How to choose competition drivers fairly?

Hi all,

I'm looking to create a score sheet or something along those lines to determine who gets to drive our car. Factors that could influence the decision (looking for suggestions and how to weight them):

Starting factors:
How many years + months has the member been on the team:
Has the member a drivers license:
Time spent in lab (to be rated by other members, unless otherwise recorded):
Time spent on project outside of lab (to be rated by other members, unless otherwise recorded):
Have you raised sponsorship (if so, how much):
How many parts has the member made/designed for the car:
Weight/strength/fitness:
Is the member a team leader/going to present in front of the judges:
Has the member spent his own money on the car:
Reliability/punctuality of the member throughout the year/s (to be rated by other members):

During testing:
Has the member damaged the car:
Fastest lap time:
Average lap time:
Lap time variance (test of consistency):
Quality of feedback:
Amount of fuel used/efficiency:

Can people suggest weightings and let me know if I'm being biased in anyway (I'd love to drive, but only if I deserve to).

Thanks,

Dan

We have the fastest drivers drive at comp, so we weigh everything on lap times, consistency, and cones hit. Quality of feedback is good only for the test driver (who has to be fast as well).

If you want to win and be the fastest, how much time they spent working on the car and such can't be a factor. Heck, its not how it works in real racing.

I'm president, but if there were 4 people faster than me then I wouldn't be driving at comp.

Skip all factors that are related to how much time he/she has invested etc., if you want to optimize your points.
Letting people driver, because they spent much time on the car only leads to frustration. No really dedicated team member should be interested in driving the car at comp unless he/she is the fastest, because otherwise you are wasting potential of the car.
Driving at comp is no fun or reward, it is pure stress.

The driver needs to be reliable, fast and provide good feedback.

It's very hard for us to recruit and as we're only a second year team who does not have a large budget, we won't be very competitive. If members are awarded a seat in the competition for the effort the put into the car, that could possibly be a good way to recruit/keep members.

I should add that in the past the president drove endurance regardless of skill. Last year I was, on average, 7-10 sec per lap faster. If we had another driver as fast as me we would have been more than a few places better overall.

If you have to let them drive to keep them, then you do not want them on the team.
As said before: Driving at comp is no reward. The pressure of the entire team is on your shoulders and you can ruin the efforts of 1 year with one mistake.
Go karting and check out which team member is fast in general and let the fastest 4 to 6 testdrive the car to determine your competition drivers.

TMichaels is right, the hours leading up to driving can be quite stressful. That all goes away when actually on track and your in the zone, but still.

Go karting is a really great way to let everyone have fun and find drivers, just keep in mind even good go karts are still no where near FSAE car level.

Oh and make sure that your drivers for SkidPad are able to count to two under stress. I see drivers every year wasting skidpad runs by leaving the skidpad too early or too late.

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Originally posted by TMichaels:
Oh and make sure that your drivers for SkidPad are able to count to two under stress. I see drivers every year wasting skidpad runs by leaving the skidpad too early or too late.

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Haha

Karting could potentially be unfair as driver weight would make more of a difference there than it would in a heavier, more powerful FSAE/Formula Student car.

Perhaps let everyone test drive the car and let the fastest few drive in the comp?

I would strongly not recommend to just let everyone drive your car. Use last year's car, but do not risk to have someone who is overwhelmed by the capabilities of the car crash it before comp.

Karting works quite well from my experience. In one season the fastest driver at the kart event was also close to the heaviest. If you are not going to go karting at an oval or at an outdoor track with long straights, then you will get a good feeling about who could be fast in an FS car.

I am one of the heaviest (around 180 lb), and am the fastest out of about 40 people from our team on the kart track. While what you say is true, regardless of their weight (while being realistic) you will still be able to tell who the best drivers are from a karting day.

Have you driven a formula SAE car? Just throwing someone in it is asking for trouble.

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Originally posted by Cardriverx:
I am one of the heaviest (around 180 lb), and am the fastest out of about 40 people from our team on the kart track. While what you say is true, regardless of their weight (while being realistic) you will still be able to tell who the best drivers are from a karting day.

Have you driven a formula SAE car? Just throwing someone in it is asking for trouble.

