UK Karting - Notice Board (General Karting) : Re: how to test

Notice Board (General Karting)

Re: how to test
Posted by 'davidmc' on 19 Dec 2008 @ 11:32

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davidmcJoined: April 2003
Total Posts: 2
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All the above are fine for getting some sort of setup knowledge, but they don't really deal with testing per se. For instance, they wouldn't give you a useful insight into whether a new brake system has given you a laptime improvement.

For instance, depending on what I was testing, I would usually only pick one or two things to test in a day. Testing tyre pressures would easily take all day to gain any useful knowledge, let alone a full understanding. You need to arrive with several test programmes outlined just in case external factors (the weather say) render your programme impractical. You need to limit variables as far as possible (hence one change at a time). The less variables you can limit (track conditions, tyre wear, driver), the more mileage you have to do to get any useful data. As SimonS says, a circuit generally gets faster throughout the day. Having your baseline setup gives you another way of reducing variables.

To get an idea of what data to record and in what format you need to consider what you may ask yourself in the future. "When we were last at Kimbolton in extreme wet conditions and we struggled with turn-in, what did we do to cure it?" or "Have we ever struggled with a front-end hop?" or "What tyre pressures do we need to run on at Rye House when using tyres that have done X heat cycles at a track temp of 15C?"

Remember, drivers also need testing. As an example, have three sets of slicks ready and spend the day doing cold tyre runs. It's pretty tedious, but those first three laps can easily win you a race. Finally, take the opportunity to stand at each corner and watch your driver. Correlate their feedback with what you have seen with your own eyes. Karts are worse than women for giving mixed signals!

Having said all that, vastly the most important factor is getting your driver up-to-speed. Everything else is tenths, the driver is seconds.

Dave

Message Thread:

how to test by 'Rec' (18 Dec 2008 @ 12:39)

Re: how to test by 'DBaldwin' (18 Dec 2008 @ 13:32)

Re: how to test by 'richydehav' (18 Dec 2008 @ 13:32)

Re: how to test by 'DanXP1' (18 Dec 2008 @ 13:55)

Re: how to test by 'chriskasch' (18 Dec 2008 @ 16:02)

Re: how to test by 'michaelg36' (18 Dec 2008 @ 16:47)

Wet testing by 'rotaxmxr' (18 Dec 2008 @ 19:20)

Rotaxmxr by 'michaelg36' (18 Dec 2008 @ 19:34)

Re: how to test by 'SimonS' (18 Dec 2008 @ 21:39)

Re: how to test by 'chriskasch' (18 Dec 2008 @ 21:57)

Re: how to test by 'TeamKermit' (19 Dec 2008 @ 2:56)

Re: how to test by 'davidmc' << You are here!

Re: how to test by 'chriskasch' (19 Dec 2008 @ 16:54)

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