As I am scaling back my involvement with this website I am asking if others are interested in giving tips to add your ideas in these forums each week. I still hope to contribute, but will be scaling back.
This week the league moves down under to what is for me, an extremely difficult run at the top of the mountain.
Corners 11 thru 17, The Esses are quickly followed by The Dipper and a very difficult final downhill left hand corner that must be hit exactly right to maximize your very long run down Concord Straight.
So I have one tip for this week. It is a tip that is so true of every track but specifically this one. Are you ready? Practice! Simple as that. There is sure to be carnage and mayhem haunting many of us at Panorama. I don't say that lightly. Don't shy away, it is an awesome track, just Practice!
I only mentioned the section at the top of the mountain. There are other corners here that will challenge your ability to keep the car off the wall. Good Luck racers. We will all need a good dose of that this week for sure. See you on the track at Practice! and I hope you post some of your ideas, tips or thoughts here so we can all learn or be entertained by each other.
Oh yeah, one more thing... Practice :)
As soon as I start getting some confidence on this track and start pushing, it's the dipper that gets me every time.
Conrod Straight has a stretch in the middle third on the left where car can bottom out at speed you may often see cars moving to the right here that is why, sometimes referred to as Concord Straight?
This track is wicked!!! I hate the crashing part but love the track. I was finally able to run 20 laps without crashing but man was it nerve wracking!
John Unsbee's post on the iRacing forum said it perfectly. We are all attracted to this devil of a track but it eats us up. Amazing you could do 20 laps so early in your experience with the Mazda at this track. Well done Gene. If there was a tip that I have found helpful but takes lots of time on any track to learn, Bathurst may be the toughest to consistently repeat, it is straight line breaking. The esses at the top of the mountain begin on a high speed approach downhill with camber challenges. The trick is to do your breaking in the very tiny space of time you have when you are not turning the steering wheel. It is just terribly difficult to manage over and over again. This is amplified when you are trying to run at your fastest. It is the ragged edge on top of the mountain but it is a tip true of every track. Get your braking done straight line. This moves practice into Purposeful Practice.
https://www.60plusracing.com/post/training-with-purpose
Bill, I can say that I was physically exhausted after that training session. You are absolutely right about the braking. This morning I had to reattach my pedals to the rig as I had literally broke the temporary mounting I had. Hopefully now the braking will be more consistent. I was nowhere near as fast as everyone else seems to be 2.14.909 was my best and then the tires seemed to go away. This tells me that I am over braking before the corners. I am going to practice again this morning after my chores and taking the little dog for her walk. Thanks again for the tips.
Using some analytics can help you with braking. I loaded up my fastest lap in practice this week. Guess what? I had 23 lockups and dragged the brakes 5 times! Loading up a much slower lap I still had 18 lockups and 2 drags. This is one tough track. Most often I have to have a shower after a race Gene. Intense is a good word if the focus is up.
Bill, which analytics program are you using?
I use the Z1Dashboard on a monitor when racing so sometimes use Z1Analyzer. I also use VRS at times. Here is a screen shot from Z1 that shows braking in each Sector of the track. Sector 4 is through the Esses
This next Graphic zooms in on a map version of Sector 4 and 5 where all but one of the lockups occur. If I click on one of those Orange circles I get information about each lockup. I hope I can improve here but not enough practice time left to do much about it.
If you use your imagination on the above graphic you can see where I am trying short bursts of straight line breaking here.
Boy am I glad this one is in the books. This was scary, amazing and at the end fun. Congrats to the winners and podium finishers. I hope to get there one day soon. Now on to spend hours practicing for the next race.