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It's our teams second year, the car never ran last year. No one on the team has any access to FSAE/Formula Student cars. We go karting regularly as part of a motorsport society in the university, but that's about as good as it gets.

I'm about 187lb (6' 1", not fat :P )and there's guys on the team that weigh a little over 125lb.

Surely over 50lb is going to create a noticeable time difference in a rental kart where the lap record is about 1:07.

Karts are all about keeping momentum and being a really smooth/good driver, you would be surprised what skilled people can do. I was out pacing a kid who weighs around 130lb and actually races karts (circle track to be fair) by about 2-3 sec per lap.

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Originally posted by Daniel S:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Cardriverx:
I am one of the heaviest (around 180 lb), and am the fastest out of about 40 people from our team on the kart track. While what you say is true, regardless of their weight (while being realistic) you will still be able to tell who the best drivers are from a karting day.

Have you driven a formula SAE car? Just throwing someone in it is asking for trouble.

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It's our teams second year, the car never ran last year. No one on the team has any access to FSAE/Formula Student cars. We go karting regularly as part of a motorsport society in the university, but that's about as good as it gets.

I'm about 187lb (6' 1", not fat :P )and there's guys on the team that weigh a little over 125lb.

Surely over 50lb is going to create a noticeable time difference in a rental kart where the lap record is about 1:07. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

A good idea if you don't have a very big team or don't have many pro-quality drivers is keep your top 2 drivers on lap times/consistency for auto-x and endurance, then figure out accel and skidpad from the rest of the team. Generally you can afford to have one of the drivers for either or both of those events being someone who has put in a lot of time into the car (or presidents/team leaders if they aren't very fast otherwise). Also a good idea to put a lighter driver in for accel, as long as he/she has tested launching the car and knows what they're doing (F=ma, but shifting and not destroying the car here is also important). It doesn't take a genius to drive accel or skidpad, but having experience in the events, being able to not spin out and not destroying the car definitely helps (as does counting to 2... be it for how many runs you're doing or how many times you're turning)

Also, two things. First using a simulator on the PC with a decent wheel setup can really help people that have never driven a car like this (simraceway and LFS have FSAE cars).

Second, check this site out. Good driver related stuff. http://safeisfast.com/

+1 for what axelripper said. You can train a monkey to drive skidpad and acceleration As far as finding endurance and autoX drivers, that shouldn;t be too tough of a task either. IF you have an old car, start getting people some time in that. The people who can drive will separate themselves from those who can't very quickly. Pick the top 4 or so depending on how close they are to each other, maybe more. I definitely think on factor to take into account is to make sure you are trying those top drivers on different track layouts. This goes back to my statement about having a trained monkey, any driver who drives a single track enough with plenty of guidance can easily be within a second of the fastest driver. The big thing is to pick out what drivers are actually good at driving vs. what drivers are just learning how to drive a specific track.

I think you may be over complicating the whole decision process. If you have 10 people each drive the car a little bit, I think it will be very clear who the 2 or 3 people who can actually drive are. I highly doubt out of a team of engineering students you are going to have much more than that who are actually good at driving a car.

Just my thoughts here.

1. Sims are not a reliable way to find the best drivers. I am horrible at racing sims yet I am fast when I actually get in a car. I attribute this to the fact that I don't play many video games so the lack of sensation and driving with my fingers throws me off.

2.Agree on a cut off on how much commitment a member needs before they can try out. This is generally a good way to keep dedicated members from getting butt-hurt because some freshman "stole their spot". You'd be surprised how petty some people can get.

3. I disagree with Tobias about driving being stressful. Its more responsibility and consumes a lot of time at comp, but its not stressful if you are confident.

If you want to be like Formula 1, just put in pay drivers! That will solve your budgetary problems.

Pat

<span class="ev_code_YELLOW">PS, note the date.</span>

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2.Agree on a cut off on how much commitment a member needs before they can try out. This is generally a good way to keep dedicated members from getting butt-hurt because some freshman "stole their spot". You'd be surprised how petty some people can get.

