A level playing field

In racing it is nearly impossible to get a direct A/B comparison between drivers. Even in a spec series you will have different setup choices that will introduce some variability from car to car. Taking the same car out at different times with different drivers will introduce changes such as ambient temperature, track temperature and tire degradation.

Sim Racing has come a long way in its ability to simulate true vehicle dynamics. It also allows us to get the exact same car in the exact same setup on track under the exact same conditions. Now, I’m an average-on-my-best-day racer at my local rallycross andautocross events and it turns out I’m much better behind a computer than behind the wheel, so I knew I’d need some help with this project. My first call was to a very close friend of mine, Travis Watry, a guy with multiple wins and a championship at the club racing level. As with a lot of young racing drivers life gets in the way of committing to the racing full time, but he still gets out to run HPDE events on a regular basis. For his competition I rang up the biggest of the big dogs I know, professional NASCAR driver Josh Bilicki (cue John Cena entrance music). I set them both up on Road America, a track which they have both registered countless laps in real life. This isn’t a “Pro vs. Joe” comparison, this is a “Pro vs. Pretty-damn-good”.

Let’s jump straight into the deep end of this comparison. This data was collected on Iracing and all coding can be found on my Github.