A letter to all GTS competitors: New compliance testing...

[JSG1901]

Greetings,

 

First, let me offer my thanks for your continuing participation with, and support of, NASA GTS. I truly believe we have some of the best, closest, and most fun-to-watch racing anywhere in NASA.

 

I'm writing this letter to let you know about a new NASA initiative that we, as GTS, are in the forefront of bringing to the track. Specifically, I'm talking about a new way of testing vehicles for compliance purposes.

 

Let me start with a little background:

 

As you know, the GTS rule set is just about as simple as a set of rules can be. You can do just about anything you want to the car in terms of modifications but, given whatever you did to the car, you have to put it on a dyno, multiply the result by the appropriate power-to-weight ratio, and the result is your car's allowable minimum weight.

 

It's easy, incredibly straightforward, and allows for a lot of variation and experimentation in our builds.

 

Best of all, it's easy to monitor. Take the car off the track, weigh it, put it back on a dyno, do the math again, and the car is either legal or it's not. No engine tear-downs like in Spec Miata, no body templates like in NASCAR. Make your number and you're good to go. Easy peezy.

 

At least, it used to be.

 

Unfortunately, thanks in great part to the computers that make our cars both more sophisticated and more capable, these days it's also a lot easier for those with the inclination to do so, to cheat. To be clear, I'm not saying you are cheating. In fact, I'm not saying anybody in GTS is cheating.

 

But I'm also not saying they aren't.

 

What I can say for sure is that there's a feeling in many of our regions that some of the cars and/or drivers out there may have been a little, well, let's call it "loose" with the rules. When you see ads in Grassroots Motorsports for BMW chips that let you adjust your power simply by flipping the window washer switch, I think it's safe to say it's a lot harder to be confident that the numbers we see on the dyno in the paddock are representative of the power every car is actually making while it's out there on the track. And that's the rub.

 

The solution, of course, is simple: Find a way to measure horsepower while the car is still on the track. Boom. Done.

 

Except, actually doing that is a lot harder than it sounds. It's easy to use GPS or accelerometers (or both) to measure acceleration. You may already have a device that does this in your car. All modern data systems do this, as do many smartphone apps. But when you start to want to use that information for compliance purposes--which is to say, to use it as a tool to disqualify cars from races, from contingencies, from season championships, and so on--then you need to be pretty sure of your data. And, there are a lot of variables at work here, from atmospheric pressure and temperature, to aerodynamic drag, gearing, and probably a hundred other considerations. Some tracks, like Mid-Ohio, don't have any level straights on which to take measurements. Others, like Miller, are at higher altitudes, resulting in less raw acceleration for the same dyno horsepower. Drag values can change when you're drafting somebody, or when you add a ton of aero.

 

So, it's a challenge, but we're racers. We're all about challenges.

 

Toward that end, GTS will be participating in the initial gathering of data for a new type of compliance measurement tool. A tool that will ride along with you in the car and measure what's actually happening while you're out there on the track. Someday, these units will likely be installed in all of our cars, but for now we'll be working with a limited number of units that will be shared among the GTS Series Directors across the country.

 

What's this mean for you? A few things.

 

First, I should point out that in this past winter's updates to the GTS rules we added a paragraph which permits using these devices for compliance purposes. At the end of section 6: Engine power/protest procedure, you'll find the following statement:

 

Notwithstanding any of the above, NASA reserves the right to use alternate compliance checking tools including in-car, GPS-based, and other technologies it deems appropriate. All such technologies will be considered valid for use in GTS compliance checking if declared so by NASA.

Consider this message NASA's declaration that these devices are to be considered valid for compliance testing within GTS.

 

Now, having said that, we will continue to use at-the-track dynos and other devices, too. The in-car units will be used as supplemental validation. Initially, data from the devices will be analyzed by engineers after the fact. That is, after the racing weekend. Our goal is to have all such analysis done within the week following the event but, to be fair, this is new to all of us so it's possible we may miss that goal occasionally. By the rules, we have 30 days to make any event's results official.

 

We have a strategy in mind for both using and analyzing this data, one I won't discuss at this point. And, although I hope never to have to do it, you should know that if the data clearly supports it, we will not hesitate to disqualify drivers based on data alone.

 

Not every car will have a unit put into it. In fact, some cars will NEVER have units put into them. If you're a regular back-of-the-pack driver, I'd guess the chances of you ever seeing one of these early units in your car is not good. On the other hand, if you're fast? Well, you're probably going to get a little hands-on experience with them. Consider it confirmation of your skills.

 

If you're in the group likely to have units installed, I'd suggest you think pretty hard about getting yourself an in-car video system if you don't have one already. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. Spend a few hundred bucks on a Go-Pro and call it a day. Besides being great both for showing your buddies and helping analyze your driving after the fact, such a camera might be able to give you evidence for a plausible defense should your car be disqualified for reasons you believe to be incorrect. Fair warning.

 

In closing, I've written this letter to give you at least a broad-brush overview of the work we're doing to try to insure everyone that, in GTS, we're playing on a level field. Will this system work perfectly the first time out? Not likely. That's not how the world works. Is it possible somebody will be DQ'd when they shouldn't be as we learn to use these units and the data they provide? I'd be lying if I said it wasn't possible, but obviously we're going to do our level best to keep that from happening.

 

More importantly, the data we collect during this season will inform the optimization of both the devices and the software we hope to use in the future. At the same time, I'd like to think we'll bring a little more confidence to the group as a whole that what's happening on the track is the same thing that's happening on the dyno.

 

Again, thanks for your continuing support of GTS. Be careful out there.

[Alan_Wolfe]

Awesome!

 

Please be as transparent as you can be. Since dynos aren't at many events its tough for the new guys like me to really know where we are against the official dyno. I'd love to have HP/torque feedback after every event, just like we get weighed at every event. I think it should be part of the results.

 

Alan

[cwbaader]

Scott, I'm very curious as to what system will be used. As I have 10+ years experience with GPS based units and have seen wild variations of hp/tq registered in my car. Explain further, please.