Weather stations

[tvt59]

I bought a Computech weather station and we used it for the first time this weekend. It's a part number 148-1000. I'd have got one a long time ago if I had known how accurate they are. What are your experiences with weather stations and ET prediction software?

 

[413]

Good runs in, good info back to you. Bad runs will foul up the ET prediction.

So look over your run and make sure it was a good one before entering it in as good info.

 

[tvt59]

I really didn't believe that they'd be that accurate. But just using it for the first time this weekend, it helped us win two rounds out of the seven we ran. I was very surprised. Once it predicted we'd run .01 slower than I thought and another time it predicted that we'd run .01 quicker than I thought. Both times it was correct and both times we needed that .01 to win that round.

 

[gdrill]

Off topic but……When I bought my new place 20ish years back, I bought a weather monitoring system. Wind, rain, temp, barometer etc. Did I mention I live in one of the windiest places on earth? So I figured I would see what really was happening in my front yard. I have a very straight valley that runs about a half mile up from a river bottom, facing the direct path of prevailing wind. Yes. I placed the spinny dohicky directly at the mouth! Three wind spinny things later I said enough. The first got ripped off the post. Poor mounting I figured. The second just failed? And the cups blew off the final one. But on the last one I recorded 190kmh!

I’m gonna buy another one of these days because it seems to be getting windier…..if you believe I can think that!

 

[Locomotion]

If you footbrake and shift manually instead of having all that done with electronic aids, you have to be keenly aware of any variations YOU make. A playback tach is very helpful because it shows what actually happened instead of what you perceive happened. (i.e.: launch rpm & shift points.) But there is more! Water temps, sunny/cloudy and breeze strength & direction must also be considered. If there is a variation in the input, then there will be a variation in the prediction. But it is difficult to cover all the bases (variables). Some weather stations have a wind option but the swirling around the testing spot is not the same as on the wide open track. Even bleachers and where they end can change the wind influence on the track. There is also the natural change in weather, like a front coming through or wind direction. Checking as late as possible before a run can help also. As everyone says - accurate data in will provides accurate and consistent data/predictions. Just do the best you can.

Sometimes, for unknown reasons, I'd go to a different track and predictions were off a bit. If it did it consistently, I would simply factor the difference into the prediction ( i.e.: +.02). It's not magic and it's not perfect but it certainly helped me win a lot over the years, especially in IHRA. I preferred the Altronics PerformAIRE version.

 

[RockinRobin]

I use a Kestrel hand held weather station and I keep my own database of passes. I have a different database for each track. I log Date/Time, Temp, humidity, DA and wind speed/direction, plus I have a datalogger that records all kind of stuff and I look at that in between rounds.

 

[MOPARMAGA]

Well see how long driver intuition works for me.