PF22 Development Testing

I can not stress this enough: Practice how you play. I learned this in wrestling and jiu-jitsu practice growing up. Practice should always be equal to or harder than a real match. I brought this mentality to our testing sessions.

By 6am Saturday Morning, the car must be ready, and each subteam should have completed a pre-flight checklist. We did not depart the shop to the track until the car was fully prepared. There is no point in fixing the car at the track where you have limited tools. We did not miss a single day of testing all season. We tested in the rain, show, hail, or sunshine. The failures found during testing were valuable, and not due to lack of preparation. The friday / sat nights before testing days (weekends), we had a testing brief. And we went over the test plan for the next day. We went over goals, data to be collected, driver lineup, scheduling, etc.

Race Engineer, and System Integration Lead asking for suspension feedback on our no-aero testing.

I wasn't lying when I mentioned freezing conditions. It is probably 8am with a high of 25F in this picture. I'll do anything for good data.

How we simulated a competition:

Acceleration / Skidpad:

Setup the track exactly like competition, with entrance and exit cones.
Drivers were required to inch the car to the staging zone.
This prevented stalling / missed exits at competition. Also made drivers feel more comfortable on race day.
Radio's were setup for drivers to relay information / instructions for testing. Instant driver feedback is amazing.

Auto-X / Endurance:

Non-drivers setup the course. Drivers got 1 opportunity to walk the course before getting their 2 attempts
Endurance's were timed, with lap times displaying on the dash. Driver changes + assisting team practiced driver changes.
Radio's were setup for drivers to relay information / instructions for testing.

We had 500-600 miles of testing on PF22 before competition. We tested so much we had to slow down our testing frequency to preserve the engine for competition. (limited hours before Yamaha suggested rebuild interval.)

I was also one of the fastest drivers on the team: I drove the endurance and auto-x races.

Testing our 4-cylinder car, versus our single-cylinder car on the same track same day.

Installed a wifi router and laptop in the car, attempting to view live data and adjust engine tune (transients) every lap.

Playing like you practice.