Tag: simulator

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Day 15 – I can’t believe this is happening

This is the last day of iRacing before the big race weekend at Portland International Raceways.  The goal today was the same – another 20+ lap sessions, with no accidents, pushing for consistent, fast but not personal best laps.  Just get into a rhythm and pound out lap, after lap, after lap – all near the limit (or at least mine).

The session started off normal, with low-1:20 lap times steadily falling and then suddenly, lap 6 – BOOM! 1:19.410 – new personal best.  

I smell blood in the water…

That lap was good but there were some small mistakes, I can do better.  So I put my head down and starting pounding away trying to repeat it and make improvements.  over the next 10 or so laps, I got close several times and even spinning at one point, but keeping it out of the wall.

I checked up, let the tires cool down, as I would in real life and went back at it.

More mid-1:19’s and suddenly… 1:19.351 – another half tenth shaved off.  But I wanted more, especially with a low fuel load, I knew I could do it.  So I pushed on but ultimately, I dropped a tire on the exit of the chicane and ended up with a 1:19.398.

Oh so close!!!

What happened?

I found that if I can slow down, just a tiny bit more, in the entrance of the ‘esses’ and turn 7 and the chicane, I was able to get the car turned faster and back on throttle and full throttle, sooner. Same lesson from before, just applying it better and better.

Check out the throttle traces of the graph below.

Slow down earlier, get the car turned and then get back on throttle.

Now seeing as that new personal best was done at the end of the session, with yes lower fuel – it was also well past the peak performance of the tires. Something I started thinking about today, as I have been preparing for the Portland race this weekend, is that I’ve noticed that many times, in a real world race, my fastest lap of the race comes in around lap 2-4.

This is when the tires, brakes and everything are at their prime conditions. I wonder what could happen if we did a low fuel run, with just 5 or so laps and fresh tires? I am thinking that the lap times would come down significantly!

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Day 14 – A day late but faster

I’m not going to lie – I had a long night of work on Sunday night and didn’t go to bed until just past 1am PST.  So when the alarm went off at 5:30am, I could barely move enough to shut the alarm down.  So I did not race at all on Monday, instead deciding to be as fresh as I could for the next morning.

And it was a good trade off – I was not only able to put together another 19 lap session with no crashes but I got a new personal best, mid-way through the session for a 1:19.476 – almost .3 faster than before.

What happened?

I’ve heard the following in various places and this is exactly what happened – whoever gets on full throttle first, without lifting, wins.  I slowed down just a touch more for Turn 7, was able to get and stay on full throttle, just a fraction of a second sooner.  This resulted in a massive drop in lap time as we approached the back-straight chicane and then, in this section, I worked on having a wider entry into the chicane, clipping both FIA rumble strips and getting on throttle as soon as I could.

All together, these two changes resulted in that almost .3 second improvement in fastest lap time!

Checkout the delta chart (second graph from the top) – you’ll see the dramatic decrease in turns 7 – 12.

Faster Average Lap Times and Average Fast Lap Times

More and more, this is what I am most excited about. Not just being able to put together one flying lap, but being able to be faster, consistently. My average lap times improved by almost .1 seconds and my average fast lap times improved by just over .2 seconds! Boom!

Specifically, it’s similar reasons as to how I improved my ultimate fastest lap – better runs into the back straight, the chicane but also, being able to get the car turned, faster and carry more speed through the ‘esses’.

Checkout the delta graph, throttle and brake pressure graphs. Getting on and staying on full throttle first, wins!

Preparing for the real world

I’m really jacked about the progress, especially with a big race coming this next weekend at Portland International Raceways, with the Chicane. This track, because we run it twice and has been one of my weaker tracks, is exactly why I chose to train with Road Atlanta as the test track. Getting on throttle, quick, for long straight aways and a chicane are what I need to improve on for this track and excited to see how this translates to on-track results.

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Day 13 – Less than 20% Unclean!

I have been working on driving more consistent… err… consistently, with some success but today, it finally all clicked and came together like never before.

I woke up, tired as usual, did my stretching, some cross-crawls (thanks Ross Bentley and Speed Secrets!) and lazy eight’s, just like I do in the real world and got on my way.  And for the first time ever, 20+ laps of just about all clean driving.  I did drop some tires and got a little sideways but I forced myself to try to save the car, slow down and collect myself, just like in the real world.  And it worked!

