1 (edited by TeamPaisley 2009-11-05 03:17 PM)

Topic: How long can we leave a driver in the car? I know when it starts to...

I know when it starts to stink, its time to change, But what do the rules say?

Tankx for your help,
eugene

Re: How long can we leave a driver in the car? I know when it starts to...

Trying to kill them? 

Driving is a real sport.  Attention starts to seriously fade after about an hour.

--Rob Leone Schumacher Taxi Service
We won the IOE at Southern Discomfort.
We got screwed at The Real Hoopties of New Jersey  and we took cars down with us.
We got the curse at Capitol Offense but they wouldn't let us destroy the car.

Re: How long can we leave a driver in the car? I know when it starts to...

Run a full take of fuel. 
1.5 hours on V-8's.
2.0  Hours on 4 cyl. 
For six cylinders - who knows. Nobody is supposed to race on 6 cylinders. Ask the Z-Boys!!

Remember, it's never too early to start embellishing the past.

"so there I was, 90mph, sideways on the brink of death ..."

4 (edited by TeamPaisley 2009-11-05 03:55 PM)

Re: How long can we leave a driver in the car? I know when it starts to...

Twhat? Can a driver stay in a car for 3 hours? I think the the Chump guys limit it to 2hours per session/driver...

Re: How long can we leave a driver in the car? I know when it starts to...

There are no official rules around it. I wore a heart rate monitor during a 2.5 hour stint at the Buttonwillow race and my analysis is at http://www.rahulnair.net/blog/2009/10/1 … ns-racing/

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Re: How long can we leave a driver in the car? I know when it starts to...

Spud is saying to run the driver for a full tank of fuel - typically between 90 and 120 minutes. 

I'm saying that that is too long and to keep it to 60 minute stints max for your first race.

--Rob Leone Schumacher Taxi Service
We won the IOE at Southern Discomfort.
We got screwed at The Real Hoopties of New Jersey  and we took cars down with us.
We got the curse at Capitol Offense but they wouldn't let us destroy the car.

Re: How long can we leave a driver in the car? I know when it starts to...

We've done as long as 2.5 hours.  It depends on too many factors.  Make sure the drivers are paying attention to their personal condition and can come in as soon as they notice any fatigue, if not they'll come in to see Jonny and Phil soon after.

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8 (edited by Fish 2009-11-05 04:12 PM)

Re: How long can we leave a driver in the car? I know when it starts to...

It 120% depends on the driver. Also a big factor is the weather conditions. If they are experienced they can go a full fuel load easily, in our car that is approx 2.5-3 hours and we have a few drivers who can do this. If they are not experienced they can go about an hour it seems and then they are done.

9 (edited by EvergreenDan 2009-11-05 04:22 PM)

Re: How long can we leave a driver in the car? I know when it starts to...

Spud wrote:

Run a full take of fuel. 
1.5 hours on V-8's.
2.0  Hours on 4 cyl. 
For six cylinders - who knows. Nobody is supposed to race on 6 cylinders. Ask the Z-Boys!!

4-5 hours in our 6 cylinder. smile

putt ... putt ... putt

We ran 2 hours at night at NL and found it to be fine, although I had to pee after one hour from the coffee. We ran 1 hour in the day (just so everyone could drive in the light before their night stint), and that was fine too. Top teams optimize more than we did. We wanted even length stints for all the drivers.

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Re: How long can we leave a driver in the car? I know when it starts to...

Just put a "not to exceed" limit on it.. Each driver will be different depending on how loud, comfortable, easy to drive the car is, how fit the driver is, their attention span and racing experience... New driver, new car, new to racing, rough car? 30 min is a good start.. Experienced road racer in good shape in a good car with good skill? Run till she's out of gas! I'm more toward the later (though not in as good a shape as I should be!) and 2hrs seems to be about right for me, but depends on weather too. Nelsons was no problem at all, but it got hot at CMP.

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Re: How long can we leave a driver in the car? I know when it starts to...

rnr wrote:

There are no official rules around it. I wore a heart rate monitor during a 2.5 hour stint at the Buttonwillow race and my analysis is at http://www.rahulnair.net/blog/2009/10/1 … ns-racing/

Tankx, Thatz was what I wanted to know!,,, As of now, no rule,

Re: How long can we leave a driver in the car? I know when it starts to...

Don't push it- one black flag caused by a spaced-out, tired driver will cost you more time than a half-dozen driver changes.

