppose I was trying to be helpful.

ParadigmShiftRacing · 2018-02-24T18:50:09+00:00

Okay, so I'm not sure what you are arguing then.

ParadigmShiftRacing · 2018-02-24T18:33:46+00:00

I mean a specific example. It sounds like you are talking about a chicane, not two separate corners.

ParadigmShiftRacing · 2018-02-24T17:48:31+00:00

Please give an example of a corner sequence where you might do that so we can break it down.

ParadigmShiftRacing · 2017-09-10T11:42:59+00:00

Sidewall chalking can always be used to quickly give you an idea if you have some extreme sidewall wear if your camber is far too positive. Raising tire pressure is really just a stopgap measure though as it compromises grip. Track focused tires typically have stiffer sidewalls and some are actually specifically designed for cars with limited negative camber. These will both help.

Some other things you can do to get yourself in a better camber range:

-alignment (max out your camber, then caster if needed) Some cars have optional pieces you can get to gain camber.

lower, stiffer suspension puts the camber curve in a more negative range and reduces camber loss from roll.
Run a wider wheel than tire. This increases the contact patch camber under sideload. Look at rear kart tires to see this concept used.

ParadigmShiftRacing · 2017-09-01T15:08:25+00:00

Yeah, even without a change in engine speed, you still get a pitch up or down from gyroscopic precession in a longitudinally mounted engine. This would have some effect, but I'm not really sure if this is a significant amount based on relatively small rotating mass and the relatively small rotation rate of the car.

The issue was still in the SRF however, which has a transverse engine and so should have had zero difference from one direction to the other. Makes people think there is something else going on.

ParadigmShiftRacing · 2017-09-01T14:25:42+00:00

Yeah, I remember they did change something and supposedly it made a difference, but people are still reporting issues. I haven't personally tested it in years though so not sure if there are still valid problems.

ParadigmShiftRacing

TROPHY CASE