20+ laps of mostly clean running!

The best part? Nestled in there are five sub-1:20 lap times and I didn’t feel like I was risking life and limb to make them happen!

On average, what changed?

It was really just one segment – segment 7, which includes turns 10a, 10b, 11 and 12.  The chicane in the back straight away and all the way to start/finish.  With my next real-world race being at Portland International Raceways, this time being run with the ‘Festival Chicane’ in the annual Chicane Challenge event, getting a great run out of the chicane has been top of mind for me.

I made it my goal today to get the best dang run out of the chicane, on power and going to full throttle, without having to lift, the top priority and I think it’s worked! Here are a couple of proof points:

1. Braking earlier, settling the car, aiming towards the backside of the 10ab apex and getting on throttle faster.

The changes are small but they are making a difference.

2. No new personal best but the average fast lap, is faster!

Just barely but the trend holds true even for the fastest laps – I am braking slightly earlier, softer and getting on throttle sooner.

Comparison of yesterday’s and today’s average fastest lap. Small but there are differences in the right direction.

Today was one of the most satisfying days – not only was I able to get into a groove, I worked up a serious sweat and did not have a single incident – how it should be in the real world. I’m excited to keep this going and build momentum of sessions where I get serious laps in and while finding little nuggets of speed here and there.

When I first started a couple weeks ago, I would not have even dreamt of low 1:19 lap times. Now I believe they are not only possible but even 1:18’s are possible in the next 30 days!

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Day 1 – 30 Days of Racing in a Row Challenge

YouTube player

Alright, so after getting all the updates installed, it was time to drive for the first time on this 30 day challenge.

Three, two…. [FREEZE] …one, go!

Well, it didn’t get off to a great start.  Almost immediately as I loaded up the Mercedes AMG GT3 and Road Atlanta, I noticed that it took a long time for the server to connect and the actual sim environment to load.  Alright, no worries – it’s early for me too, maybe the internet needs some coffee.

Once I got into the car and started heading out, within the first 30 seconds of a lap, I got a freeze/stuttering experience but the car would come back and I could keep going.  Ok, that sucks but let’s stay focused and keep going.

But then it happened again, and again, and again.  Time for evasive actions.

Step 1: Check video quality settings

I remember at one point last month, a big Windows update wiped out my settings and driver stuff for the NVIDIA graphics card and in my attempt to fix stuff, I made a bunch of changes in the iRacing graphics settings.  So I reset them all to somewhat default settings, while still allowing for three monitors.

Went back to racing and… still had issues.  No perceived change.  Frustration level: 4

Step 2: Check background processes and other things that could be using up the internet connection

I shut down iRacing and checked out what other processes were happening that might be using internet bandwidth:

  • OneDrive – it was syncing 9GB of stuff, of which I should just not sync anything on this computer since I only use it for iRacing.  Sigh.
  • Other browser windows – there were a couple other browser windows, like Virtual Racing School, so I closed those down.
  • Steam console – it was connected and I tried to close it but it kept popping back up.  🙁

Result? A somewhat perceivable difference so I decided to keep going and just get as much seat time in as I had already burned through 40 minutes of my hour.

Result: Limited quality track time

This was really frustrating.  I got about 6 or 7 clean laps and most were ruined by the stuttering.  My son was awake and I decided to figure it out later and at least see if my data was being logged by the Virtual Racing School system and while the lap times sucked, at least that worked.

Aha! Found the culprit!

Just as I was about to get out of the sim rig, I decided to search on the web for other people who have had this issue.  Pages were loading slowly but loading and then suddenly, everything stopped loading.  WTF?  Did my internet go down?  Checked networked status and no, packets are still being sent and received.  I was about to get up to reset the router and modem when I looked over and saw my phone that I had used to record the part 1 of this day 1 video blog and it was uploading the HD video to YouTube.

I paused the upload, turned off the WiFi on the phone and looked at the PC.  Suddenly, the pages were loading again.  Then literally a few seconds later, I see a pop up from Windows that it was getting ready to install the Windows 10 Creators Update.  Great.  So two big upload and downloads were essentially eating up the internet connection.

Lesson learned? Make sure your internet connection is clear and prioritized for your iRacing.  Having someone else uploading something, streaming a movie, having a Skype video chat, will not do you any favors.