When it comes to natural talent, racing a car is a lot like most other sports. Innate ability counts, of course, but it's no substitute for hard work. Data also has its role to play, enabled at the race track by rugged devices with embedded processors and GPS. It's something we've delved into at a strictly amateur level in the past, but we've been curious to see how the pros do things. Enter CJ Wilson Racing.

Data is for everyone, not just for the Pros

Even a few years ago, using this kind of data analysis to find speed behind the wheel was the beyond the means of most grassroots or amateur drivers. That's really not the case anymore. You don't need thousands of dollars for a MoTeC or TraqMate system thanks to AutosportLabs. The Seattle-based startup is developing RaceCapture, which combines a low price ($199) with an intuitive UI, two things that this space has been missing. Even a few years ago, using this kind of data analysis to find speed behind the wheel was the beyond the means of most grassroots or amateur drivers. That's really not the case anymore. You don't need thousands of dollars for a MoTeC or TraqMate system thanks to AutosportLabs. The Seattle-based startup is developing RaceCapture, which combines a low price ($199) with an intuitive UI, two things that this space has been missing. Since this is 2015 and everything is connected to the cloud, RaceCapture uses phone and tablet apps or a Web interface to analyze one's data (unlike every other data acquisition platform which all depend on user-unfriendly Windows apps). And because it's connected, you can stream telemetry and video from your car while you're actually at the track. We hope to take a much closer look at RaceCapture in the new year, but in the meantime you can find out more at its Kickstarter page.



If you're more of a fan of stick-and-ball sports than the four-wheeled kind, you'll probably know CJ Wilson for his day job—pitching for the Anaheim Angels Major League Baseball team. However, Wilson is also a committed gearhead. He likes fast cars—he owns a McLaren P1, an R32 Nismo GTR, and a Dodge Viper ACR among others—and since 2010 he's had his own racing team. The team started off racing in the Playboy Mazda MX5 Cup (a one-make series for Miatas) before graduating to the Continental Tire Sportscar Challenge.

2015 was a good year for CJ Wilson racing. It raced Mazda MX-5s in the Street Tuner (ST) class, for cars that are allowed relatively few modifications from the road car. The #5 car, driven by Steven McAllen and Chad McCumbee, won at Watkins Glen and Lime Rock Park. Coupled with two more podiums (Sebring and Austin) and several other Top 10 finishes, it was enough to win the 2015 ST championship. The team also ran a second car at some of the races, the #3 driven by Marc Miller and Tyler McQuarrie, and we sat down with them—along with team manager Andris Laivins—in the team's transporter at the Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in Austin to learn more about how data helps them succeed.

To start things off, we were curious what kinds of data they actually collected and analyzed from the cars. "We use video quite a bit for reference," Miller told us, but the majority of data comes from the MoTeC engine control unit and data acquisition system. The point, according to Miller, is to get a much more precise understanding of what the car is doing and what the drivers are doing.

"Being two drivers in the same car, we're trying to find a balance of what each person likes," Miller said. "So if we each drive a different way—one holds brake pressure a fraction longer—which is something we experienced today [during a practice session at COTA], it can change the way we set up the car, change the way one driver approaches."

Unlike sprint racing, where each driver has their own car (or Formula E, where each driver has two cars), endurance races like the Continental Tire series see each car shared by two people. That means the car's setup needs to be a compromise. It also means keeping sight of the overall team goal instead of just trying to be faster than your teammates, which isn't always the most natural thing to a racing driver. "It's not all about yourself," McQuarrie said. "When drivers sit down here [in the transporter after a session] none of us are going 'Oh well that's why you were faster than me, you got a better draft...'" Miller said.

That's not to say the data only tells the truth, exposing who is faster than whom on track. But analyzing the data can salvage one's ego rather than puncture it. Earlier that day, a rare thing happened in the #3 car. "Tyler and I usually feel the same things [in the car]," Miller said, but "today was the first time we had an issue where there was a difference." Tyler had been on track first, before the track surface had warmed from the heat of a Texan summer. On tires with just a handful of laps on them, he was immediately on the pace, setting times at the very sharp end of the ST field.

Miller took over and hated the way the car was handling. "The track was starting to get hot, greasy, and while a lot of cars were falling off, I think I was trying too hard to generate a lap that i couldn't generate, and I was getting frustrated," he said. "When you're finding a two second difference [in lap times] and you're like 'I know I wasn't getting clean laps but in my mind I know I could go a second faster even if the track's off,' that's where data will help you."

Elle Cayabyab Gitlin

Sideline Sports Photography

Elle Cayabyab Gitlin

CJ Wilson Racing

CJ Wilson Racing

CJ Wilson Racing

Looking at the overlaid traces from Miller and McQuarrie's laps allows the teammates to identify just where the time was lost. "Well, first off you lost 0.6 seconds because the track is 20 degrees hotter now and your engine's not producing as much power and you had no draft, so that's six tenths," Miller said. "And then you see other parts of the track where, 'OK I passed that guy on the outside at the carousel and that's definitely not optimal,' and that's where you lost another six tenths."

McQuarrie agreed. "Before data, the scenario that we had this morning is horrible, because he'd be kicking himself, but [we can look at the data] and it's clear, and we can tell the track's gone off. It paints a better picture." Miller pointed to a laptop screen showing an overlay of two laps of the track, with data from the MoTeC system showing speed, throttle position, brake pressure, lateral Gs, and time loss between the two laps being compared.

"This is Tyler and Chad's laps," Miller said, walking us through the data. He highlighted Tyler's lap in a particular section of the track. "If you look at segment times this looks like a better brake release and better run, but we can pull up a GPS overlay and you'll see where Tyler ended up was four wheels over the curbing and 'well, maybe we can't do that [in the race]' but now when we go to a drivers meeting and talk about it, it's like 'You can do that as long as it's a [corner] exit and there's pavement there you can use it.' Now we're rethinking what's going to go be good for our car in the race."

As an engineer, team manager Laivins also relies on data from the cars to do his job, although he stresses he isn't a "super data geek." First comes the basics of the car. "After every session we look at the sensors and oil pressure that a lot of time will signal things that are going to fail so you can change a part before it fails in the race," he said. But poking into the data lets him find speed on track that would elude a driver who just depended on feel. "You can see something that's improving the car that doesn't actually feel good," Laivins explained. Sometimes drivers just have to be told to deal with it: "I'm sorry you don't like the way it drives but you're 3mph faster through the corner so figure out."

"The more esoteric technical stuff can tell you things the driver can't feel," he said. Like getting a visual representation of what the suspension is doing over the course of a lap. "A good example would be suspension position sensors, from that the main thing is viewing a histogram that extracts the time spent at various velocities over the course of a lap. It exposes things that drivers can't quantify," he continued. "You can see asymmetry and the time it spends at low shaft velocity; adjustment to the shocks may straighten that up. It may not even change the feel in the car but the tire generates more grip, so there's a pretty big range from the basics to hunting for little bits of speed that we don't have any other way to do."