The Stint Times report provides more detailed information about each stint.

During yesterday’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, one team exceeded their 4/6 drive window.

It’s easy to see it in hindsight, but how do you prevent it? The Drive Times Report displays each driver’s Total Time, TimeToMax, TimeToMin and TimeInWindow, updated in real time so you can know how much time each driver can stay in the car. The TimeToMin and TimeToMax are pretty easy, but the TimeInWindow is a bit more complicated. RaceTools includes logic that looks back at the previous stints and has a sliding window so that it will even count up, when a driver is out of the car.

I don’t know the circumstances to why Simon Pagenaud was put in the car after only sitting out 1:53:22 instead of the usual 2 hours between stints. Perhaps Jimmy Johnston wasn’t feeling well and needed to get out of the car one stint early and Kamui Kobayashi wasn’t available to go back in because he had just gotten out of the car, but whatever the reason, if Simon had to go back in, he should have only stayed in for one stint.

At the next pit stop, they should have taken Simon out of the car. He only has 29 minutes left in his drive time window and a full stint is 36 minutes. Again, perhaps no other drivers were available to go back in.

Now I’m really confused. Certainly one of the other drivers is available by now. They must know their drive time is running out. The caution is the perfect time to fix the situation.

Nope. When everyone pits during the caution, instead of changing drivers, they do a short fill and get the car back out with only 47 seconds in pit lane, fastest of the group.

Apparently it was more important to the team to get out fast and lead a lap. But the lead was short lived and soon Simon’s 4/6 drive time would expire, causing the team to pit (at this point it was too late so they might as well have stayed out) and receive a post race penalty of last in class.

How to avoid the penalty? Keep drivers out for 2 hours at a time. If that’s not possible or advantageous, keep an eye on the Drive Times Report to give you feedback on when you need to get a driver out of the car. When the TimeInWindow goes yellow (less than 30 minutes), double check your numbers (the report is only as good as the data and dropped data can result in inaccuracies) and act accordingly. If the numbers match, get your driver out as soon as possible.

To me, while putting Simon back in after being out of the car for only 1h53 minutes might have been unavoidable due to an unexpected short stint for Jimmy Johnson, keeping Simon in the car past one stint was a mistake, and not changing drivers during the full course yellow baffles me and should have easily avoided.

With the Drive Times Report, strategists can see at a glance the amount of time available for each driver, both in and out of the car, so that you are given plenty of notice when a driver must exit the car, or when he/she can get into the car.

The iRacingInterface software runs on the same machine as the iRacing Simulator software. You can be logged on as either a driver or a spectator for the session.

For optimal performance, you will want to set the MaxCars to 63 and make sure your Connection Type is set to DLS, Cable, Fiber, 1Mbit/sec or faster.

RaceTools v4.56 adds the By Driver option to some of the graph types. Specifically, the Average Laptimes, Laptime Analysis and Section Analysis. These are the same types that also support the Sort By (Lap)Times option. You can now graphically compare driver performance by lap times and section times.

Select the supported Graph Type as usual, then select the By Driver option from the popup menu.

We have versions for all IndyCar and IMSA sanctioned series as well as NASCAR and SRO World Challenge.

Download the latest version of the software from Downloads to get started.

It was great to show RaceTools to teams that had not seen it before and to catch up with the many engineers already using RaceTools.

We showed off the features of RaceTools running with the IndyCar (MLP+RP+telemetry), IMSA (Al Kamel), PWC (TSL), and NASCAR (MLP) data feeds.

Thanks for taking the time to drop by the booth and see you at the track. We’ll be at the Rolex 24 in January in Daytona.

Custom Fields in Session Results table:
To bring more information to the main program window, I’m adding some custom fields that you can manually enter into the column field by using the Insert Column or Edit Column options. I consider these ‘works in progress’, but you will be able to add:
1. Section Times/Speeds by entering the section name. If the field is defined as a speed trap, then it will be displayed as SPEED. Otherwise it will be displayed as time.
2. Best Lap Section Times by entering ‘BL_’+ (ie. ‘BL_S01’). This will display the section time for the competitor’s best lap.
3. Best Splits Section Time by entering ‘BS_’+ (ie. ‘BS_S01’). This will display the best section time for the competitor.
4. Best Lap Section Time Delta by entering ‘BLD_’+ (ie. ‘BLD_S01’). For the class leader, it will display the Best Lap Section time. For all others, it will display the delta to the class leader, which may be greater than (longer time, slower) or less than zero (shorter time, faster).
5. Best Splits Section Time Delta by entering ‘BSD_’+ (ie. ‘BSD_S01’). For the class leader, it will display the Best Section time. For all others, it will display the delta to the class leader, which may be greater than (longer time, slower) or less than zero (shorter time, faster).
6. Previous Rank by entering ‘PR’. This will display the competitor’s rank at the last S/F crossing and is used to highlight improvements (P column green) or decline (P column red) in position.

Heat Map:
To make it easier to identify faster/slower section times, the Section Time Delta fields defined above are color coded when the ‘Heat Map’ option is enabled. The colors below are subject to change as this is my first pass at this feature.

