Curious About Lap Times

[andyc]

So I don't know if this is bad form to post here or not. Apologies in advance if it is. However, I'm curious. What are considered to be fast, average and slow lap times for newbies on the race track for their first time at VIR north course? Having only been on the racetrack once at the two day camp at VIR, I'm wondering how to benchmark my progress against others apart from my benchmarks against myself in terms of lap times over the two days and how much more comfortable I feel.

[Kevin Kane]

So I don't know if this is bad form to post here or not. Apologies in advance if it is. However, I'm curious. What are considered to be fast, average and slow lap times for newbies on the race track for their first time at VIR north course? Having only been on the racetrack once at the two day camp at VIR, I'm wondering how to benchmark my progress against others apart from my benchmarks against myself in terms of lap times over the two days and how much more comfortable I feel.

 

Andy;

 

Lap times are all relative and lap times at a School event are affected by many things, not the least of which is the graduated instruction method that is designed to bring students along at a measured pace.

 

As for lap times themselves, they are usually held back at a School event by a number of other factors like the 6 foot passing rule coupled with the sometimes wide disparity in the students experience that ride in your group. Now add in the restriction on using full brakes until the last session (when everyone is a bit tired) and you will find it hard to measure your lap times against an abstract "good/better/best" lap time standard. When you consider that you're attending a Cornering School and not a Racing School that purposly opperates with those constraints, lap times are only important when used to measure personal progress. What is key IMHO is what you said in your post, how your own lap times changed - hopefully, they dropped. That is how I look at my lap times when I attend a School event.

 

Kevin

[andyc]

Andy;

 

Lap times are all relative and lap times at a School event are affected by many things, not the least of which is the graduated instruction method that is designed to bring students along at a measured pace.

 

As for lap times themselves, they are usually held back at a School event by a number of other factors like the 6 foot passing rule coupled with the sometimes wide disparity in the students experience that ride in your group. Now add in the restriction on using full brakes until the last session (when everyone is a bit tired) and you will find it hard to measure your lap times against an abstract "good/better/best" lap time standard. When you consider that you're attending a Cornering School and not a Racing School that purposly opperates with those constraints, lap times are only important when used to measure personal progress. What is key IMHO is what you said in your post, how your own lap times changed - hopefully, they dropped. That is how I look at my lap times when I attend a School event.

 

Kevin

 

Thanks for the reply Kevin. That's pretty much how I was feeling about them - they were great to show my own progress in a measured way, but because of the various different exercises like making friends with the course they tended to vary dramatically. Of course, since one gets the lap times at the end of the day, my little mind started ticking over and wondering about details like that :-). I'm currently planning my next expedition to superbike school ...