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James Cater Racing

~ Realising the childhood dream…

James Cater Racing

Tag Archives: on the edge

How To Get Faster

23 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by jamescaterracing in Formula Vee, Racing, Technique, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

2017, braking, faster, formula vee, going faster, how to, learning, on the edge, power, racing, racing line, rookie, technique

How To Get Faster

Once you get a feel for the car that you’re racing – and that part is just down to getting laps in the seat – you’ll probably find that you have to have a bit of a think about how to get faster.

At first, it’s all your brain can take to be able to actually control your car at high speed, and try not to exceed the limits. This soon becomes a subconscious act, and you’ll find that you’re able to think about other aspects of driving – and here’s where you can improve.

In my experience, the most important things to work on:

Racing line

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Learn the racing line. The racing line will effectively straighten out every corner, allowing you to carry more speed through them. There is a natural line to most tracks that you’ll get a feel for quickly, but there are lots of exceptions where the racing line will be different because of bumps or the camber of the track. Playing games may miss out some of these things, but watching onboard videos and following other cars around will help you, here.

And it leads neatly into the next thing…

Use all the track!

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If you’re ever more than a few millimetres away from the edge of the circuit, then you could have done it faster.

It’s amazing how even experienced racers will drive like they’re scared of the edge of the track – often sitting a foot or more away from the edge before turning into a corner.

If you concentrate on being as close as you can to the edge of the track, and follow the racing line, it will open the track up massively. Everything will feel less rushed, and you’ll be able to carry more speed everywhere. A few inches really can make all the difference!

Braking points

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This is the main thing I watch videos for. I want to know exactly where the fast drivers are slamming the anchors on, so that I have a reference point to do the same. Consistent braking is the key, here, because you need to spend time working on it to be able to brake at the maximum.

And I should say that I’m talking about straight-line braking – once you’ve got this down, you should brake even later and trail brake up to the apex of the corner. Not everyone trail-brakes, and I suspect a lot also trail brake without knowing they’re even doing it…

Getting the power down

http://www.globalserve.net/~trauttf/Gilles/Gil_Vill.jpg

This one is actually between straight-line braking and trail-braking. If you’re on the power early, you should be able to carry more speed down the next straight. You should get the power on early enough that it carries the car right out to the very edge of the track on the exit – if you’re exiting the corner 2 foot away from the curb then you could have got the power down earlier, and done it faster.

This is also the safest way to go faster. if you go slowly into the corner but are fast coming out, it’s better (unless you’re racing another car that will stuff it up the inside of you and do a block pass!). If you go into a corner too fast you’ll just crash, run wide, or naturally have to exit the corner slower to stay on the track, so this is a far riskier way to get faster.

If you go in nice and safely and then get on the throttle, you can get off the throttle again if it all goes pear-shaped, or save it with some opposite lock (or drift it around on the power and look like a proper hero!).

“Slow in, fast out” is a great mantra.

Break it down

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Once you have all this, you’ll find you’re not doing it on every single corner. There will always be some corners that you’re slower in.

Take one corner at a time, and work on it. This is where testing helps a lot.

These are all the things you can do that can gain big chunks of time. There are a lot more smaller things that will chip away at those last tenths, and to be honest, even after a year and a bit of racing, I’m still not at a level where these smaller things are worth too much worry.

There are also the things that will make you smoother but not necessarily gain any time – heel and toe, anyone?

And so we’re nearly ready to kick off the 2017 season at Oulton Park on 01 April! I say “we” – my car still has no engine, but as I’ve said before, it wouldn’t be the start of the season if we weren’t still working on the car at midnight the day before the first race!

Good luck to everyone this year – let’s keep it safe and give everyone a great show of racing!

Get on the edge!

18 Monday Apr 2016

Posted by jamescaterracing in Formula Vee, Racing, Technique, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

best fuel, burnt piston, fitbit, formula vee, front beam, going faster, joovuu x, on the edge, pushing, repairs, rookie, slide

Get on the edge!

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Donington did not go well.

I’m still pretty disappointed in myself for not pushing harder, like I know I can.

I’m fully aware I’m still learning – but I’m not going to learn much without pushing the boundaries a bit!

For the next race I need to ask myself:

Was I on the limit?

Can I push harder in that corner? How about THAT corner? And that one?

Brake less – carry more speed through!

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I know my lines are pretty good, and I’m fairly consistent and smooth.

If you remember my first blogs I talked about the racing line being the most important basic. Not just that, but where you position your car on the track.

I try to stay as close as possible to the edge of the track – a lot of drivers will leave a good foot or two between them and the edge of the track. I know that this is a major thing to work on if you want to go faster. If you leave 2 inches between you and the edge of the track, it’s bad – one inch or less and you’re getting there.

It’s much harder to do this than you might think, but makes a massive difference, because you’re effectively opening all the corners out and making them easier. The thing I’m not doing is taking advantage of this to carry more speed through them!

So it’s easy for me to drive – but far too easy! I can and should be raising my corner speed until the car starts to move around, and at the moment it’s just on rails. My tyres aren’t starting to slide, and I’m not having to correct anything.

I was getting close to the mark around Coppice, feeling the back start to slide around on me in a balanced way, but last time out at Donington I was doing this around Redgate and occasionally in a few other corners. I need to be doing this in every single corner like I know I can do!

Last time at Brands Hatch, in the final race I was just doing this around Clearways and Surtees, but not really anywhere else. And you know when you are, because it feels GOOD!

Speaking of Brands Hatch… Less than 1 week to go… Glenn found that as well as the big bloody hole in the engine case, we’d been burning another (different) piston – which had made a mess of the cylinder head. We think it’s recoverable, but we do have a few tiny holes on the outside, but that shouldn’t affect the seal.

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We used Shell V-Power from the same garage as when we burnt the last piston at Silverstone – so that seems to be the only common denominator, at the moment. We’re thinking maybe their ‘super’ unleaded, well, isn’t. It seems odd that it’s the same damage you’d expect to find if you used ‘normal’ low octane fuel, and yet using BP, Sunoco and Gulf super fuels, we’ve not had the problem.

I know for a fact (I tested it myself!) that Shell V-Power is the best fuel for my bikes, so I’ve got nothing against V-Power – just doubts about whether that’s what we were buying from that garage… And we’d be silly to stick with Shell until we know for sure what’s going on – so Shell is out for now.

The thing that’s going to take this one down to the wire is straightening the bent front beam. Luckily, it seems Glenn can do this without having to chop and weld pieces in, or make up a new bean with all our modified fittings… It’s a big job.

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We’re also wrapping our exhaust system – which with any luck might bring the volume down a few db’s. More importantly, this will increase how fast the engine can expel exhaust gasses by maintaining high temperatures in the exhaust itself. And, yes, I did have to look up the science behind that!

This was all looking very iffy for even getting to Brands, but I think we’ve got it in hand, and should be there.

If it’s dry, I will also be eager to use the new JooVuu X camera for the main footage – this truly is a quality camera, and on special offer from £92.24. I will be doing a full review shortly for using it both as an action camera and an in-car road camera. Go snap one up!

And my final plan for Brands Hatch will be to wear my new Fitbit for the weekend.  Any guesses what my heart rate will show during the races?

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