This Is a Lot of Work! Let's See How It's Going!

Data.  If humans could process data without prejudice, we would live in a different world.  On the other hand, I think the magic of humans is applying emotion to data to drive for something better.  We are a complex species with many ups and downs.  But the ups are more than worth the downs.  

With that in my head, I decided to pull up all the autocross data available on BB and I.  Imagine how little of this would have been available even 10 years ago.  I can go back 4 years and pull up every event and all my times and my competitors times...The digital revolution is amazing, no?  Have your heard of Moore's Law?  Did you know that Ray Kurzweil projected that back to the Abacus and the curve holds, uninterrupted by World Wars or Depressions.  Isn't that fascinating?  Maybe you should Google that instead of reading further into these, sometimes embarrassing numbers!

Well, if you've made it this far, you may have guessed that there are some poor numbers to show here.  My memory is different.  I don't remember ever finishing dead last.  However, the data shows that I did so for every event in the first two years!  I guess, in the heat of the moment, you see your last time and compare it to the guy in a faster car, whose time you saw, and think "I beat that guy!".  Well, I guess I did for that run but later in the day, he recorded a shorter time.  Looked at another way, maybe this sport is so damned fun that you don't care if you lose!

Anyway, here is what the data shows:

So, from the grey bar, we see that BB and I were dead last two years in a row.  I refuse to process that mentally!  The better news is in the orange column.  That's how many seconds I was behind the FTD or  Fastest Time of the Day.  So, my front suspension upgrade gained me almost 2 seconds to the FTD and also to the average time.  It's hard to compare with Autocross since the course is different every month and each course favors different cars.  

In order to have a closer view of the data, I compared myself to the only two regular participants:

So, my Winter front suspension work was worth almost 2 seconds, tires are crazy important, and my 250 hour Winter rear suspension, design, fabrication, and replacement was also worth more than a second.  It's rewarding to be to be improving so much, but disappointing to see how bad I started and to still be behind the average.  "Engine" is the column I will fill in next Summer, after the new powertrain finds its home this Winter.  Winter is coming, Regulars!

Keep having #funwithcars !