Data Acquisition Systems

by Nick St. Laurent

There are several high zoot data acquisition systems on the market today. My Jamun Formula Ford had a Pi Research system installed when I purchased it. It works great. Nice track map, lots of graphs and charts. You can plot lines on top of lines until the information is dancing around in your head all night long. However, if you're running with a moderate budget like mine and you are thinking of buying a system, here's my advice: if you love gizmos or need to keep the crew entertained, go ahead; if you are serious about improving as a driver, spend your money elsewhere.

I didn't bother using my system for anything other than a tachometer for the first twelve months. Only when I went to the Runoffs in October of 2000 did I finally get instructions and assistance from the folks at Pi and begin downloading data. It was fun looking at all the information, but there is nothing in it for me as a driver that I couldn't suss out in some other way. I looked at the top speed at the end of the straight to discover just how much of an aerodynamic deficit I had. And it was interesting to look at the g-forces to see what was possible. This is all fine and dandy, and keeps me amused when I'm sitting in an airplane for a couple hours.

As a public service, I'll sum up what I've learned so far. You can pitch 'em into a corner pretty hard, they're a little anemic under acceleration (fortunately, everything's relative), and my lap times are faster when I brake at 1.35 g's (hard, controlled braking) than when I stand on the pedal hard enough to generate 1.85 g's. But that's just me.

Assuming that there's a few thousand dollars burning a hole in your pocket, here are three other ways to spend the money to improve your driving: seat time, seat time, seat time. There is a certain amount of improvement that can be accomplished from observation and honesty (with yourself), from the advice and exhortations of friends, and from other mental exercises. You'll note these are all free of charge. But the surer, steadier, and the faster way to improve as a driver is to buy seat time in anything, anywhere. For the price of a data acquisition system, you could buy a couple used go karts, one for you and one for a friend, and go play.

You could take advantage of the practice days before the Texas World Speedway events. Or get together with racing buddies and rent a track. Hallett used to be pretty reasonable during the week, and it's a great facility (but a long drive). Alternatively, you could race with COMMA or NASA in addition to the SCCA club races.

If you need to kick up your aggression level, try those indoor, smooth surface go kart tracks. I kid you not, my driving has never been better than after I spent a hundred bucks for five sessions of "bumper karts" last fall. When your group gets sent onto the track at those facilities, you best have your foot planted firmly on the belly pan or you'll get trashed and abused. If you are not super aggressive, on offense and defense, those 110 pound teenagers and middle-aged street racers will spin you out and stuff you into the tire walls at every opportunity, just for laughs. Some other things you'll learn there: if you get sideways you are history; if you don't look through the corners you are a backmarker; and, if you lack the faith to keep the pedal on the metal in the corners, you won't want to see the results sheet from the session.

There are a couple things to warn you about if you do indoor karting. First, if you plan on running more than one session, do something to filter the air you breathe. The combination of a high heart-rate, deep-breathing activity and poor ventilation of exhaust fumes will have your lungs aching afterwards. Second, if you bring that same level of aggression to SCCA club racing you won't win friends or races, because car racing is NOT a full-contact sport, so be sure to tone it down a little.

Copyright Nick St. Laurent; all rights reserved.