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If they think like that then they do not have the success of the team in mind, but only their ego. If the freshman is the fastest member of the team, then he/she should be driving at comp. Letting every team member drive is a good motivation, but it should be done after comp.

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3. I disagree with Tobias about driving being stressful. Its more responsibility and consumes a lot of time at comp, but its not stressful if you are confident.

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That certainly depends on the situation of your team. If you are in the Top3 of the event with only Autocross and Endurance left, the stress is much higher as if you are competing for a spot outside of the Top10, because everything depends on you (being the driver). A single cone kicked or not can make a big difference.

I don't know any successful team (reaching a Top5 position) where the drivers were not chosen based on how fast they are. If that still leads to the president/team leader driving the car then it was just coincidence.

Tobias is right, it doesn't matter what your driver is doing in the team, it's all about speed, consistency and commitment. Our team leader 2012 drove the car about 2 months after the last competition http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Our AutoX/Endurance drivers are going through a process of Karting, old car try outs and then they will test the new car. At least with an electric car, you don't have time to train more than three drivers, the car is simply not running enough. Therefore you need motivated drivers which will be on the track even if the car isn't running very well and this day in, day out!

The Acceleration drivers are quiet easy to find in an electric car. You just need to be the lightest driver (and brave enough to stay on the throttle in the wet, which was quiet the job in Silverstone this year after the Stralsund car crashed 2 cars in front of me http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif).

SkidPad is a difficult thing to decide... Of course everybody probably can drive SkidPad if you have enough time to test it but normally, the SkidPad drivers don't get a lot of time in the car because the main drivers use most of it.. I lost about a tenth to our Endurance driver at FSS2012 (we got a pay driver as Pat suggested for this event from the Netherlands http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif), which isn't a lot but these few points can hurt..

just my ideas:

Even after you have selected you drivers, you want to train them:
- Make them fit: If thay lack the strength to complete a hot (32 C) endurance their lap times will suffer.
- Make sure thay are always available to train. It's a big plus to have last year(s) car(s) available for training.
- Make sure your Skidpad/Acceleration drivers are also able to compete in an endurance as they have trained in the car and can be your backup drivers for the endurance/AutoX.

It's not easy being a driver. When the car breaks (it will) they might feel responsible but usually are not and this might effect their driving skill.

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Originally posted by TMichaels:

If they think like that then they do not have the success of the team in mind, but only their ego. If the freshman is the fastest member of the team, then he/she should be driving at comp. Letting every team member drive is a good motivation, but it should be done after comp.

That certainly depends on the situation of your team. If you are in the Top3 of the event with only Autocross and Endurance left, the stress is much higher as if you are competing for a spot outside of the Top10, because everything depends on you (being the driver). A single cone kicked or not can make a big difference.

I don't know any successful team (reaching a Top5 position) where the drivers were not chosen based on how fast they are. If that still leads to the president/team leader driving the car then it was just coincidence.

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The point of the cut off is to get the entire team to agree on what they want to happen so everyone is on board. If everyone is fine with anyone stepping in the car then they can have at it. We require one semester so we can keep the flakey people out and it keeps everyone happy. This means that a freshman that has been around consistently gets a go at the car. Sure it would be nice if anyone from a car club could show up, take a spin, and we find the fastest person on campus but then certain people would feel like their hard work (the car) was being mistreated.

It could be a personal thing but driving is not stressful for me. I know what I am capable of and I know stressing won't make me any faster. Focusing will. Same goes for anything really, if you are stressed it means you didn't prepare well enough.

I agree with Racer-X. There is a lot more to the FSAE experience than just having the fastest drivers in the car. If someone doesn't work on the car, they tend to not respect it, and you don't want that kind of person driving the car. It will tear the team apart. It's not about someone's ego, it's about someone putting their heart and soul (and time and money) into something, only to have some fool destroy it.

If everyone on the team is confident with karting then they should be quite safe in a FSAE car, provided you set up a safe track to learn on. The people who show the most control/speed are then picked as your drivers.

