How Are Your Outlaps?

I had this discussion with a friend a while back, they are a bit tentative on the first lap of a race, not so much because of traffic but more unsure of the limit on coldish tires and being off line.

Having extensively autocrossed both of the cars I vintage race, cold tires are not an issue for me but I do notice a lot of my fellow racers are giving up a lot.  So I wonder who else is giving up time on the first lap?

For what it's worth these are the thing I do to work on that:

I bring the car to grid with the motor fully warmed up and the gearbox doesn't take long to come up to temp (maybe half a lap), after that I get right up to speed as the tires are about what they would be on the warm up lap. I also drive off line and or passing lines in practice (a tip I got from reading an interview with Kenny Roberts).

In my case passing much faster cars on the first few corners of the opening lap gives me a gap on cars that would likely pass me back.

I know you are talking about racing, not HPDE, but since I don't W2W myself(only HPDE and TT) I'll chime in with my irrelevant opinion anyway...

It's a huge pet peeve of mine during a noncompetitive event when guys try to set a lap record right out of the pits.  I'm at most 8/10 for at least the first half a lap.  Not willing to to take extra risks with my safety or equipment until it has at least a little heat in the tires on a lap that is a slow time anyway.  I'll let you by if you push me, but if I catch you on lap 2, now we both have 2 crappy laps!

In reply to Tom1200 :

I always am ready from the beginning of the pace lap. I watch my competitors from the form up. Looking for tells, a little tentativeness, inattention, something that will cut the difference between his position and mine.  
 

The start is always my peak intensity.  The rule is you may not pass until the green flag drops, but that does not mean you can't gain speed.  So judgement is called for.  You  need to know if you get the jump on someone can you actually make the pass? If so what are  other competitors moves going to be? 
What are my weaknesses?  Strengths.  Those all should be imputed into the gray matter before engine start.  Pace lap is not just for warming up your car but also plan adjustments to your strategy based on the newest inputs discovered during the pace lap. 
The actual race start begins long before the green flag drop. 

ps; no starter ever just drops the flag.  If you're waiting for the downward motion of the flag, you already lost. 
 

To see that in action watch the start laps of the 1986 race in the Bahama's. Steve Kline "jumped" the start sorta Blocking Sir Sterling Moss.  Now It was legal because Steve Kline was actually faster than Moss and on the pole.  
I saw Kline's  aggressiveness and was in the perfect place to take advantage off it.  Changing the quick change after qualifying to a very deep gear  let me stay with the big boys on the start, effectively blocking Sir Sterling Moss  for 4 corners. Until Sir Moss used the power of his Factory updated Aston Martin DBR2  to pass me  and Finished 2nd to Steve Kline. 
 

This was a big deal. Rumor had Moss making $50,000 plus expenses to drive the Aston Martin because Ford was interested in buying Aston Martin. Losing to the Echidna ( Chevy powered) did not bring warm fuzzy's  to Ford.  
 The following race Sir Moss jumped the start before the last corner and returned the blocking technique  to Kline,  

Sir Moss 1st  myself 2nd  

and that's how we finished for the week.  

Track days are totally diferent; I seldom drive more than 2-3 laps  at 100% during any given session. Track days are not racing. 

I can only relate to SCCA Club Racing...

It depends, is it a practice session, qualifying session, or race?

A practice session I'm a bit more laid back.  A certain amount of attention is paid to other drivers, their driving style, etc.  Knowledge I might need later.  Usually we aren't on our best tires, so there are limits.  Also we might have certain things we are checking out on the car, or just warming up the driver.  Sometimes in practice sessions you are pitting often for change of settings.  (no weaving back and forth to warm up tires, somebody out there may already be flying.)

A qualifying session I'm balls to wall exiting pit lane. Using everything the car will give me as it comes in.  The goal being full racing speed the first time you cross start/finish. It usually is only a few laps until you are in lapped traffic, so best qualifying times are usually early.  Also "black flag all" can wipe out a session.  So, you want to get it done.  If you are a gambler, you can wait on pit lane, because most won't run the whole session burning up tires, so sometimes you get an empty track in the last half of the session.  

A race session is a race.  Warm up brakes and tires on pace lap.  Use everything you've learned in the other sessions to try to win.

