How I use driverMonitor Series

How I use DriverMonitor: SCCA Brainerd Divisional Edition

By Jim Nash, Spec Racer Ford driver, former Formula Ford and SuperVee driver. East/West FF Challenge Champion

Racing a Spec Racer Ford often involves close single class racing with competitive drivers in equally competitive cars. At the Brainerd International Raceway SCCA Double Division race the DriverMonitor app was especially useful so I want to describe how it improved my results for the Sunday portion of the race weekend.

During qualifying DriverMonitor gives me the time remaining in the session and the time difference relative to my best lap time to the driver just behind, the driver just ahead and the driver with the current pole lap. With only 10 cars in the group I had a clear track for much of the time and had only been able to get 6th fastest well into the 15-minute session. I could see I was only a couple tenths out of 5th and over a second to the pole. The second part was almost expected. Provisional pole sitter Dave Cammack had been quick on Saturday and even before the session started I thought it was unlikely I’d be able to match his pace. However, I did think I had a good chance to qualify 2nd. With about 3 minutes to go displayed to me in the car from the DriverMonitor app I figured I had two laps to get it done. Into the first lap I could see from my dash my predicted lap time was going to get me at least 5th, but how much more? I was 3 tenths up on my best lap so far. I crossed start/finish and ….4th! Even better, less than 2 tenths to 3rd. Push harder, hit your marks, be smooth, all that stuff, but most of all don’t make a mistake. Half way around the lap the dash is telling me I am up again. Across start/finish…P2! That was fun.

Without DriverMonitor giving me the time left, my position, and the gap to the next driver I might not have been able to eek it out. I’d like to think I am always driving as fast as I can. I might have attributed the disappointing lap times to track conditions. But knowing where I stood, in real-time, relative to the rest of the group I knew I was not driving as well as I could.

So, I qualified second with less than 4 tenths covering the next 4 drivers, back to sixth. After the polesitter, it was going to be quite a fight in the race. Qualifying third was Ron Boltik less than a tenth behind me. Ron and I are friends and came into the weekend with the intention of giving Dave Cammack a run for his money. Apparently, we just aren’t there quite yet.

Knowing that unless we got by Dave at the start our best bet would be to work together to keep up with him. Maybe we’d learn something. Maybe we’ll use the draft to gang up on him and fight it out. At the very least, maybe we’d be able to pull away from the rest of the field to simplify things a bit.

At the start Dave held the lead and Ron followed him past me. I tucked into 3rd. BIR has a long run from the start tower to the first real corner, Turn 3. Ron was too far back to attack Dave and I defended the inside a bit figuring I’d stick behind Ron and see what we could do working together. 

A couple of laps into the race I could see only one part of the two-part plan was working. Dave was pulling away from us. Not what I had hoped for but not a surprise either. On the other hand, we were beginning to gap the rest of the field. Not quickly, less than a second a lap, but pulling away nonetheless. I could see on DriverMonitor the gap to the leader growing faster than the gap to my pursuers. If I really thought I could run with Dave I would have passed Ron and tried to do it. However, I was risking a clean and simple fight with one car for second vs. getting into a 5-car scrum with everyone eyeing 2nd place. I hung behind Ron for the first 8 laps of the 15-lap race. We built an almost 7 second gap to 4th and I figured that was enough. 

Once I decided to pass Ron it was easy. We discussed waiting until mid-race to start racing but I’m not sure he knew I had decided to stop following him at that point or not. I had hoped to be able to pull away as I had been slightly faster all weekend. No such luck. 3 laps later Ron passed me back. 4 laps to go. Plenty of time. 3 laps to go and…I made a big mistake entering the carousel. I miss my braking point, make a hash of the down shift, run wide out in the grey and lose a bunch of time to Ron. This is now going to be difficult. DriverMonitor shows I am 3+ seconds back from Ron and 4th place is now within 3 seconds of me. I push hard to catch Ron. Too hard. Another couple mistakes has fourth place within 2 seconds. I start thinking about whether I wanted to be on the podium or not and decided to drive more to maintain the gap to fourth than to catch Ron. As much as I could see the guy behind me, having the DriverMonitor app to give me the actual gap vs. me thinking “damn he is close” gave me the confidence to drive strategically. I guess the same could be said for most of the weekend. The DriverMonitor app provides information to me, in the car during the session, with the kind of accuracy you can’t get other ways. 

To read more in the How I Use DriverMonitor series, check out volume 1 from COTA.