Race Studio Map Building

Note: GPS is needed to create your track map

As soon as you download your data into Race Studio 2 for MyChron4 or Race Studio 3 for MyChron 5, you're greeted with a screen that holds your test database. The main area holds your test data and is organized in rows. Above the main area are filtering options for track, kart, driver, championship, and test type. For karting, you'll only ever need Track and Driver.

Double-click on the test you want to open. The new screen now shows your laps in that test, whether they were pace laps, cool down laps, up to speed laps, or something in between. We need to mark the laps that weren't at pace and disable them. Shift-Click to select consecutive laps or CTRL-Click (CMD-Click on Mac) if you want to pick multiple individual laps. With the laps selected, now click on the Disable Lap button at the top of the main area. You should be left with only laps you were at pace and is now usable data to use in your analysis.

Map Building

In the menu bar at the top of the screen, click Map >  New. A new dialogue window pops over the test data. This window will allow you to fine-tune your track map. We like to rotate the track so that it represents how we see the track standing from the mechanic stand. You can rotate the track using the rotation slider just under the map. Below the slider is a text input for File Name, which we use for the track name, appended with the event for better organization.

Still inside the track map window, you'll see options down the right hand side to continue building the map. We use the two wheel configuration as it typically lends a more accurate map than four wheels. To take map building even further, you can tweak it using the “Track shape”, “Channels threshold”, and “Corners identify” sliders, but the two wheel configuration usually spits out a pretty good map.

Map Sectors

The next step in making sure your track map is usable with your theoretical laps is by removing the automatically generated sectors. To do that, locate the “Remove All” button near the bottom of the window inside the “Modify parts” group of buttons. We do this because whenever you have too many sectors your theoretical lap becomes convoluted and difficult to discern.

You can try and aim for three sectors if you're beginning to use the software, but as you get better at it, you could go as high as five or seven. In our tutorial, we use three sectors and we base them off of how the track is laid out and braking zones. At the top of the track map window is what appears to be a line chart. This is your speed trace. When the blue line rises, that is acceleration; when it drops, that is a braking zone.

When you want to create a sector, move your mouse to the point of the track where the sector will end and hit the “Divide” button. At Sarno, the track has a wide open first turn that leads onto a long straightaway. Our first sector starts at the start line and ends at the start of the braking zone at the end of the straight. Sector two is a section of track that seemingly runs together until you hit a hairpin braking zone, which is the end of that sector. Sector three will be the remaining part of the track.

If you want to change colors for each sector to make it easier to see, you can toggle the fourth button in the “Modify parts” group, labelled “Corner 1”, “Corner 2”, etc. This does not actually affect your map, however, except for visualization.

Click “OK” to save it all.

Split Time Analysis

Now go to Map > Map Manager and find the track map you just built and double-click it to load it for you open tests. With your non-competition laps disabled, click the split time analysis icon. It's a white icon with red and blue lines in it (or CTRL+F6 on Windows; CMD+F6 on Mac).

The analysis shows your sector times, theoretical best lap, best rolling lap, and more.

Split times will be the focus of our next Data Pro Tip so expect us to go much further in depth on this area of analysis.