At the least I'll be in the car for 1 hour, at the most 2.5 hours. My outlap is not going to be blistering. I'm going to feel out the car, see if the tires are at a different wear level than my last time out(likely), feel out how many cars are on track, see if there's something new on the track(bumper?) and generally get in the groove. While getting strapped in the previous driver(unless I'm first for the session) will give me a quick debrief while strapping me in, usually about tires/brakes/drivers, and I'll be pondering that while I'm getting back out. In an hour stint I'm usually up to my normal pace after maybe 3 laps.

In reply to buzzboy :

Endurance racing is wildly different from sprint racing.  The trade is smoothness over ultimate speed,  preservation  over speed, finishing is the ultimate goal because to finish first, first you must finish. 

I have been doing w2w for the last 15 years. I used to be very careful and, frankly, very slow on the first lap, but not anymore. For me, it is all about: 

A. Trusting your own abilities - "I can drive with cold tires, or in the rain, or with worn-out tires - hell yeah, here we go!"

B. Trusting the car and the tires - If you have warmed the car properly on the out lap (and you didn't have to sit too long on the grid), you should have enough grip to give 85% or so. 

C. Know the car and the tires - On track days and training days, I try to do the same routine as I do in a race, every session. I heat the tires on the out lap and I hit as much pace as I estimate the car can do as soon as I get the green flag. Or a bit higher pace, just to learn where the limit is. Building experience. 

D. Know that bumping someone is not the end of the world - Don't get me wrong, I am NOT the driver that wrecks other peoples cars and hasn't been in any class or series. But, with some years of experience, I have also significantly lowered my respect level for car-to-car contact, bumps, trading paints, etc. Usually, you know who has a freshly painted car and who is racing on a shoestring budget and of course, you are extra careful around those guys. But bumping your mates car a little because you gave it a few % too much... not the end of the world. 

I used to race in a series of vastly mixed cars, from super7s (which I drove) to M3s, 911, Lotus, Corvettes, tube frame cars, etc. I got the impression that the fellows with massive, wide tires wouldn't get either temp/grip or confidence in their cars until well into the race, lap 3, or for some even lap 4. That gave us with smaller cars and smaller tires a nice advantage. Weirdly, this was extra prominent in the rain! It should reasonably be the opposite since heating up a rain tire in the wet isn't much of a task, but it wasn't. Maybe it had more to do with confidence and finding the limit (this was obviously an amateur series), but the gang of little Westfields, Caterhams, Furys and such would take off like a swarm of bees as soon as the lights went out (drifting a Westfield in the rain is better than sex, by the way. Like... better than really GOOD sex!), while the larger and heavier cars would need several laps to get up to pace. 

I've done a lot of W2W endurance racing and many, many track days.  The one thing that both venues have in common is that someone usually screws the pooch on the outlap.  

Otherwise, I agree with everything else above.  Everyone out there is thinking the same thing...they got this.  Some of them are wrong.  

I usually start our endurance races because I'm decent at passing people that are scared and staying out of everyone else's wrecks.  For track days, I go pretty hard on the outlap because I'm comfortable with my car and setup  It's also pretty easy to spot the people are overdriving their cars and stay out of their way. 

It's about adrenaline, which is why we all do this.  That adrenaline gets dulled just a little with experience, freeing up your brain to think and observe.  When I had less experience, I took a lot of risks I didn't know I was taking.  :)

Most of my racing was sprint racing either with two 15 min. heats or one 30 min. race, and the organizers discouraged heating up your tires by weaving back and forth on the pace lap after some twit managed to zig at the same time ad the guy beside him zagged and caused a collision before the race even started.

Brakes, - no problem, just apply them a little with your left foot on the pace lap so that when you really hit them the first time you have some grip. This isn't as big an issue today, but back then I was running Ferodo DS11 pads and regularly ended up out of shape in the first hairpin turn with cold brakes.

Best advantage I had was thinking about what we were doing. The first corner was usually reasonably close to the start/finish line and most of the sheep in the other cars never figured out that the racing line they had been taught was the correct one, didn't apply if you were entering the corner 20-30 mph slower on the first lap.  They all just lined up on the approved line going through that corner....and I drove around several by taking an inside line that would have been impossible at higher speed.

wspohn said:

Best advantage I had was thinking about what we were doing. The first corner was usually reasonably close to the start/finish line and most of the sheep in the other cars never figured out that the racing line they had been taught was the correct one, didn't apply if you were entering the corner 20-30 mph slower on the first lap.  They all just lined up on the approved line going through that corner....and I drove around several by taking an inside line that would have been impossible at higher speed.

One of my favorite pieces of advice from Smith(or Bondurant? I forget) is "don't drive to the line, end up on it. Really saved me a lot.