You’ve spent hours creating your performance charts, but have you given them a sanity check? A simple graph can help identify potential errors and areas of concern.
Knowing the amount of time lost when starting and stopping is vital to keeping your rally team on time. Great Racers spend hours, sometimes days, collecting performance data. Then they meticulously compile all the collected information into a neat little table and affix it to their lapboard. However, this process is missing a key step: a sanity check of the charts and tables.
Errors can inject themselves at any step of the process. Driver inconsistencies, stopwatch reading mistakes, human delays in pressing the start/stop button, transcription errors, and spreadsheet flaws are a few of the potential error sources. You’ve spent countless hours creating these tables, and now you are going to faithfully rely on their accuracy for the nine days of the Great Race. You need to have the utmost confidence that they are correct.
Adding a Step to the Process
Before you tape that table to your lapboard, give it a sanity check. Chances are, you’ve already entered your data into a spreadsheet to help create, format, and print your tables. Your table probably looks something like this:
To perform a sanity check, simply graph the top row (shaded in green) and the first column (shaded in red) against their respective speeds. After some formatting, you should be able to generate a graph that looks something like this:
Now, simply examine the graph by looking for abnormalities. The driving style of the car’s driver will determine the shape of the lines. Your vehicle’s horsepower-to-weight ratio will affect the magnitude of the lines. If the lines/curves are relatively smooth, then your tables have passed the sanity check. Be aware of the vehicle’s shift points, as small upward bumps in the acceleration line are often normal when shifting.
Examples of Failed Sanity Checks
Now that you’ve seen an example of “good” charts and their graphs, let’s look at some failures.
The bump at 15MPH on the green line could be due to shifting, but the 15MPH and 40MPH bumps on the red braking line should not be there. In this example, additional data was collected, and the tables were then corrected.
Even if you do not know your way around a spreadsheet, you can still use graph paper or even plain paper to make a graph. Here is a real-life example of a hand-drawn graph I made of another team’s performance table. This was likely the result of an error in the construction of the spreadsheet table.
Each Car/Driver is Different
Sometimes the lines appear linear when you graph them, while other times they exhibit a noticeable curve. Both can be correct, as there are many variables at work simultaneously. These are charts/graphs you are going to depend on for nine full days of rallying. They need to pass YOUR sanity check. Does everything make sense for your vehicle and driving style? That is the question you need to answer to your own satisfaction.
Additional Reading/Resources
Don’t forget the first four rally rules, or what Great Race Mentors Janet and Steve Hedke call:
The Four Ss for Success
#1 — Safety First
#2 — Start on Time
#3 — Stay on Course
#4 — Stay on Time