Best Practices for a 12 Hour Race

[Stas]

Hello all, I am new here but hope that you could answer a couple of my questions.

I am on a crew for a 12 hour race and was just informed that our car will have a DL1 on board. I have downloaded the analysis software and will get some ample data so that I can learn the UI and such. My main question is this:

Can I use multiple cards on for the same race and swap them at evey pit stop? I want to have the data ready for the driver when he exits the car and be available to me for fuel window calculations and such.

I would appreciate any info on this and any tips for using the DL1 for endurance racing.

Cheers!

[jlucas]

Certainly use 2 cards if you want to stay on top of things during the race. Just make sure and test both of them (formatted FAT, not FAT32) before hand so your sure they are both working. At <30mb per hour, they don't have to be very big, just make sure to cut and paste (as opposed to copying) the files to your laptop so you don't run out of space on the cards.
Make sure to hit the stop button to stop the logging before you swap cards; just like the drivers practice their changes, you might want to practice your card swap to make sure your not going to be in the way of the other crew trying to do their work. Be familiar with the refueling rules, each event has it's own and some are quite restrictive as to what you can do while the fuel is going in. If your not using a autostart condition like speed, you'll have to remember to hit the start button once the new car is in.
I would also recommend a constant power supply with a manual switch as opposed to vehicle switched power supply. That way the unit can stay on and you can maintain GPS lock during the pit stops. You might want to also be familiar with which analog inputs the team is using, no reason not to be using some of those especially RPM, TPS, and brake circuit as those are free in most modern cars. If they have car variables (gear ratio, tire size, etc...) defined for their car you'll want a copy of that file from them.

Let me know if you have other questions.

[Michael]

Just a simple one: Place the DL1 on the RH side if its a LHD car so you won't interfere with the driver change, harnesses, radio connection and water supply being changed.

Constant power supply is important. Make sure that you are the only one that touches the DL1. Stop logging and start logging again yourself. Drivers are busy with other things. Two cards work well. Mark those to be sure that you don't mix 'em up during changing in the heat of a race. Have one or two spare cards ready formatted at hand in case something is happening.

We have supplied some DL1s to a team who has done some 24h races and everything went well datalogging wise.

Be sure not to miss any briefing and debriefing. Sometimes regulations are changed in the last minute and you must be aware of those.

jlucas has mentioned the essential things.

[RTUSA]

Thanks Jeremy & Michael, good tips!

Another couple of things that endurance teams have found helpful:

If the drivers are not used to using data systems, they may not realize how much they can learn from each other just using graph overlays. I prefer to use the main graph function to get max resolution but the quick graph works too and is easier.You can load multiple run files at once to get the overlays, just graph speed vs distance for each driver's best lap. (using distance as the horizontal axis keeps the corners in synch)

Also, drivers have found it quite useful to look at night laps vs day laps to see where/if speed is dropping off at night.

[Greg Amy]

Another enduro tip: use discrete SETUP.BIN files on each card with "oh so slightly" different files names (RT1_ and RT2_, for example). This way you can copy/cut paste the files on your PC without accidentally (and sloppily) over-writing prior data or worrying about renaming them beforehand. You can then sort and rename those files based on date/time stamp.

Ask me why I know this...

Greg