My first Donington GP experience!

[Rob Hunter - Club Secretary]

3 hours ago, Naranja_Al said:

Do you use an external (Bluetooth?) GPS module like the Racebox Mini with the Racechrono app?

 

No, you don't really need an external GPS with a decent phone in an open cockpit car.

 

Here's some data of my new PB (1m50.5).

 

Circuit map with min and max speeds.

 

 

You can overlay a few parameters on the telematics trace but I use the following.... speed trace in blue, longitudinal g's (braking or acceleration) in green, lateral g's in pink.

 

Below is the Craners down to the Old Hairpin...

 

You can see down the Craners I'm hitting 105mph, lifting for Hollywood with 1.12 lateral g's at 95mph before accelerating back to 106mph. Then braking to 71mph (0.71g) for the Old Hairpin. Peak lateral g in the Old Hairpin is 1.84 as I'm accelerating through 77mph

 

 

This next one is the straight through the Foggarty Esses.

 

116mph peak speed, braking at 0.85g. Lateral g in the left/right is 0.99g and then 1.60g before accelerating hard towards the hairpin up to about 105mph.

 

 

Its interesting stuff... I noticed on previous visits I was often braking too early, releasing brake pressure before reapplying closer to the corner. As I've got more confident on the brakes I can now see a smoother longitudinal g trace.

[Naranja_Al]

6 hours ago, Rob Hunter - Club Secretary said:

No, you don't really need an external GPS with a decent phone in an open cockpit car.

Thanks, Rob — that’s really interesting. I’ve read that the GPS sampling rate on most (all?) smartphones (1 Hz, one sample per second) isn’t accurate enough for sports applications, and that a higher frequency is preferable.

 

I’ve been looking into data logging for a while now. My Dash2Pro does log data, but I find the interface and extracting/using the data quite clunky. It’s excellent for live lap and sector times, but nowhere near as good as RaceChrono Pro seems to be for data logging. I was impressed with @Mole’s Race Technology cloud-based logger, but if I recall correctly it’s both expensive and tricky to set up.

 

I’m also interested in how RaceChrono Pro interfaces with GoPro and Insta360 cameras.

[Rob Hunter - Club Secretary]

1 hour ago, Naranja_Al said:

Thanks, Rob — that’s really interesting. I’ve read that the GPS sampling rate on most (all?) smartphones (1 Hz, one sample per second) isn’t accurate enough for sports applications, and that a higher frequency is preferable.

 

I’ve been looking into data logging for a while now. My Dash2Pro does log data, but I find the interface and extracting/using the data quite clunky. It’s excellent for live lap and sector times, but nowhere near as good as RaceChrono Pro seems to be for data logging. I was impressed with @Mole’s Race Technology cloud-based logger, but if I recall correctly it’s both expensive and tricky to set up.

 

I’m also interested in how RaceChrono Pro interfaces with GoPro and Insta360 cameras.

 

I've read that too, but it would appear to variable depending on the App and the phone.

 

When Ben and I did a comparison of laptimes on a tandem fast run. Racechrono running in my car logged a 1m51.88 and Ben following with the AIM Solo and an expensive Garmin watch logged a 1m51.79. We do notice that the AIM Solo registers slightly higher top speeds (which could be refresh rate) but it's within 1-2 mph.

 

Given we were in 2 separate cars, and a tenth of a second at an average speed of circa 80mph for the lap equates to under 12 feet of distance, this seems a good correlation over the 2.5 miles.

 

It's close enough for my purposes (a bit of friendly banter about our laptimes!) and the data can be exported to websites like Fastestlaps where it's interesting to see how the car compares. They added the MegaS2000 to the list of cars for me:

 

https://fastestlaps.com/models/westfield-mega-s2000

 

I've not even tried to interface it with the GoPro as yet.....