Quick and Dirty Guide to Getting the Most out of Your Data-Logger

And there I was, at a big event staring at the screen, whilst my driver was waiting for me to tell him the magic formula to perfect laptimes! So on that day I abandoned the two grands worth of kit and stuck to watching the driver myself and telling him how to improve.

However I have sinced learned that using a data-logger can make learning the fast way round a track so much easier, but only when you cut out all the crap and focus on two things. Look at the speed channel, and use it to find out which corners make the difference to laptimes.

The beauty of a data-logger is that it can show you exactly where on the track your driver was fast, and how that affected his laptime. And the most important data is your KPH trace, or your RPM trace. Lets say your driver does a 10 lap session, and inexplicably he did a lap half a second quicker than the rest. So, you look at the speed trace for that lap, compare it to the rest of his laps and look for the corners where he was carrying more speed. Now the temptation is to look at throttle, braking and lines mapping and give your driver an information overload, and a feeling he is driving with big brother on his back.

Instead, you need to spend the practice day with focus on those quick corners so that your driver can 'home in' on the quick way round the most important corners. And when it comes to a pressure situation he will resort to that knowledge and carry on banging in quick laps, rather than overdriving and blowing the race. Another tool which can shortcut this process is a video camera with video analysis software

In practical terms, here's a procedure Iwould use to quickly get up to speed on a new track

1. Have your driver do a couple of sessions and use the data-logger to find the most important corners using the speed channel to identify those corners on his quickest laps

2. Ask your driver to concentrate on one of those corners at a time and experiment with his methods for that corner, so you can find a formula to acheive the highest speed on that corner.

3. Experiment with set up to acheive the quickest speed through that corner, your driver will have a good feel for the corner and will want the kart to work really well there, and therefore be quite demanding about set-up.

More often than not, the most important corners are long fast sweeps which require careful speed control, or ones leading onto the straight...however, this isn't always the case and your data-logger can reveal hidden secrets to quick times around your track, which is info your competition will rarely pick up.

Now working in this way with the speed channel is going to give you a great feel for using your data-logger and you will then start to want more information to work with, then you can refine your approach and start to look at more channels. Don't worry if bigger teams are using all the data they can get their hands on, if you learn the data-logger in a natural way, starting with speed trace and allowing the driver to ask for more information when he wants it, then learning the data-logger will be a rewarding experience. For example he might ask how early he got his foot in on a particular corner because he WANTS to know how early he can do it without losing time, the point is to let your driver lead your quest for data, not just the fact that so much data is available, otherwise you will get overwhelmed.

And remember, demands on your time on a day at the track are already very tight...so keep the data logger work clean and simple and you will reap the benefits

Our new article from data logging expert Bouran Data services