13 (edited by RobL 2009-11-05 05:59 PM)

Re: How long can we leave a driver in the car? I know when it starts to...

TeamPaisley wrote:
rnr wrote:

There are no official rules around it. I wore a heart rate monitor during a 2.5 hour stint at the Buttonwillow race and my analysis is at http://www.rahulnair.net/blog/2009/10/1 … ns-racing/

Tankx, Thatz was what I wanted to know!,,, As of now, no rule,

Good to know...  What race are you trying to get into?

edit: You've done a race and have some experience - why the question?

edit2: Why do I feel a 35 gallon endurance tank question coming soon...

--Rob Leone Schumacher Taxi Service
We won the IOE at Southern Discomfort.
We got screwed at The Real Hoopties of New Jersey  and we took cars down with us.
We got the curse at Capitol Offense but they wouldn't let us destroy the car.

Re: How long can we leave a driver in the car? I know when it starts to...

I think we will go about an hour per driver, maybe a 5 gallon splash of fuel, too?

After a 20-30- minute DE session I start getting pretty tired.
TH is nowhere near as tough as Reno-Ferney.


KT

TH 2009- 40th ~ SP 2010- 13th Class Bad win!! TH 2010- 17th ~TH 2010- 16th  SP 2011- 20th ~ RF 2011- 13th Least Horrible Yank Tank ~ TH 2011- 79th
SP 2011- 105th ~ SP 2012- 119th ~ SP 2013- 139th ~ BW 2013- 17th
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Re: How long can we leave a driver in the car? I know when it starts to...

Well, here is my knowledge.  At race tracks where you must get out of the car for fueling, switch drivers then.  Between NL and CMP, our V6 car would go approx 2 hours.  one of our drivers gets us great mileage, about 2.5-3 hours, me on the other hand, I have never made it to the 2 hour mark on fuel, and that is on a stock 11.? gallon tank.  At CMP in the spring we were allowed to stay in the car for fueling, and I drove the last 4 hours(the 12-4 sunday stint).  Basically, One driver already drove 6 hours total, and the others got sick, so I sucked it up and drove all 4.  I did get a BMW-BBQ redflag break in the middle of that stint to regroup a little.  I dont recommend doing this especially if you are having to ask and have never done this stuff before.  As for the attention span, my lap times got faster throughout those 4 hours, but I say that is to repitition, seattime, and fewer cars on track. I also knew my reaction times would drop off, so I made sure to not get to greedy and stayed out of bad situations, back off early in traffic...etc, and got 0 black flags during that time, and only had minor contact(side-to-side) on a restart on the straightaway with the green z-car trying to block me.  It is an endurance race, you cant win in one corner, or one lap, or even 1 hour. 
In our first race as a Lemons team, we had 5 drivers, the owner drove 1st for 30 minutes, then we switched out every 30 minutes to make sure we all got to drive.  Your first race, you owe your teammates the ability to drive the car at least once before it dies.
PS.....if you stay in the car for 4 hours......make sure you have good padding for your bum, my tail bone kind of hurt about 3 hours in.

Re: How long can we leave a driver in the car? I know when it starts to...

I'll echo Truk41 - for your first stints , keep it short -15-30 minutes, so that everyone gets a chance behind the wheel before your crapcan breaks.

Admit it, you'd fee pretty lousy to put in the blood, sweat and cash and not get a chance to drive a single lap because hero driver #5 makes a mistake 12 hours into the race and your turn as the 6th driver hasn't come up yet.

Yes, you will loose precious time due to the extrs short stint driver changes but let's be realistic. You are going to loose LOTS more time to breakdowns & black flags. The seconds in the pits getting your teamate strapped in an out for some laps is the whole reason we do this. 

Short stints to cycle everyone through the order then run for a full tank or until your attention span wains.

Remember, it's never too early to start embellishing the past.

"so there I was, 90mph, sideways on the brink of death ..."

Re: How long can we leave a driver in the car? I know when it starts to...

Spud wrote:

Short stints to cycle everyone through the order then run for a full tank or until your attention span wains.

that's what we did. 45min stints and a 5 gallon splash every 3rd driver. Then we did 1-1.5 hr stints, and the last guy finished with almost 2 hrs.

