On Saturday, Jan 19th we attended the first of many Extreme Speed track events we plan to attend, and tagged alongside some 86 owners there for the FT86 Cup event! The event was held at Streets of Willow at Willow Springs International Raceway in Rosamond, CA, USA. Streets of Willow is the smaller of the two main circuits at Willow Springs and features elevation changes and changing conditions due to the dust/wind, and blinding sunset over the hills as the day progresses into the late afternoon. Track conditions that day were cool and dry, just a bit of wind.
We arrived just in time for the lap parade event before noon, with a big mix of FR, MR, FF, and AWD vehicles firing up their engines, getting all lined up and ready to go.
That day we sampled driving data from two completely different vehicles. The first being Luis' AE86 which just had new cams installed a few days earlier. He and his friend drove to the event and despite an early loose sensor wire issue, both 86's were running strong the rest of the day. The second vehicle we were lucky to get lap data from was Ziggy's Rossion from Zeitronix.
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| Luis' AE86 |
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| Ziggy's Rossion |
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While the drivers with our GPS units mounted waited their turn on the track, we went ahead and looked around the pits to check out the kinds of cars and people that came out to the event! Here are some of the pics.
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| Check engine light turned out to be a loose sensor and the car ran strong the rest of the day |
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| Some of the FR-S's attending the event |
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| What's not to love about a track car with proper wing and diffuser? |
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| Surprising number of Fiat's running at the event as well! |
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| One of the sponsors of the event, Zeitronix, had a host of different cars in their pit area. Ziggy's Rossion had encountered some light rear-inner fender damage but was able to fix on the spot and continue driving the rest of the day |
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| We were hoping to collect some GPS data from this Evo, but unfortunately it retired early in the day |
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You can check out the rest of the action and photo album
on our facebook page album
After our drivers returned, we uploaded the data into the laptop as you will see below. In the screenshot are the lap times of the various driving data we've collected over the past few events at Streets of Willow. The new DigSpice Driving Analysis Software update (ver. 2.3.0) allows for quick file name changes which makes recording analyzing various vehicle and driver data quick and easy. Sessions are also separated making it easy to distinguish and analyze only the data you wish to view. This means there is no "guessing" as to which data belongs to which driver, which is great for collecting GPS driver data even if the vehicle or driver has changed.
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| Fastest lap times and speeds automatically highlighted - click and choose laps you only want to see |
In the screenshots you can see we also have some very quick lap times from Mr Lee's S2000 from a previous event. One of the highlights of DigSpice's Driving Analysis Software is the ability to compare and view lap times from different vehicles, from different days, by different drivers, any time you want. You can view and compare laps of a GT racecar and a normal street car simultaneously, where these vehicles would normally never share the same track space in real life.
In this particular set of data, you can also see a clearly different line for each driver. Seeing adjustments to the driving line and how it affects the overall lap time is one of the crucial benefits of post-reviewing driving data. Click the image and zoom in further to see the critical braking and acceleration points, marked by dotted and solid lines.
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| View real-time G-forces, track position, and speeds at a glance. All box edges can be moved to your liking |
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| Zoom into any of the viewing boxes for detailed views while playing the data. Stop, fast-forward, rewind, slow, or just click any point to view the data at that section of the track |
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The DigSpice Driving Analysis Software also allows the user to switch between time-based and distance-based plots/charts. Viewing the data in "Distance" mode allows for accurate position-based data to be shown, allowing users to visually see what a particular driver is doing based on the position on the track (ex. comparing corner exit speed at the same point for two different laps/drivers).
Viewing the data in "Time" mode allows the user to see real-time data to be shown simultaneously. This feature is great for actual race data from two different vehicles in the same event. It is also helpful in seeing how soon/late a driver acts compared to other drivers in a close race or other timed events.
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In addition to GPS-recorded laptimes and speeds, DigSpice also records acceleration/deceleration, corner G/radius, altitude, to name a few.
Another powerful DigSpice Driving Analysis Software feature is the ability to further analyze data in Google Earth (free to download for most platforms). Viewing in Google Earth not only gives you an actual satellite image of the track (or any location you recorded your data), but will help you visual those turns in situations where the track may be a temporary street track such as Monaco or Streets of Long Beach for the Grand Prix.
It also helps to visualize the track where there are no roads or streets to name of, such as parking lot events for auto-cross and gymkhana, or perhaps trail riding or a jet-ski race out in the ocean or lake. Hillclimb event such as Pike's Peak? View the data and see the elevation changes in 3D as well as on the graphic overlay. Study the turns as well as the elevation changes to prepare for the event, or to analyze post-race!
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| View any DigSpice recorded data on Google Earth in 3D. Zoom, rotate, and even get close up street view while viewing your data plotted right on the image itself |
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| Being able to use Google Earth's tools gives you a wide range of tools you can use to analyze your data even further. |
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All in all, we had a great day out at the track, hope you enjoyed this little write-up and we will continue to bring more track day coverage and events! We are constantly updating our circuit data library for our US-based customers (circuit data from many tracks in Asia and Europe already available as of typing this blog). We will also bring you driving data of unique vehicles and professional drivers so you can see how you stack up against the competition!
Be sure to follow our pages below to stay up to date! Find the rest of the action from the event in our facebook page album for the event!
Dealer inquiries are welcome!
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