The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Our Crappy Race → Hotlap
My team wishes to have real-time driver feedback on how badly we suck.
Does anyone typically set up a hotlap transmitter at the races?
Specifically Thunderhill, which is where we intend to spread our wings.
-Mike
My team wishes to have real-time driver feedback on how badly we suck.
Does anyone typically set up a hotlap transmitter at the races?
Specifically Thunderhill, which is where we intend to spread our wings.
-Mike
Hotlap = worth more than the car
that said I'm sure some people do...
Realtime driver feedback
Spotter - "YOU SUCK! Get around that car, you are faster than them."
Hotlap receiver's only $200 or $250 or so. Which is, at this point, more than we have invested in our car, sure. But between 4 drivers, we have access to several hotlap receivers - we wouldn't be buying one. Nobody's got the transmitter though.
-M
and for a guy that always gets the regular fish tacos and not the tacos especial to save the 19 cents for guacamole - I'm not about to buy a transmitter ;-)
Maybe you won't be as busy at Thunderhill as I was at Stafford, but the last thing I had time to do was check my lap times. I could barely keep track of the cars around me, look for pit signs, check fuel, check temps, check flags, look ahead, and maybe take a drink once in a while. Oh, and drive too.
Maybe you won't be as busy at Thunderhill as I was at Stafford, but the last thing I had time to do was check my lap times. I could barely keep track of the cars around me, look for pit signs, check fuel, check temps, check flags, look ahead, and maybe take a drink once in a while. Oh, and drive too.
Ditto! You don't need to know a lap time, only how many laps you have made in regards to the leader. Besides with the HEAVY amount of traffic the laps times could vary wildly.
Friends (not in the race) always ask "how fast are you going"? I say "as damn fast as the car will go".
I ran last Reno race and would definitely had time to look down at a lap timer display. Probably 50% of the race was under yellow and another 30% with too much traffic to get any valuable lap times, but I still would have thought it helpful for assessing how the individual drivers were running and any car problems we may have experienced would have affected our average lap time (and hence warrant pitting or just running with reduced pwer - for example)
Our car then had no working tach or speedo - so I hear you on the "fast as the car will go"
-M
I still would have thought it helpful for assessing how the individual drivers were running and any car problems we may have experienced would have affected our average lap time
I understand, and we sort of did that unofficially using a stop watch on my wrist watch. We did it just to see how our car was compared to what we deemed the 'faster' cars. This information wasn't relayed to the driver because he was doing all he could. IOW, we knew we were a few seconds slower than a couple of the faster cars, so we made up for it with quicker pit stops and ZERO penalties.
"His car is faster than mine, but I shall make up for that with a bit of bravery."
"His car is faster than mine, but I shall make up for that with a bit of bravery."
Too funny! I recognize a TG quote anywhere. I am trying to convince my teammates to substitute that thought with "Keep it on the track! Keep it on the track!"
RobL wrote:"His car is faster than mine, but I shall make up for that with a bit of bravery."
Too funny! I recognize a TG quote anywhere. I am trying to convince my teammates to substitute that thought with "Keep it on the track! Keep it on the track!"
I've given up - Actual coversation at Stafford.
[driver makes several rediculously barely successful passes]
Me to spotter - Tell Jer to watch the red mist.
[spotter waits while driver outbrakes and dives under another car w/some incidental corner contact]
Spotter to driver - ...and the croud goes wild!!!!
Our radio crapped out early so we resorted to pitboard messages. "ASS" meant stop driving like an asshole.
Our radio crapped out early so we resorted to pitboard messages. "ASS" meant stop driving like an asshole.
Excellent!
We had no radio. I think we used a pit board once - when the rear bumper was about to fall off the car.
I kept trying to make the mantra of the team "you're thinking too much". Drive until tired, come in and the next driver goes out. It seemed to work for us.
Of course, now (after finishing 5th - would have been 4th but the car ran out of fuel with 10 minutes left), the rest of the team is like "we need radios, and fast fill fuel cans, and a larger fuel tank / fuel cell, and quicker pit stops"...
"you're thinking too much!"
Stafford Springs (the New England race) is a different beast from most, I think. ~50 cars started on a 0.8 mile track.
Our radio crapped out early so we resorted to pitboard messages. "ASS" meant stop driving like an asshole.
i think the black flag will tell them that too
I kept trying to make the mantra of the team "you're thinking too much".
You may have noticed that none of the rest of us on the Cow team really picked up on your mantra. 
Maybe because we're slow on the uptake, but probably because Lemons is supposed to fun above all else, and thinking up ways to improve is fun. So is passing. So is pretty much everything we did last weekend. Radios would be wicked fun.
Stafford Springs (the New England race) is a different beast from most, I think. ~50 cars started on a 0.8 mile track.
I think that 0.8 figure is a lie. I don't know where they got that. The oval track is 1/2 mile, and the road course is about the same distance. So, 56 cars in a 1/2 mile is more like what we saw at Stafford.
... Lemons is supposed to fun above all else, and thinking up ways to improve is fun. So is passing.
So much truth! With an average speed car, you can either drive hard and make passes that are 99.5% likely to be OK, and take a penalty every 200 laps, or you can back off and make passes that are 99.9% likely to be OK and take only a penalty every 1000 laps. Finishing better might be less fun! I certainly haven't figured it out for myself yet.
It reminds me of an old friend who got sucked into grades and quipped, "I won't let getting an education interfere with getting an straight A's."
I just verified that the lap length at Stafford used to calculate best lap speed (see Lemons Results) is .5 miles (as in 2640 feet), so somebody doing scoring thinks the circuit was half a mile, rather than the .8 originally advertised. So we actually got only 10.9 MPG, not the 16 we thought. 
DaveG wrote:... Lemons is supposed to fun above all else, and thinking up ways to improve is fun. So is passing.
Finishing better might be less fun! I certainly haven't figured it out for myself yet.
You can try out your theory. I'll be sure to let the penalty box guys know about your plan ahead of time.
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