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Thread: How to choose competition drivers fairly?

  1. #11
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    I am one of the heaviest (around 180 lb), and am the fastest out of about 40 people from our team on the kart track. While what you say is true, regardless of their weight (while being realistic) you will still be able to tell who the best drivers are from a karting day.

    Have you driven a formula SAE car? Just throwing someone in it is asking for trouble.

  2. #12
    Originally posted by Cardriverx:
    I am one of the heaviest (around 180 lb), and am the fastest out of about 40 people from our team on the kart track. While what you say is true, regardless of their weight (while being realistic) you will still be able to tell who the best drivers are from a karting day.

    Have you driven a formula SAE car? Just throwing someone in it is asking for trouble.
    It's our teams second year, the car never ran last year. No one on the team has any access to FSAE/Formula Student cars. We go karting regularly as part of a motorsport society in the university, but that's about as good as it gets.

    I'm about 187lb (6' 1", not fat :P )and there's guys on the team that weigh a little over 125lb.

    Surely over 50lb is going to create a noticeable time difference in a rental kart where the lap record is about 1:07.

  3. #13
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    Karts are all about keeping momentum and being a really smooth/good driver, you would be surprised what skilled people can do. I was out pacing a kid who weighs around 130lb and actually races karts (circle track to be fair) by about 2-3 sec per lap.

    Originally posted by Daniel S:
    <BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Cardriverx:
    I am one of the heaviest (around 180 lb), and am the fastest out of about 40 people from our team on the kart track. While what you say is true, regardless of their weight (while being realistic) you will still be able to tell who the best drivers are from a karting day.

    Have you driven a formula SAE car? Just throwing someone in it is asking for trouble.
    It's our teams second year, the car never ran last year. No one on the team has any access to FSAE/Formula Student cars. We go karting regularly as part of a motorsport society in the university, but that's about as good as it gets.

    I'm about 187lb (6' 1", not fat :P )and there's guys on the team that weigh a little over 125lb.

    Surely over 50lb is going to create a noticeable time difference in a rental kart where the lap record is about 1:07. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

  4. #14
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    A good idea if you don't have a very big team or don't have many pro-quality drivers is keep your top 2 drivers on lap times/consistency for auto-x and endurance, then figure out accel and skidpad from the rest of the team. Generally you can afford to have one of the drivers for either or both of those events being someone who has put in a lot of time into the car (or presidents/team leaders if they aren't very fast otherwise). Also a good idea to put a lighter driver in for accel, as long as he/she has tested launching the car and knows what they're doing (F=ma, but shifting and not destroying the car here is also important). It doesn't take a genius to drive accel or skidpad, but having experience in the events, being able to not spin out and not destroying the car definitely helps (as does counting to 2... be it for how many runs you're doing or how many times you're turning)
    Any views or opinions expressed by me may in no way reflect those of Stewart-Haas Racing, Kettering University, or their employees, students, administrators or sponsors.

  5. #15
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    Also, two things. First using a simulator on the PC with a decent wheel setup can really help people that have never driven a car like this (simraceway and LFS have FSAE cars).

    Second, check this site out. Good driver related stuff. http://safeisfast.com/

  6. #16
    +1 for what axelripper said. You can train a monkey to drive skidpad and acceleration As far as finding endurance and autoX drivers, that shouldn;t be too tough of a task either. IF you have an old car, start getting people some time in that. The people who can drive will separate themselves from those who can't very quickly. Pick the top 4 or so depending on how close they are to each other, maybe more. I definitely think on factor to take into account is to make sure you are trying those top drivers on different track layouts. This goes back to my statement about having a trained monkey, any driver who drives a single track enough with plenty of guidance can easily be within a second of the fastest driver. The big thing is to pick out what drivers are actually good at driving vs. what drivers are just learning how to drive a specific track.

    I think you may be over complicating the whole decision process. If you have 10 people each drive the car a little bit, I think it will be very clear who the 2 or 3 people who can actually drive are. I highly doubt out of a team of engineering students you are going to have much more than that who are actually good at driving a car.
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  7. #17
    Just my thoughts here.

    1. Sims are not a reliable way to find the best drivers. I am horrible at racing sims yet I am fast when I actually get in a car. I attribute this to the fact that I don't play many video games so the lack of sensation and driving with my fingers throws me off.

    2.Agree on a cut off on how much commitment a member needs before they can try out. This is generally a good way to keep dedicated members from getting butt-hurt because some freshman "stole their spot". You'd be surprised how petty some people can get.

    3. I disagree with Tobias about driving being stressful. Its more responsibility and consumes a lot of time at comp, but its not stressful if you are confident.

  8. #18
    If you want to be like Formula 1, just put in pay drivers! That will solve your budgetary problems.

    Pat

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  9. #19
    2.Agree on a cut off on how much commitment a member needs before they can try out. This is generally a good way to keep dedicated members from getting butt-hurt because some freshman "stole their spot". You'd be surprised how petty some people can get.
    If they think like that then they do not have the success of the team in mind, but only their ego. If the freshman is the fastest member of the team, then he/she should be driving at comp. Letting every team member drive is a good motivation, but it should be done after comp.

    3. I disagree with Tobias about driving being stressful. Its more responsibility and consumes a lot of time at comp, but its not stressful if you are confident.
    That certainly depends on the situation of your team. If you are in the Top3 of the event with only Autocross and Endurance left, the stress is much higher as if you are competing for a spot outside of the Top10, because everything depends on you (being the driver). A single cone kicked or not can make a big difference.

    I don't know any successful team (reaching a Top5 position) where the drivers were not chosen based on how fast they are. If that still leads to the president/team leader driving the car then it was just coincidence.
    Regards,

    Tobias

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  10. #20
    Tobias is right, it doesn't matter what your driver is doing in the team, it's all about speed, consistency and commitment. Our team leader 2012 drove the car about 2 months after the last competition

    Our AutoX/Endurance drivers are going through a process of Karting, old car try outs and then they will test the new car. At least with an electric car, you don't have time to train more than three drivers, the car is simply not running enough. Therefore you need motivated drivers which will be on the track even if the car isn't running very well and this day in, day out!

    The Acceleration drivers are quiet easy to find in an electric car. You just need to be the lightest driver (and brave enough to stay on the throttle in the wet, which was quiet the job in Silverstone this year after the Stralsund car crashed 2 cars in front of me ).

    SkidPad is a difficult thing to decide... Of course everybody probably can drive SkidPad if you have enough time to test it but normally, the SkidPad drivers don't get a lot of time in the car because the main drivers use most of it.. I lost about a tenth to our Endurance driver at FSS2012 (we got a pay driver as Pat suggested for this event from the Netherlands ), which isn't a lot but these few points can hurt..
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