When my father was my mechanic I was able to look back at a race from two years ago and check exactly what gearing, pressures, jetting, and all other setup parameters we had and I could also check exactly what the weather was like and what laptimes I recorded. I could also see exactly how many hours I had done on the chain/sprocket/engine/exhaust packing.

Now as my own mechanic or with a team mechanic I've made an effort to but often just forget or can't be bothered with recording everything and then I kind of forget about it but do aim to get better at it again.

It is really good practice if you get into the habit because it will actually save money and has the potential to improve performance as well as reliability.

What kind of record keeping do you guys do if any?

i havnt really done it seriously although I used to take down a bit but i didnt like all the paper work. Might be better to make a program to record data and make it easier to find the previous data.

from day1 I never kept any kart setup record.
I do like keeping laptimes papers. even if im not racing.

It's the easiest thing when someone else does it for you... sometimes gets a bit annoying at the track to do it yourself though.


Laying it out in an excel sheet actually is already fairly simple and a few years of basic data is just a few pages long so it's easy to go through if you've labeled the important bits properly.

Otherwise a fully customized program would be good into which you can record the data when you get back home from the track. It would need to have good search functionality and also being able to export and print the data in many formats. All the setup recording programs I've seen lack a lot and an excel sheet is better imo.

Mikko,

Info is great, but as you will know - takes discipline, time, resource to record this.

If we can make it easier to do the above, I think we have a seller...

We've got spreadsheets that list almost every possible adjustment to the kart that we use for notes. I have setup sheets from back until 2004. Its nice to know what setup you had when you dominated the grand nationals or when you started P1 and fell to 23rd in 2 laps. That way you don't make the same mistakes twice.

That's definitely the best way to record setup changes.

Here'sthe setup sheet I've been using. (formatting is a bit off but ya get the idea)

It's a great help especially if you race at a track only once a year or so... there's no way you're going to remember your settings unless you've written them down.

found a nice setup sheet from google

http://www.norcal-karting.com/pdf/resou ... sheets.pdf

if you go to http://www.norcal-karting.com/pdf/resources/reference/
there are more sheet you can download..

http://www.heatperformance.ca/Promo-Box/2StrokeHEAT.pdf
the best sheet

Hi,

I have designed, programmed and now sell KartAnalyst T-07, which does basically what you have all been talking about.

I understand what you have been saying about these types of software programs and how they dont seem to do such a great job, but you must understand that it takes a lot of time and effort to design and develop them into something that is really useful. I'll admit that the current version of my software doesn't do everything my customers want it to, but it is a starting point and with thier help and support I am now create a much better version.

These types of programs have great potential and what I hope to create with my software is a world leading product that helps not only the people already in karting do better but those who are starting karting learn things more easily.

If you are interested in helping me make my software better, you can go to www.kartanalyst.com.au and download the FREE trial and let me know what you think.

Thanks,

David Skinner
Gyrosoft
email. gyrosoft@mail.com

David is there a "print your setups" function in your program? For example could I print all my setup sheets from all the sessions from the last time I visited the track? In the demo you can't save stuff so I'm not sure if these functions are in the full version.

Also what kind of other export-data options are there? For example am I able to export the data from the past year into an excel sheet?

Also can the settings fields be customized somehow or new fields added? As they are now they are quite limited for many drivers I'd imagine. Just a few example would be the torsion bars - in/tight/loose aren't the only options, I can also vary the stiffness of the torsion bars... for seat stays there is only yes(loose)/yes(tight)/no.. how about an option for how many you have in and how many per side?



I can't see myself using this one or anything similar. It would require around 5-15 setup sheets for one practice day. I much prefer being able to record details from multiple sessions on one sheet so that the most I need is 1 or 2 sheets of paper per day at the track, and I also don't have to flip through many sheets at the end of the day.

Yes, I agree.....flipping with too many sheets means having lots to refill again.......great for someone with crew but not for lone driver/mechanic arrangement. ( often the driver are the only ones who have to do all such administration work - ie. data recording....)

Yeh the program looks well presented although i only saw the manual coz the zipped file kept being corrupt on me. If it functions well and satisfies all the necessary components and variations i would prefer using that compared to paper.

If i made a system i would make it fairly simple though so i can just go straight to my setup page and have a simple search method to follow up history and thats about it.

Yours is commercial though so you have to satisfy customers

The setup sheet with the kart on it would be good on a software if u could put ur mouse over the change component and then an image would pop up to tell you the settings or if you want to change them.

Found a program that looks fairly good: www.tracktimer.com

My software does have a print function but it doesn't let you print more than one setup at a time, so your idea of being able to print say one whole set of sessions is great.

The software doesn't allow you to export to excel but can I ask why you would want to. If it is for some small reason then maybe the functionality you want can be added into the software.

Last of all, thank you for making me aware that people may want different fields in the dropdowns. I was un-aware that you may have a lot of different settings for torsion bars. I have already be informed about the seat stays though.

Thanks again for your input Mikko, If anyone else has any ideas I would like to know what you think.

David Skinner