DAG Innovations

Do you like dags?  No?  OK, forget I asked.

This has been a most exciting Monday.  It is rare for me to say that because Mondays so often involve dealing with crises that erupted over the weekend.  This one is no different, the OPR investigation has not been good for morale, and the rumor circulating is that I may be found liable for another hostile work environment claim.  I'm working on getting that and the complainant to disappear, but the exciting news is that a groundbreaking idea clicked into place early this morning.  I love it when that happens, and it is even better when the idea isn't insane.  Having an untethered mind often results in unworkable solutions either because of the law of physics, the law, or the confining restraints of sanity.  I have been trying my entire life to break multiple laws of physics, but so far physics has always won.  I proceed undeterred in my quest even though it is one of the few things we've never managed to break.  That is a record for us.

Some people who know how to use their brains have been able to enter a meditative state during which complex tasks become simple ones and everything just works.  We call that the zone.  Every elite athlete has experienced the zone during practice--except for Allen Iverson--or a game at some point.  I suspect that the higher the performance of the athlete compared to others the longer the duration that athlete has spent in the zone.  The performances of Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Barry Sanders, and Ayrton Senna might support my theory.  At this point, I'm willing to say that they do support my theory, and I leave it to someone else to disprove it.  If no one steps forward with convincing proof, I will assume I am right.

Entering the zone while in a car either during a track day, qualifying session, or a race often leads to personal best lap times and wins.  It is even more impressive when a driver can win a DE as a result.  Sure, there are no trophies or rewards involved in winning a DE, but that means bragging rights when it is story time.  To some, that's all that matters.

This is something that every professional data acquisition geek (DAG) probably already knows and will laugh off as common knowledge, but it just occurred to me.  I have not encountered anyone else talking about it yet, so I will patent the idea and go about creating yet another new AcMo revenue stream.  Soon I'll need to start calling them rivers with the amount they flow.

When we test customer's vehicles on the track, it is difficult for us to find a great rhythm for a number of reasons, including but not limited to:  not owning the cars, our insurance doesn't cover track driving, often our customers don't know we're using their cars as development vehicles, and crashes get expensive quick.  The trance like state required for proper inclusion into the zone is difficult to obtain when external stressors intrude.

Even with the obstacles, it is possible to sometimes acquire the proper state of consciousness to rip off one or at least several fast laps and feel one with the vehicle.  Proficient test drivers can note particular laps during which everything came together to produce something approaching the perfect lap.  We would then correlate those impressions with the telemetry to compare zone laps to regular laps.  My hope is that the data will indicate an actionable trend in driving behavior between those laps.

The best approach for this is going to be to also monitor the driver's heart rate, breathing, body temp, and brain waves during these driving sessions.  Yes, that will mean even more squiggly lines to review, but it will also provide a way to sync the brain's activity to the car's performance and pinpoint the exact moments the zone was entered and exited.  I know that research studying the concept of the zone and the brain waves associated with it exists, but I don't think the study of test subject's brain waves has been extended to recording during actual in-car performance.  Perhaps we'll create an entirely new segment of performance development.  The AcMo Human Performance department would be the next logical step.

AcMo can capitalize on this by creating a hypothesis that translates the information into a method to make the zone more accessible on a repeatable basis in a session and be able to maintain it for longer durations.  If we can turn it into a repeatable habit based on muscle memory and relaxation techniques, we can finally turn our standard of not finishing into race winning performances.

Since this idea just dropped into my head, I'm not yet certain the telemetry will support my musings.  I do know after lapping this weekend, I turned a personal best early in one of my sessions, and as I was doing it, I knew it would be a good lap.  I am hopeful I will see something in the data that illustrates the difference even though I didn't have any brain monitoring activated during the time.

The whole process would be much easier if I were a DAG, but I tend to just see squiggly lines when I view telemetry.  I suppose it is a lot like looking at the matrix for the first time and hundreds of times after that.  This is the type of scenario it would be good to hire a DAG from a race team since the season is concluding, but they all want too much money.  Corporate sponsorships have ruined motorsports forever.

I'm going to do this the AcMo way, which means I will proceed the hard way and do it myself while failing multiple times during the process.  I first have to teach myself how to read the squiggly lines and then conjure a correlation that supports my hypothesis.  I think that's how all of the best scientists do it these days.  Even if I'm wrong, this will be a fun project to waste a few months exploring especially since it will mean more track driving in customer's cars, and getting paid by said customers to look at squiggly lines during the down times.

I'm excited for the scientific breakthroughs I may uncover, unless the research department has failed me again, and this is already common knowledge.  If that's the case, at least I'll know my thought process wasn't deranged this time.  Once we know what the brain waves look like, we can work on the most efficient method to replicating the proper state for optimum performance.  Track driving will never be the same thanks to another AcMo innovation.  Figuring out how to make the system function is up to the engineers.  Sometimes it's nice to be in charge and have the authority to delegate.  With a bit of luck and a miraculous breakthrough or two, this could become Scuderia AcMo F1's unfair advantage.

We'll see you in the winner's circle at our next race or DE.