IMO the best strategy is somewhat of a balance of all these things. In 2010 I put together a points system based on SCCA autocross times for races we took the car to. Generally 3-4 people went at least once a month or so during the 9 months of the year you can do it around here, and we tallied the official times in a spreadsheet. I had a math formula worked out that was heavily biased to lap times over participation in order to prevent any old goon from simply going to all the autocrosses and running mediocre times to guarantee a spot. I also hoped that having a published points system would foster competition and get more people out and having fun racing, because that's what gets people hooked on FSAE, and also teaches young and inexperienced racers what is truly (or truly not) important on a race car, and what is all just pipe dreams and fluff, what breaks, what's required for preparation, the effects of tuning, etc.

In the end we definitely had a bit more of a "spirit of racing," but I think that had more to do with the fact that we went autocrossing all the time than anything to do with my points system. As far as driver selection, I don't think it really influenced it too much. As has been mentioned, we already knew the fastest 2-3 drivers and they did autocross and endurance, and then for skidpad and acceleration we picked amongst the remaining couple people that still were pretty good and sort of tailored it to who was smooth in corners and put them on skidpad, and who had good clutch/throttle control and put them on acceleration.

Now that's obviously how you have a performance-oriented metric, but as many have mentioned how do you reward people who have put time in? How do you keep out the cocky fools who don't want to do anything but show up and drive like a moron and hit something? I like the setup we had, and while not flawless seemed to be a good compromise. Competition drivers should be the fastest ones simply for the sake of the team, but driving at competition should make up such an incredibly minute percentage of the lifespan of the car as to be insignificant. Besides, some people just like to spectate, some people want to drive but not under that kind of pressure, and you can sort of gauge these things as you go anyway.

We really only had one rule: You don't drive at an SCCA autocross unless you've driven at one of our random shakedowns or fun runs that we chose arbitrarily. You can absolutely go and watch, but you need seat time before you take it out against the clock. So when did we do our random shakedowns or fun runs? Typically they weren't advertised, so you had to be around to know. Whichever random newbies were around always came too, and of course it's fun to watch. And if they seemed to have a good attitude and respect and knew what they were talking about, that's when you can give them a shot. They people who put the most time in naturally had first shot at driving, and whoever looked like they were doing a good job (newbie or seasoned), we encouraged them to come to an SCCA autocross.

Now what if you don't have a running car? Karts, while possibly not perfect, are really about as close as you can get to the vehicles themselves IMO, but as for the nature of the race itself I've found it very useful to have SCCA experience. That really sets your mind up for reading the track during a track walk, choosing your lines and remembering where you go, etc. The last thing you want is someone who may be amazing at a rigidly laid out kart track, or simulations, or even street hooning, but gets pylon vertigo when you plop them on a cone course. It's always hilariously sad to see people get quite literally lost in a parking lot, yet it happens ALL THE TIME.


P.S., as for driver weight, our fastest driver in 2010 was 200 lbs, 2nd fastest was 250 lbs, and third fastest was about 220 lbs http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

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Originally posted by Jay Lawrence:
I agree with Racer-X. There is a lot more to the FSAE experience than just having the fastest drivers in the car. If someone doesn't work on the car, they tend to not respect it, and you don't want that kind of person driving the car. It will tear the team apart. It's not about someone's ego, it's about someone putting their heart and soul (and time and money) into something, only to have some fool destroy it.

If everyone on the team is confident with karting then they should be quite safe in a FSAE car, provided you set up a safe track to learn on. The people who show the most control/speed are then picked as your drivers.

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This is an important point. If you put someone in the car who does not know the in and outs, goods and bads with the car, they are liable to just try and drive the piss out of the car assuming everything will work. Case in point, during endurance last year in Lincoln, I drove first and noticed the diff chattered dangerously under heavy braking, and I knew from testing and the build process we had had issues with the diff and it was one of our weakest links. So I changed how I drove so as not to overload the diff to make it through endurance (we ended up DNFing for something else though). Someone unfamiliar with that issue may have simply ignored it and still drove hard and destroyed the rear end halfway through endurance.

Also for what it's worth, we use the previous year's car to find our quick drivers but the first time they go in the car, we limit throttle to around 20-30%. Enough to scoot around pretty good, but not enough to get overwhelmed with the car's capabilities. Once they've had a go with limited power, and prove they can hold their own, we set them loose with the full car.