Our senses are analog, we talk a lot about digital and our enhanced amazing digital world but ultimately it is just a storage medium. As I say in Optimum Drive our brains are organic supercomputers but much better because we are blessed with some (varying levels) of reason that comes from our consciousness (that is some part nature and a big chunk learned). Everything digital is just a hugely simplified approximation of what we quite naturally do and learn to do better and better. It is so simplified because everything in our lives is interconnected and hugely complex as a result. Where do you draw the line between necessary information or just nice to have? You can’t code everything every time you try to replicate something, you strip away everything but the core components and roll with that and it works…to a point. You have to know your audience/market and at least hit their level of “good enough”. I like the analogy of music and art from preschool to grad school and the ever escalating “good enough”
Driving should and does fit that mold, we just have braking, accelerating and steering. Easy enough to log with a data system. Get a system and depending on the system (and your budget) log at five, ten, twenty, fifty, one hundred (or higher) samples per second (Hz) depending on the detail you desire, chuck in a little filtering to smooth it all out and there you have it, you have mapped a human driving. Thousands of people do this every weekend from track day drivers to F1. Petaflops of data on what amateurs and pros alike do while behind the wheel…yet
On a skid pad you know someone has it (is competent) when you can have a conversation with them while they are inducing and recovering slides, you realize it before they do which is always a hugely satisfying moment to be able to point that out to them after the session (say it in the moment and you’ll probably break the spell, so wait!). What have they achieved? They have mentally mapped the steering, throttle and brakes individually (how fast and how much) and then how they interact. That is a good basic preschool level, good enough for anyone venturing near the limit of a car they are controlling (not relying on electronic nannies). Out of the thousands logging data every weekend how may are at even that basic level? From that entry level start point they add experience (most obvious is vehicle speed and grip which demand much more speed and precision) as the journey continues. The saying “fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me” proves we can and should learn to anticipate, after a while the car can’t “fool you” (surprise you might be more appropriate), you can feel the forces growing due to your inputs and curb them appropriately too settle the car right at the limit (without a serious overshoot of the limit). This is fundamental car balancing. That gets combined with your understanding of what the ideal balance should be through the various positions in various corner types. Slower longer corners? Later apex with more initial rotation. Faster shorter corner? More geometric apex with no initial rotation and mapping all points in between those extremes. That knowledge combined with a working car set-up (that allows ideal balance to be set by you in the variety of corners mentioned). Then add competitive car that while being balanced by you makes a competitive G number under braking, cornering and accelerating conditions. Sounds efficient right? Simple with T’s crossed and I’s dotted, you can practically visualize the checkered flag. Then add race craft into the mix and you really have something.
In the two prior paragraphs is a fairly detailed (yet succinct) description of driving where if you were efficiently accurately doing that it would put you at the level of a professional driver. Yet there are so few. Yet so many have data. What happens? What’s broken? Where is the disconnect? The answer: Feel > Data. Data is a crutch for drivers, drivers are ultimately feel animals. Blending the controls may be infinitely measurable but in the car not a lick of that matters, it is only your ability to judge what the car (the tires more precisely) need to be optimized at any given moment that matters. Data while great information taken in outside the car, while you are actually driving it’s another story entirely, think about it... We try and do what the data suggests, things like brake later (usually harder initially), carry more mid-corner speed (minimum speed), square the car up (get to full throttle sooner) as examples.
Why though? Why aren’t we doing things correctly? We can’t feel the limit. We cannot take the data and just do it unless we had the feel in the first place and at that point we would already be doing it because we could feel what the data is so clunkily attempting to saying. The reason you need to do it is the same reason why you’re not doing it…you can’t feel it. Data for a driver should only be confirmation of what you are feeling, not telling you what to do. Do I use data? Heck yea, do F1 drivers use data? Also, heck yea, but for confirmation not direction. You do hear it though even in F1: One teammate asking where the other is faster for example. That is just a shortcut and an embarrassing one at that, they should focus on feeling the car at the limit and know where the time is.
Data is for engineers, it should not be for drivers and reliance on data verses your own good judgement is, as stated, is just a crutch. “Analysis paralysis” is the result of a poor ratio of feel verses data. I talk a lot about flow in Optimum Drive and for a damn good reason, it is the only state of mind where the possibility of greatness at any level exists. If you are focusing on braking later (for example) instead of optimizing your tires under braking you will never reach flow state. It is why I absolutely insist on (continual) car control as being the foundation of driving. That is where all the physical cues about those contact patches exist in a controlled manner can therefore be isolated and ingrained. Layer by layer step by step the why behind it all. It becomes part of you…not something you need to read off a screen.
This is going to sound like a OK Boomer moment (I am not a Boomer…Gen X FTW!) but this topic brings up the big issue with electronics in the car, not the data system but the ABS, TC and Stability Control. All killers of feel, even an electronic throttle, electric power steering, paddle shifters, brake by wire (yikes). These are things people who can feel the difference complain about and people who can’t call those people crazy.
These electronics are invading our lives and while creating simplicity and improving accessibility are killing quality…at their entry levels. Same thing in music, movies and products of all types. It’s not all doom and gloom though, for all the MP3 music crap there is a lossless equivalent and we can by music all the way from vinyl up to resolutions we wouldn’t have been able to dream of a few years ago. If you are listening to hi res audio through your Earpods then shame on you for saying there’s not a difference and calling it a scam and likewise telling me how your Tesla is a “drivers car” just because it’s fast. Anything you should be doing as a career (hopefully) and hobby (certainly) should by definition be a passion project to you. Unless you’re an uber nerd there is no passion in data (and let’s be honest uber nerd, you’re kinda’ just telling yourself that), it is soulless, not to say it isn’t interesting but realize it is a trap. but getting out and actually driving, really driving a car. Balanced by you, put on the limit by you, optimized by you, living, flowing in the moment…the best analog you…the only actual you (and can I get a collective “to hell with the Metaverse”).