This weekend, in conjunction with a Philadelphia Region Evolution/
McKamey school, Byron Short held the first ever Geez! school.
Several of you expressed interest in this a month or three ago, but
few followed through -- and IMHO, those who didn't really missed out.
The school started Friday at 1pm with a classroom session that lasted
until something like 6pm. We had seven students, plus Byron. We had
a mix of experience, from a few of us using Geez! since last summer,
and two never-evers, and some inbetween. We also had a mix of computer
experience, and a mix of autocrossing experience.
The Friday classroom session was followed on Saturday with a mix of
classroom and track experience. We ran the course during three
separate sessions, and retired to the classroom after each to review
the data.
The slides from Byron's presentation will soon be made available on the
web, but this is no substitute for taking the actual school and playing
with the software in real time with real data, with Byron and all the
other students helping out.
The Friday classroom session included some basic physics; some driving
basics as they apply to Geez! such as tire management, friction circles,
and how to drive to make Geez! happy; how to set up and install the
bundle; and a little test run on the tabletop followed by analyzing
that run in the Geez! software.
On Saturday, we started out at the site and ran four runs on a fun and
fast but simple course. We then analyzed that data, learned some stuff
about the software like how to adjust maps and what formations to look
for in the strip charts.
We each made plans on where to improve, and then went back and did it
again after a brief catered lunch. We then analyzed those runs to see
how we did, and learned more about the software in the process.
We ran a different course for the third session, attempting to
extrapolate what we'd learned so far to a new course, and then went
back to analyze that data and learn even more cool stuff about the
software, such as comparing runs, playing with colors on the maps and
how to interpret those results, synchronized playback, segment timing,
and quite a bit of detail about slaloms (surprise!)
There was quite a bit more detail than what I've covered here. This was
nothing like Byron's marketing presentation at Nationals last year --
this was real hands-on training from the master.
In the process of learning all that about the software, we all also
learned quite a bit about our driving, and had a great time doing it.
The school was casual but focused, and Byron and the other students
all made it fun and interactive. Everybody's runs were scrutinized
right in front of everyone, so this course is not for the easily
embarrassed!
Byron doesn't have any more of these scheduled yet, but I'd highly
advise you all to sign up for this school (thus persuading Byron to
do more of them), and if you don't have the Geez! bundle yet, buy it.
[Disclaimer: I get no kickback from this. I'm just one of many
satisfied customers.]
Mark, who now has a couple dozen runs to analyze over the next few
weeks...
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