History:
v3.2.0
2017 03 07 – clear SessionResults column if field not defined
2017 03 06 – fix Access error in DriveTimes report (accessing sgdResults.Datasource.DataSet before it is configured)
– apply HeatMap to BS and BL section times
– apply position change highlighting to PR field
2017 03 05 – add HeatMap to BSD and BLD fields
2017 03 04 – move SessionResults draw routines to TASDB unit to share with other stringgrid rendering
– add BL_ to SessionResults table Best Lap Section Times
– add BS_ to SessionResults table Best Splits Section Times
– add BLD_ to SessionResults table Best Lap Section Time Delta to P1
– add BSD_ to SessionResults table Best Splits Section Time Delta to P1
– add TOP_ to SessionResults table – average of Top lap times
– fix setting of PrevRank to highlight P field for position changes
v3.1.0
2017 03 03 – save/restore Maps and Graphs on exit/launch
v3.0.10
2017 02 28 – prompt for team name for expired license keys to allow user an opportunity to reset the team name if necessary.
2017 02 27 – add LoadSettings to load all settings from another configuration file.
– check AppDataPath for configuration file, if not found but ParamStr(0) configuration file found, use ParamStr(0) path to load configuration
v3.0.9
2017 02 24 – fix FloatToTimeStr to round time to requested precision before converting to string. Fixes rounding of 118.995 to 1:59.00 instead of 1:58.00
2017 02 23 – check for availability of frmPitWindows before reading settings from it. Eliminate access error frmConfiguration.OnShow in MRTI version.
v3.0.8
2017 02 10 – save alias to track configuration file when saving track, before sorttrack which reloads the alias from disk.
2017 02 10 – trap when [TrackMap] Filename= or MapPath=Filename which disabled OpenDialog from opening to load a new track map
2017 02 10 – clear LastSpeed/BestSpeed from RP $O messages (fields in eRP but not RP, need to ignore if RP message)
v3.0.7
2017 01 28 – add Pause button to pause scrolling of line crossings table to display the latest crossings.
v3.0.6
2017 01 27 – remove SCx/Ex filter under yellow due to flawed logic. Need to replace with a better filter.
– add Highlight LSP in Running Order table. Need to add highlighting to results table.
v3.0.4
2017 01 15 – disable DriveTimesReport.refresh timer onclose to prevent trying to access database while closing.
– ignore Main UpdateDisplay trigger to update pit windows if pit windows update timer enabled to prevent duplicate refresh of pit windows
v3.0.3
2017 01 12 – change default configuration file path to AppDataPath if executable is in the Program Files folder to be more Windows UAC friendly.
v3.0.2
2017 01 07 – update IMSA replay file URL to http://results.imsa.com
– update IMSA data feed server to timing-data.aks port 10030
2017 01 04 – disable CarTracker.BringToFront when main program activated to fix bug accessing main window controls (menus, etc.)
– move ClocksToFront from CarTracker.Activate to imgTrackMap.OnMouseUp to keep clocks on top of track map but without disabling main program or track map interface.

V3.0.10 adds a ‘Load Settings’ menu to the main program menu to load the program settings from any configuration file. This is most useful when migrating from version 2 to version 3 as the location of the configuration files may have changed, depending on where you run the software from. If you run RaceTools from the Program Files or Program Files (x86) folder, version 3 of RaceTools stores and loads the configuration from the AppData folder as recommended by Microsoft. It no longer saves to the Program Files folder as this folder is protected by the operating system and users were having problems closing the software and/or restoring their previous configuration when starting the software. If you run RaceTools from another folder, RaceTools will continue to save/restore the configuration from the same folder. With the ‘Load Settings’ menu, you can now load the configuration from a different folder. If you save or close the software, RaceTools will save the settings to the default folder which is the RaceTools program folder if not the windows program folder, or the AppData folder if the RaceTools program folder is in the Windows Program Folder (ie. c:\Program Files or c:\Program Files (x86)).

V3.1.0 now saves and restores any extra maps and/or graphs that you may have added. Previously you would have to re-add the maps and/or graphs each time you launched the software, but now RaceTools will remember how many maps/graphs you added and restore them when you start the software.

Other fixes include a rounding display error when the Show m:ss.zzz option is enabled and the number of digits to display is less than the timing system precision (ie. when Report Digits is set to 2 or less). The previous version would display the truncated seconds field with the rounded fractional seconds so that 1:57.995 would display as 1:57.00 instead of 1:58.00.

Version History:
v3.1.0
2017 03 03 – save/restore Maps and Graphs on exit/launch
2017 03 02 – fix setting of PrevRank to highlight changes in rank. (IndyCar version)
v3.0.10
2017 02 28 – prompt for team name for expired license keys to allow user an opportunity to reset the team name if necessary.
2017 02 27 – add LoadSettings to load all settings from another configuration file.
– check AppDataPath for configuration file, if not found but ParamStr(0) configuration file found, use ParamStr(0) path to load configuration
v3.0.9
2017 02 24 – fix FloatToTimeStr to round time to requested precision before converting to string. Fixes rounding of 118.995 to 1:59.00 instead of 1:58.00
2017 02 23 – check for availability of frmPitWindows before reading settings from it. Eliminate access error frmConfiguration.OnShow in MRTI version.
v3.0.8
2017 02 10 – save alias to track configuration file when saving track, before sorttrack which reloads the alias from disk.
2017 02 10 – trap when [TrackMap] Filename= or MapPath=Filename which disabled OpenDialog from opening to load a new track map
2017 02 10 – clear LastSpeed/BestSpeed from RP $O messages (fields in eRP but not RP, need to ignore if RP message)

As it turns out, the last minute fix for the safety car wasn’t required as T&S changed their procedure from Friday’s CTSC race and we got the competitors before the safety car, so v3.0.5 would have worked fine, but v3.0.6 did not introduce any new bugs so there was no harm in the upgrade, just a long night and a little more stress. It’s never boring.

I have a couple of bugs to fix and enhancements to finish for the next release. If you have any comments, suggestions and bug reports from this last week, please send them to me.

Coniah