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Thread: How to choose competition drivers fairly?

  1. #21
    just my ideas:

    Even after you have selected you drivers, you want to train them:
    - Make them fit: If thay lack the strength to complete a hot (32 C) endurance their lap times will suffer.
    - Make sure thay are always available to train. It's a big plus to have last year(s) car(s) available for training.
    - Make sure your Skidpad/Acceleration drivers are also able to compete in an endurance as they have trained in the car and can be your backup drivers for the endurance/AutoX.

    It's not easy being a driver. When the car breaks (it will) they might feel responsible but usually are not and this might effect their driving skill.
    Tristan
    Delft '09 Team member, '10 - Chief Electronics
    'now' (Hardware) Security Engineer

  2. #22
    Originally posted by TMichaels:

    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.

    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.
    The point of the cut off is to get the entire team to agree on what they want to happen so everyone is on board. If everyone is fine with anyone stepping in the car then they can have at it. We require one semester so we can keep the flakey people out and it keeps everyone happy. This means that a freshman that has been around consistently gets a go at the car. Sure it would be nice if anyone from a car club could show up, take a spin, and we find the fastest person on campus but then certain people would feel like their hard work (the car) was being mistreated.

    It could be a personal thing but driving is not stressful for me. I know what I am capable of and I know stressing won't make me any faster. Focusing will. Same goes for anything really, if you are stressed it means you didn't prepare well enough.

  3. #23
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    I agree with Racer-X. There is a lot more to the FSAE experience than just having the fastest drivers in the car. If someone doesn't work on the car, they tend to not respect it, and you don't want that kind of person driving the car. It will tear the team apart. It's not about someone's ego, it's about someone putting their heart and soul (and time and money) into something, only to have some fool destroy it.

    If everyone on the team is confident with karting then they should be quite safe in a FSAE car, provided you set up a safe track to learn on. The people who show the most control/speed are then picked as your drivers.
    Jay

    UoW FSAE '07-'09

  4. #24
    IMO the best strategy is somewhat of a balance of all these things. In 2010 I put together a points system based on SCCA autocross times for races we took the car to. Generally 3-4 people went at least once a month or so during the 9 months of the year you can do it around here, and we tallied the official times in a spreadsheet. I had a math formula worked out that was heavily biased to lap times over participation in order to prevent any old goon from simply going to all the autocrosses and running mediocre times to guarantee a spot. I also hoped that having a published points system would foster competition and get more people out and having fun racing, because that's what gets people hooked on FSAE, and also teaches young and inexperienced racers what is truly (or truly not) important on a race car, and what is all just pipe dreams and fluff, what breaks, what's required for preparation, the effects of tuning, etc.

    In the end we definitely had a bit more of a "spirit of racing," but I think that had more to do with the fact that we went autocrossing all the time than anything to do with my points system. As far as driver selection, I don't think it really influenced it too much. As has been mentioned, we already knew the fastest 2-3 drivers and they did autocross and endurance, and then for skidpad and acceleration we picked amongst the remaining couple people that still were pretty good and sort of tailored it to who was smooth in corners and put them on skidpad, and who had good clutch/throttle control and put them on acceleration.

    Now that's obviously how you have a performance-oriented metric, but as many have mentioned how do you reward people who have put time in? How do you keep out the cocky fools who don't want to do anything but show up and drive like a moron and hit something? I like the setup we had, and while not flawless seemed to be a good compromise. Competition drivers should be the fastest ones simply for the sake of the team, but driving at competition should make up such an incredibly minute percentage of the lifespan of the car as to be insignificant. Besides, some people just like to spectate, some people want to drive but not under that kind of pressure, and you can sort of gauge these things as you go anyway.

    We really only had one rule: You don't drive at an SCCA autocross unless you've driven at one of our random shakedowns or fun runs that we chose arbitrarily. You can absolutely go and watch, but you need seat time before you take it out against the clock. So when did we do our random shakedowns or fun runs? Typically they weren't advertised, so you had to be around to know. Whichever random newbies were around always came too, and of course it's fun to watch. And if they seemed to have a good attitude and respect and knew what they were talking about, that's when you can give them a shot. They people who put the most time in naturally had first shot at driving, and whoever looked like they were doing a good job (newbie or seasoned), we encouraged them to come to an SCCA autocross.

    Now what if you don't have a running car? Karts, while possibly not perfect, are really about as close as you can get to the vehicles themselves IMO, but as for the nature of the race itself I've found it very useful to have SCCA experience. That really sets your mind up for reading the track during a track walk, choosing your lines and remembering where you go, etc. The last thing you want is someone who may be amazing at a rigidly laid out kart track, or simulations, or even street hooning, but gets pylon vertigo when you plop them on a cone course. It's always hilariously sad to see people get quite literally lost in a parking lot, yet it happens ALL THE TIME.


    P.S., as for driver weight, our fastest driver in 2010 was 200 lbs, 2nd fastest was 250 lbs, and third fastest was about 220 lbs
    Dr. Adam Witthauer
    Iowa State University 2002-2013 alum

    Mad Scientist, Gonzo Racewerks Unincorporated, Intl.

  5. #25
    Originally posted by Jay Lawrence:
    I agree with Racer-X. There is a lot more to the FSAE experience than just having the fastest drivers in the car. If someone doesn't work on the car, they tend to not respect it, and you don't want that kind of person driving the car. It will tear the team apart. It's not about someone's ego, it's about someone putting their heart and soul (and time and money) into something, only to have some fool destroy it.

    If everyone on the team is confident with karting then they should be quite safe in a FSAE car, provided you set up a safe track to learn on. The people who show the most control/speed are then picked as your drivers.
    This is an important point. If you put someone in the car who does not know the in and outs, goods and bads with the car, they are liable to just try and drive the piss out of the car assuming everything will work. Case in point, during endurance last year in Lincoln, I drove first and noticed the diff chattered dangerously under heavy braking, and I knew from testing and the build process we had had issues with the diff and it was one of our weakest links. So I changed how I drove so as not to overload the diff to make it through endurance (we ended up DNFing for something else though). Someone unfamiliar with that issue may have simply ignored it and still drove hard and destroyed the rear end halfway through endurance.

    Also for what it's worth, we use the previous year's car to find our quick drivers but the first time they go in the car, we limit throttle to around 20-30%. Enough to scoot around pretty good, but not enough to get overwhelmed with the car's capabilities. Once they've had a go with limited power, and prove they can hold their own, we set them loose with the full car.
    San Jose State University

    FSAE Chassis and Ergonomics Lead '12-'13
    FSAE Chief Engineer '11-'12
    FSAE Chassis Technical Lead '10-'11
    Formula Hybrid Chassis Grunt '09-'10

    "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing le

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