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GHiT 0740: Fire Laps Returns - Even Better and Much More
GHiT 0740: Fire Laps Returns - Even Better and Much More
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About this episode
David and Daniel from Firelaps return to discuss their advanced driver development platform that uses AI and machine learning to analyze race data and provide actionable insights for improving lap times. They showcase their new Firelink hardware, a 4G-enabled data logger that streams live data for instant feedback. The episode covers their partnerships with Gridlife and SCCA, upcoming features like CAN bus integration, and plans for enhanced coaching tools. The hosts also share personal racing experiences and the platform's impact on driver performance and enjoyment.
Topics:
driver development platform
data analysis and coaching
Firelink 4G data logger
live data streaming
Gridlife partnership
SCCA partnership
machine learning in racing
CAN bus integration
racing performance improvement
user-friendly data visualization
GHiT 0740: Fire Laps Returns - Even Better and Much More
It had been a wile since we spoke with David and Daniel from Fire Laps and we thought we had to catch up with how things were progressing. Apparently, it had been way too long and things have advanced and grown in so many ways it was tough to cover them all in one podcast. Their software has further developed and now can show you exactly what and where you can go faster on track, as well as comparing your performance with similarly capable cars. But wait, there's more. They have also now introduced Fire Link, a hardware device that automatically captures your data and uploads it to the Fire Laps system for analysis and sends you the briefing on what you could do to improve. It also allows for live observation in real time. We also cover some upcoming advancements and plans. Plus, they were kind enough to give our listeners a discount code below for $50 off the hardware and 3 free months off the subscription (subscription is included for the fist year with the hardware)
Did we miss something? Please let us know at [email protected]
A link to the episode is: https://tinyurl.com/Firelaps740
We hope you enjoy this episode!
If you would like to help grow our podcast and high-performance driving and racing:
You can subscribe to our podcast on the podcast provider of your choice, including the Apple podcast app, Google music, Amazon, YouTube, etc.
Also, if you could give our podcast a (5-star?) rating, that we would appreciate very much. Even better, a podcast review would help us to grow the passion and sport of high performance driving and we would appreciate it.
Best regards,
Vicki, Jennifer, Ben, Alan, Jeremy, and Bill
Hosts of the Garage Heroes in Training Podcast and Garage Heroes in Training racing team drivers
We hope you enjoy this episode!
If you would like to help grow our podcast and high-performance driving and racing:
You can subscribe to our podcast on the podcast provider of your choice, including the Apple podcast app, Google music, Amazon, YouTube, etc.
Also, if you could give our podcast a (5-star?) rating, that we would appreciate very much. Even better, a podcast review would help us to grow the passion and sport of high performance driving and we would appreciate it.
Money saving tips:
1) Enter the code GHiT 25 for $50 off the Fire Links hardware system with a 1 year membership included and/or a an extra three months if you subscribe now at https://firelaps.com/
2) Enter code "GHIT" for a 10% discount code to all our listeners during the checkout process at https://candelaria-racing.com/ for a Sentinel system to capture and broadcast live video and telemetry.
3) Enter the code "ghitlikesapex!" when you order and Apex Pro system from https://apextrackcoach.com/ and you will receive a free Windshield Suction Cup Mount for the system, a savings of $40.
4) Need a fix of some Garage Heroes in Training swag for unknown reasons: https://garage-heroes-in-training.myspreadshop.com/
5) Want to show you support to help keep our podcast going? Join our Patreon at: patreon.com/GarageHeroesinTraining
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Car
Mazda MX-5 / Miata
"...e you could sort by car type, like if it was spec Miata or whatever, you can. I don't think there's an ea..."
Car
Ford Falcon
"...to put it down out of corners on a 245, you know, Falcon or something. And so definitely when all your com..."
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Chevrolet Corvette
"...our competition has like a 295 or 305 under their Corvette, that's a little bit of a challenge,"
Select text to request an explanation
Hi, this is Joe from Vantah.
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Who hope to one day be the world's greatest driving heroes.
Created from the cosmic legends of the universe,
comes our team captain, the vision, Bill Fisher.
And there soon to be Wonder Woman, Vicky Fisher.
And our captain marvel and head flight trainee,
Jennifer Scriptjunk.
Their mission, to fight injustice,
share what is right and wrong to get you out of your house
and come out racing with them and serve all mankind.
They are the garage heroes in training team.
Welcome to the Garage Heroes in Training podcast.
I'm going to be the host for episode.
My name is Bill.
Who else is OSTAG?
I'm Vicky.
Miss Vicky, returning guests, returning guests.
Yes, I know.
It's been a while.
Been two or three years, maybe something like that.
A couple of hundred episodes.
We get to say we knew them back when.
They were just little, little baby birds growing up.
They had a couple of things.
They've been very busy.
They've been very busy.
They're still doing things that nobody else understands,
which is great and solving lots and lots of problems.
So with that, welcome back, David and Daniel.
How are you guys doing?
We are doing fantastic.
It's great to be back.
Thanks for having us.
Thanks for the invite.
Thanks so much.
It's well overdue.
I was watching one of the Gridlife reviews.
I can't remember.
It was live.
It was either Laguna or it was probably Pit Race because I was home that weekend.
And I'm like, these guys are doing everything now.
We haven't talked to them in way too long.
