This weekend featured the start of the 2014 Darley Moor championships. Compared to the 4-feet tall piles of snow that welcomed us at the start of the 2013 season, the sunshine that we received this year provided a very welcome alternative!

With a test day the day before the race meeting, it was a good opportunity to test the changes made over the winter, as well as to get some track time and get warmed up for the race meeting. Throughout the test day, I managed to get comfortable on the bike and put in a fastest lap of 1'03.56, which was suitably close to my personal best lap of 1'03.19 for me to feel prepared for the race day ahead.

With the clocks 'springing forward' overnight, we awoke to a slightly chilly but dry morning. With the mandatory exhaust noise test out of the way, we were the first out on track to qualify for the Formula Darley races. Our qualifying session had been combined with the classic machine classes (some of which had fastest qualifying laps of 1'31.97) which meant that getting in a clean lap proved difficult - but on the very final lap I managed to get a clear run and lapped in 1'04.03 to put me 2nd on the Formula Darley grid.

The Mini Sound of Thunder qualifying took place 14 minutes later and allowed the opportunity to string some proper clear laps together, eventually putting in a new personal best lap of 1'03.12 that placed me 4th in the Mini Sound of Thunder class (8th overall on the combined starting grid). Although happy with the 1'03.12 lap, I was on an even quicker lap, with the dashboard showing 0.19 of a second below the 1'03.12, but I was unfortunately held up at the last corner so couldn't keep that advantage to the line. It did, however, indicate that a lap in the 1.02 second bracket may be possible once we got into the races.

Starting from the 2nd place grid position in the first Formula Darley race, a poor start led to me entering the first chicane in 7th place. I managed to pass Johnathan Trezins and Michael Brookes early in the race to take 5th place in an otherwise lonely race. The clear track did provide the opportunity to lap quickly and I managed to set a new personal best lap of 1'02.95, followed a few laps later by another new personal best lap of 1'02.84.

The saying of "you're never too old to learn" comes to mind when thinking back to the start of the first Mini Sound of Thunder race. The start lights were on and off so fast that I had barely put the bike into gear when the race had started! I battled hard to regain what I could from the race and set another new personal best lap of 1'02.72 on my way to 6th place in the race.

A much improved start for the second Formula Darley race put me 6th into the first chicance, before going up to 5th place on the second corner. I was unable to keep in touch with the leading pack but could see that Paul Turner was dropping off the back of the leading pack. After putting in consistent laps (including a 1'02.86 lap), I managed to catch and pass Paul on lap 7 of 8. Knowing that I needed to put in a quick final lap to secure the 4th place finish, I put a clean lap together until catching a backmarker at the fast back esses. Thinking that Paul would likely try a last-corner pass, I set myself up to get a clean run to the finish line. Upon arriving at the final corner, Paul came passed on the brakes but doing so, ran wide on the exit and allowed me to get the drive to the line to finish in 4th place.

Mini Sound of Thunder Race 2 was a great and fun race. A three-way battle for 4th place formed between Joshua Dransfield, Paul Turner and myself (with Anthony Porter just ahead of us in 3rd place). With close racing and positions changing all the way until the last lap, this will be a good onboard video to watch! I managed to win the battle and take the 4th place, setting another new personal best lap of 1'02.42 on the last lap of the race!

After Round 1 (of 7), we are placed in joint 4th place in the Mini Sound Of Thunder championship and 5th place in Formula Darley championship. With six rounds still remaining, there is still plenty left to play for! But before then, we have Round 2 of the NG Supertwin championship at Oulton Park this coming weekend (5th April).

And for those of you who read the previous post and might be wondering what my 'ideal racing line' around Darley Moor would look like... Here it is!  :-)

Nowadays, motor racing relies not only on the feedback from the racer - but also from the data that has been captured whilst out on track. The possibility exists to capture a variety of parameter data in an effort to lap more quickly; capturing data relating to wheel speed, suspension movement, throttle position, braking pressure and many others.

The use of Global Positioning System (GPS) datalogging is becoming increasingly popular, as it can capture not only how fast the racer was going - but also where they were on the earth at that very moment.

The capture of GPS data allows racers to compare individual laps against each other in order to see where improvements can be made. Below is a comparison of two different laps around the same circuit using the AiM Race Studio software. This top graph shows speed over distance, with the lower graph showing the time difference between the two laps: the blue line is static - when the red line dips below the blue line the lap is faster & when the red line goes above the blue line the lap is slower.

This lap-by-lap analysis is very useful and allows racers to spot some interesting events and raise questions such as “What happened to the ‘faster’ blue lap at this point?”

The beauty of using GPS data is that the ability exists to look at the track position in order to investigate events like this in great detail. With the track position overlay, you can see that the racer ran wide on the blue lap. Another look back to the previous data graph suggests that the corner was entered too quickly, forcing an extended braking period to get back onto the ‘quicker’ racing line.

This analysis is useful but where exactly is that ‘quicker’ line? With a lack of physical reference points it makes it difficult to make any tangible improvements when the racer heads back out on track.

With the introduction (and constant improvement) of Google Earth, along with the ability to export a .KML file from the AiM Race Studio datalogging software, the ability to see all of the racer’s laps overlaid on the circuit map is available (including the racer’s return into pit lane!). Unfortunately, as all of these laps are output as a single ‘lump’ of data, the ability to colour code each individual lap does not exist - they will always be the same colour as each other - which makes comparison extremely difficult.

The ability to select and output a single (e.g. the fastest) lap does not exist within the datalogging software - but that’s not really what the racer would want anyway. Having the ability to visualise the fastest lap would show the racer how they actually managed to achieved their fastest lap - but could they have gone even faster?