I Like the heart rate monitoring you did rnr. I was really surprised at how calm I was able to remain considering it was my first real racing experience at NL. I'll never forget the sign at the pit exit at Gingerman: BREATHE

If you've never done this try to get some good cardio in before the race ( I ran every night for about an hour to get some late night exercise in) and try doing some sim races in your full gear! A buddy and I would do iRacing races online totally geeked out in our fire/driving gear lol

Re: How long can we leave a driver in the car? I know when it starts to...

We did 2 stints as Nelson this year.  More or less,  some drivers got more thanks to yellow flags, and some drivers got less....thanks to black flags.

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Re: How long can we leave a driver in the car? I know when it starts to...

For our first race, we did short stints b/c we were worried that our crapcan would break: 1 hr or so. Since then we've gone for longer stints, 90 mins in the second race, 120 mins in the fourth (3rd doesn't count because the car was very unreliable). 5th race we went for 110 - 135 minutes, varying according to fuel needs and driver fatigue.

On the fatigue front, be careful-- be honest with your teammates, and let yellow-flag time be part of your decision. 15 minutes under a full-course yellow is far less stressful than 15 minutes at green flag speeds.

Radios are incredibly valuable for assessing driver fatigue. Just knowing that you can talk with your teammates about fuel level and how the last half-hour has gone is a huge help.

You will be absolutely noodled after anything more than 45 minutes in the car. The team needs to have new drivers ready to go in case of a black flag, so I'd say it's best to keep stints on the short side unless you have a large team.

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Re: How long can we leave a driver in the car? I know when it starts to...

TeamPaisley wrote:

Twhat? Can a driver stay in a car for 3 hours? I think the the Chump guys limit it to 2hours per session/driver...

Oh, well -- if Chump does it like that, obviously we'll follow suit.

"This is the scene where I get shot," Bronson said. "I have these little squibs that explode to make it look like bullets are hitting." "Fascinating," said Bergman. "I never knew how they did that." "You mean," asked Bronson, "you don't use machine guns in your movies?"

Re: How long can we leave a driver in the car? I know when it starts to...

cpchampion wrote:

The team needs to have new drivers ready to go in case of a black flag, so I'd say it's best to keep stints on the short side unless you have a large team.

It's amazing how many teams A) don't have anyone suited up and ready to go in case of a black-flag-mandated driver change and/or B) don't have anyone paying attention to the car on the track, meaning that the bad driver has to go staggering off to find his teammates. Plenty of easy "change drivers and go back out" penalties go from 3 minutes to 45 minutes via this route.

Re: How long can we leave a driver in the car? I know when it starts to...

We try to let a driver run for a tank of gas or a black flag.

Ask Jonny & Phil which usually comes first.

If you are a new team with new drivers.  Good luck with the driver change on a tank of gas plan. 

If you can make your car run on crap beer, you might be able to refuel from the penalty box.

Seriously, if you are all new, maybe do 30 minutes a piece and try and give everyone a chance in the car.  Try not to break it.

I don't recall a driver limit.  I have considered putting a huge tank in a car, a cooler of water and wearing a diaper.  I am just not sure how far a driver could really go.

Troy

#35 LRE
1973 Datsun 240Z

Re: How long can we leave a driver in the car? I know when it starts to...

Troy wrote:

We try to let a driver run for a tank of gas or a black flag.

Ask Jonny & Phil which usually comes first.

If you are a new team with new drivers.  Good luck with the driver change on a tank of gas plan.

Plenty of rookie drivers go a whole race without a single black flag. It's the guys who think they know what they're doing who get in the most trouble.

Re: How long can we leave a driver in the car? I know when it starts to...

Troy wrote:

I have considered putting a huge tank in a car, a cooler of water and wearing a diaper.  I am just not sure how far a driver could really go.

This is way better than a diaper, just drill a hole in the floor of the car for it to drain out of.....

http://www.pciraceradios.com/ProductDet … 1072891137

Re: How long can we leave a driver in the car? I know when it starts to...

We have always had a driver ready and suited up, along with atleast 5 gallons of gas at hand.  When we had a driver swap, the driver whojust got out would stay suited up, with earplugs still in place until the next driver was fully suited up minus helmet.  We had a guy start feeling pretty sick at NL about halfway through his stint, and we had to hurry up with gas and driver.  This does happen, feeling ill(especially after 20 hours) and having to pee.  Have the next guy ready and the right people for a pitstop fueling within communication range so if it does happen, you dont spend 15 minutes finding everyone.