Let's file this one under: Bad Sweeper exit----BAD! Go to your room! And don't come out until you give me my half-a-second back!
Alright, well a dogbone weekend wouldn't be complete without a little crying in your spilled data milk. I mean, isn't that what the data is there for? To make you feel like crap about your driving? Wait---that's not what it's for?
During the GTA event, someone encouraged me to update my AIM Race Studio software because they were really digging the new RS3 Analysis software. So, while at the track, I installed the latest AIM software. The new RS3 Analysis has a few features I really like. The rest of the newness is---whatever. The nice part is that you can till use RS2 Analysis if you want to. They're both available.
What I like in RS3 Analysis:
-My favorite feature is that while comparing laps in the analysis software, you can now assign whatever lap you want as the reference lap. Been wishing for that for a long time.
-It's nice to see your driving line drawn onto a Google map image of the track.
-the default layout has your Measures page with the map visible for easy viewing.
What I don't like:
-RS3 Analysis is not consistent with old AIM sessions from the original DL device. Some stuff doesn't show up right and you need to go back to RS2.
-Exporting sessions as CSV files for Race Render is quite a bit less convenient.
-So far, map handling when using your own custom maps with your own splits is clumsy and problematic. Tech support says it's mostly a Buttonwillow thing.....huh?
Not working yet:
-There is a totally new feature called Predictive Reference Laps that I'm curious about. Basically, you can choose a lap and transmit it to the AIM Solo 2 DL and tell it to use that lap time as the reference lap that all your laps will be compared to. So, for example, I should be able to choose my Buttonwillow fast lap from 2018, and then transmit that lap to the AIM so that every lap I run throughout a day is compared to that lap. I haven't been able to make it work yet, and tech support wasn't super familiar with it and couldn't help me, so I'm not sure this feature is fully up and running yet. It might only be in beta mode......don't know...Ironically, tech support sent me a pdf of how to get it up and running, but my software doesn't show the same things as in the pdf. Anyway, I think this could be a cool feature.
ok, let's look at a little data----Below is a screenshot comparing the two 1:47 laps that were in the video. The blue reference lap is the first lap 1:47.3, and then red lap is the 2nd lap that was 1:47.2---the one where the Sweeper exit was not my best moment.
What we can see here is that red lap's time delta line was below (faster than) the blue reference line for most of the lap. And where I have the cursor at the braking point for Sweeper, it was 0.493sec faster than the previous 1:47.3 blue lap. This puts me squarely in 1:46 territory for most of the lap. However, I got impatient in the middle of Sweeper and it cost me. You can see at the minimum speed of sweeper inside the green circle, I tried to accelerate a bit to keep speed up. But all this did was create more understeer and force me to have to wait to get on the gas at the exit of Sweeper. You can see in the speed chart that the red acceleration line is quite a bit to the right of the blue acceleration line, which means I got on the gas noticeably later. This is what cost me the time. And in the lower chart in the lower green circle, you can see all that 0.493second advantage vaporizes as I go up the Esses.....
My takeaway from this is that I need to enter Sweeper with as much speed as possible, allow the turn to scrub speed, and then stay off the gas so that my weight balance keeps weight on the nose, so that when I want to do the final turn-in to exit Sweeper in that decreasing radius moment, I have steering grip, and then I can get on the gas as early possible for the exit. The data seems to show that keeping speed up in Sweeper by pressing the gas creates understeer issues that force you to wait to get on the gas at exit. And since that's the beginning of a really long full-gas pedal section, getting on the gas as quickly as possible is the best choice.
So, as usual, I have plenty of stuff to think about for next time. Wish I didn't have to wait a whole month!