Interrogating the data to find the ‘ideal racing line’

With over 80 laps of GPS racing data available, downloaded to .CSV format using the datalogging software, the question of “Could there be a way to process and visualise this data in order to select the best parts from each lap, so that the ‘ideal racing line’ can be found?” was posed.

As all of this data came from the same racer, any results found should be repeatable. It was time to crack open the Lavastorm Analytics Engine to see what could be achieved…

After loading in the .CSV format GPS files (which contained fields of Time, Distance, GPS Speed, GPS Latitude and GPS Longitude captured at a rate of 10Hz - i.e. every 0.1 second), the header records were first removed before the Time and Distance fields were transformed into ‘Double’ format.

With no Lap Number available within the data, a calculated value was added to the data in order to check how many different racing laps were used to create the new ‘ideal racing line’.

The next task was to sort the data by Time and Distance and then select the data record that had covered the most distance in the time available, before trimming the data to the same length as the racer’s fastest lap (to prevent overlap). Using the available datasets, it transpired that 6 different racing laps were involved in the creation of the ‘ideal racing line’.

Now that all of the relevant data records had been selected and sorted, it was time to convert the data into the format required by Google Earth. The Google Earth .KML files are XML based, so a suitably-formatted header & a suitably-formatted footer were created to ‘sandwich’ the modified GPS data. This was then output to a .CSV file that was then converted to a .KML file.

You will find the result of this analysis below - the racer is now aware of the ‘ideal racing line’ to take, using their own machine, in order to lap in the quickest time (lap shown in red). For comparison, this ‘ideal’ lap has been highlighted above a full session’s worth of racing data (shown in yellow).

Now that the ‘ideal racing line’ has been uncovered, the pressure is now on the racer to stick to it during the next session out on track. After the following session has been completed, the ‘new’ data from this new session can be downloaded into a .KML file to view (in Google Earth) how close the actual racing lines were to the ‘ideal racing line’.

The new data can also be run through Lavastorm to see whether an even quicker racing line can be revealed! :-)

Even though the data analysis shown above is only scratching the surface of what the Lavastorm Analytics Engine is able to achieve, a racer is always happy to take any advantage they can get!

The onboard race videos from Brands Hatch are now online on our YouTube Channel. Here is a peek at the final Supertwin race of the weekend...

The NG Brands Hatch weekend was one of unexpected sunshine, plenty of cement dust, low 54 second laps and 2nd place in the championship.

The start of our 2014 season took place at the Brands Hatch ‘Indy’ circuit with the NG Road Racing club, with a three-day weekend consisting of Friday Practice and Saturday/Sunday Racing. A quick mention and thanks must go out to the Poole Performance Centre for the hard work taken to get us out on track following some last minute electrical hiccups on our Kawasaki ER6 Supertwin.

Having not ridden for five months over winter, I was feeling a bit rusty when I went out onto the track on Friday morning, so decided to take it slowly from the off and build up gradually at my own pace. Witnessing two people crashing in the first session reinforced my impression that I was doing the right thing! By the end of the day - after 80+ laps of the circuit - I was able to end the day with a series of laps in the 55-second barrier, which we were happy with. As all of those laps had worn out the tyres, we fitted some new ones in preparation for the weekend’s racing - with thanks going to Sam Pointon for picking up the bill for those!

This was the first time we had raced with NG Road Racing. NG structure their weekend differently from other clubs I have raced with, in that the ‘Final’ race is by far the most important - with that race alone providing both the championship points and trophies. Grid positions for the ‘Final’ race are determined by your finishing position in the ‘Qualifying’ race. Grid positions for the ‘Qualifying’ race are determined by the Top 10 championship points rankings, with positions 11 onwards being determined by when the entry form was received by the club. Somehow, I managed to find myself starting in pole position for the ‘Qualifying’ races on both days!

Saturday Race day was a dry but cool day. Starting from pole position, I finished the 9-lap ‘Qualifying’ race in fourth position. I managed to get into 55-second laps - but as it took me a while to get up to speed, the leaders got away from me. I started the 11-lap ‘Final’ race from fourth on the grid and managed to retain my fourth place until the end of the race, setting a new personal best lap time of 55.17 seconds. The ‘Final’ race was won by Wayne Axon, with Gerrard Spear taking second place narrowly ahead of Rhys Hardisty.

Sunday Race day was another dry day but was significantly warmer - reaching 18 degrees! Before our ‘Qualifying’ race took place, a sidecar engine blew up (and then caught fire), which dropped oil onto the track through Druids and Graham Hill corners. A lot of cement dust was used for the clear-up and our race distance was shortened by one lap as we were given two sighting laps instead. I found the cement dust to be very slippery, which meant that I was overly cautious during the race and only got my lap times into the 56-second barrier, eventually finishing the ‘Qualifying’ race in fifth position.

Sunday’s 11-lap ‘Final’ race was the final race of our weekend and also the final race of the day. The race was started at 5pm and the sun was already beginning to set. I started the race from fifth on the grid and got a mediocre start. After two laps, a crashing bike spread gravel onto the circuit, so the race was stopped so that the circuit could be cleared. This meant a full race restart over nine laps. The restarted race worked in my favour as I managed to get a better start and got into my race rhythm a lot quicker. With some clear track ahead of me, I set a new personal best lap time of 54.28 seconds, with the final five laps of the race being within 0.14 of a second of my best time (the outright class record is 53.76). Thanks to a final-lap fall from Gerrard Spear, I finished the race in 2nd place - 4.79 seconds behind race-winner Wayne Axon.

My 4th place and 2nd place finishes this weekend mean that...
I am currently standing in 2nd place in the NG Road Racing Supertwins championship!

The next round of the NG Road Racing championship will be held at Oulton Park on Saturday 5th April. Before then, we will be racing at Darley Moor Round 1 on Sunday 30th March.