AC Mazda MX cup @ Silverstone National - Fri 12JAN18

[Lil Ol Lady Jo]

Hi Ernie,

Thank you so much for this and for you effort and your encouragement. For the avoidance of doubt, I'm a long long way from telling you to piss off hee hee. (...I usually save that for my other half ...)

If I tried to appraise my own driving, I'd liken to it a quote about the music of Wagner - "some delightful 10 minutes, interspersed with some dreadful half hours". I am making a lot of silly and avoidable errors, many of which I think are born out of over-driving.

Equipment wise I started (just before Christmas) with a DF GT set that I picked up cheap on ebay (where else). It seems to work fine, but I don't think I've got it at all dialled in (see below). I decided that the pedals are rubbish and last week I raided my savings and bought a Fanatec CSL Elite pedal set to get the load cell braking. It seems to be a massive improvement, but I'm still finding my way with them.

On Friday, I also practised enough but not too much at the start of the evening. Previously, I thought I'd allowed myself to get too tired and by the time the race started, I was all in and my concentration was spent..

Two things about this wheel if I may pick your brains. I've dialled the gain down considerably because I was getting very heavy ffb and at times the wheel felt that it had locked / stuck in one position. The second thing is that whatever I do the steering ratio is very high, I don't need to turn the wheel more than about 45 deg even in hairpins, which means that small hand movements are greatly amplified.

I think I am dragging along some bad habits and as you may have seen, I've signed up for Bram's academy on Thursday evening, so hopefully this will give me a sound 'back to basics' routine of healthy habits to practice.

Once again, many many thanks for your efforts and your encouragement.

take care

Jo

 

[Kek700]

Brams academy, perfect.

I'm not really good enough to start dishing out advise, other people in the forum
are far better qualified.

In fact I only usually supply an article in this forum as an excuse to have a rant

I had a DFGT initially, so I have an idea of your perspective. And funnily enough
I think I spotted that in your driving, you are missing some important information,

But before I say any more, some people drive at the top level with just a key board.
Though invariably these few people are talented.

It's giving good advice the less gifted that counts, i.e. me for example.

A good FFB back wheel is very important as it supplies me with information
that I need to control the car, quickly and accurately. From my perspective
I just cannot work my brain around a 2D monitor image. (Some people just can.)

That brings me to the break point of cost and wheel quality.

That I cannot answer that with any conviction. Rasmus, for example gives really good
advice and I am sure Bram and many other do too.

In fact it was Rasmus article about steering wheel FFB app that made quite a difference
to the use of my steering wheel.
Maybe this is an avenue to explore.
I do think an second hand t500 or FANATEC club sport V1 would
make a big difference to your driving, as I said your basics seem very good to me.

I will watch your progress with interest

 

[Neilski]

I don't need to turn the wheel more than about 45 deg even in hairpins

This is a big problem IMO. @RasmusP may have a clue how to fix it.
When the steering lock is far enough off (either low or high) I can't drive properly at all.
You do have the Logitech Profiler (or similar) software installed and running I hope?

 

[RasmusP]

That doesn't sound good at all!
But I can assure you that a dfgt is totally fine for normal racing! Only problem of that wheel is that it turns too slowly on its own so when you play Dirt Rally for example and you let th wheel move the opposite lock, it isn't fast enough. Where a real wheel needs 0.01s to turn, the dfgt needs 0.5s.
No problem while having grip. And you want to always have "grip" while racing

Setting the wheel up correctly is quite complicated.
Please drop me a pm so we can get into teamspeak at some point. Perfectly at some point over the next days before the driving academy! Without ts it will need a lot of messages and then we still can't be sure that you got everything right

 

[Lil Ol Lady Jo]

Thanks Rasmus, have sent you a PM to arrange a time for TS

 

[Lil Ol Lady Jo]

Hi everyone,

Just a big thank you to those of you who encouraged me to sort out my set up. Rasmus did a brilliant job yesterday via TS and has changed my wheel beyond recognition. Gone are the over-geared heavy steering and the lumpiness making driving so much easier.

So now you can enjoy finding out just how badly I do drive hee hee

J:o)