I'm like, I probably, you know, being the good podcast host I am the day after we
get back from a race, I've done no research whatsoever.
But I know where you were.
And I know what you were doing for the live broadcast on Gridlife.
And I'm sure there's other stuff that I don't even know about.
So let's start with, in case this is the first time anybody's listening to you guys on our
podcast or on another podcast or any podcast was raising its eyes, raise all boots.
What are you guys up to?
What are you doing?
Good, good question.
So firelaps, firelaps.com, that was where you can find us.
And we are the first and only driver development platform.
What that really means is that we bridge that gap between, you know, so many folks who have
some type of data logger in their car and they don't quite know how to gain insights
from that data.
We are the answer to that.
So what firelaps does is we take your driver data from your aim or your race box or Apex
pro or whatever it is, we analyze that data and we show it to you in a really easy
intuitive way and then we use machine learning and our thousands and thousands of laps we
have in our database to give you actionable insights on where you can find time specifically.
So rather than just looking at your data, you have access to all of this community data
of great drivers and it really is what we like to say it's the fastest way to get
faster is to get plugged in with firelaps and start getting those insights handed
to you on a silver platter rather than making you dig through them by looking at squiggly
lines.
So that's really are where we stand out in the in the market.
So you guys aren't the only people who've changed since we talked.
Miss Vicki.
Yes.
Well, actually is has looked at and may potentially again look at data in the future.
So, OK, so listen, I've come to the realization that there is a time and a place to absorb
data.
If it's just given to you and you're not ready to understand it, it means nothing.
So I'm at that point now when I can now I'm now ready to absorb data, but nothing
would make her happier than not having to do any work and having the data just kind
of visually given to her.
If only there was such a product, it's got to be somebody.
You know, that seems that seems like a market that's unserved.
I don't know.
We live in a busy world.
Who could solve that problem that would be fired.
That's what we said.
That's what we said in 2022.
We were like, why is this not a thing and we can we can do this and we can do this
as well.
And just to refresher from our last conversation, Daniel's background is in machine learning
and AI and he's got quite the resume of all kinds of things he's done in the past.
And so that's really he's our CTO and really the backbone of our tech.
And then I have been responsible for the strategic direction of where we go and listening
and talking to the drivers of the track and, you know, adding features and developing
the platform.
And like you said, we've we've definitely been very busy because when we wrapped up, we had
just launched our intelligent lap coach, which is the the tier of the platform that gives
you those specific insights.
And we have made so many enhancements to that over the past year or two.
And so every time you upload your laps now, you're getting you're getting points
on the track that are showing you.
You can gain a couple of tents here, a couple of tents there, and they're going to show you
in plain English where and what you can do to find that time.
And so there's just nothing that's been like that in the future.
And so that's kind of where we left off.
And we've just been scaling that over the past couple of years.
But that's that brings us up to present.
And then and I'll get into all kinds of the new stuff whenever whenever we want.
So Miss Vicki is a future actually current and future you.
Let me rephrase that we are a user, whether Miss Vicki is a user or not.
That's a different story.
Miss Vicki, what do you need?
Because I know I know you like the apex pro kind of you hate the aim.
But if somebody's willing to digest it for you, you're kind of cool with it.
What do you need being being the visual person that you are on track?
I am I am a very visual person.
So I think that the platform that they are describing, it's it's actually it would
actually allow if I'm gathering this description properly, you would upload.
Your data and then you were saying that it would match whatever was there on
the track and then it would start giving segments of where you can improve
like lap my lap over that lap and to say this is what you can do with that.
So what you could do is that what you're saying it does?
Yeah, so that's the core of it for sure.
And I know this is a podcast, but we get to make hand puppets and finger wave around.
So I sent a request to you, Bill, just to share my screen because I think
I think that our listeners here will kind of see the light bulb go on in Vicki's
mind as she gets to take a look at what I'll what I'll share right now.
So whenever am I good to go?
Yep, you're good to go.
All right, let's see.
We're going to post a video for this segment.
So OK, so this is a session I'm analyzing.
This was the last race I had at Audubon just a couple of weeks ago.
And what you'll see is I have my fastest lap shown here.
I have my drive line where I can see exactly where I went.
I can hover and I can see my speed at any point on the track.
I can overlay all kinds of stuff.
I can overlay my ladder.
I can overlay my min and max speeds.
I can actually click and play.
I can play my lap and I can see actually my little dot moving along.
I could do this with multiple laps.
I could do this with my laps and your laps and Bill's laps.
And we could layer them all on top of each other.
So from a visual element, this is like really nice to see.
It's a Google Maps view with a drive line overlaid on the track.
Then we have all kinds of other things stacked in here,
like we have just a speed trace graph where you can go ahead
and you can compare lap side by side
and you can see where there's differences as you graph the speed
and you can click any point on the map and get the data of that exact segment.
So all of that's there and you can play with this
and it's it's really, really helpful.
But this is just the visual interface that we have.
If we clear all of this off.
We can take a look at the intelligent lap coach.
And this is giving me specific insights.
You'll see there's these little little light bulbs that pop up.
And if I hover over them, it's going to tell me in plain English
what I can actually do and it's giving me the three best places
to save time next time I go out on track.
So here it says maintain throttle through the middle of the turn.
Apply more throttle on exit and I can actually click on that.
And it will give me step by step what to do in my turn entry,
my mid turn, turn exit, overall information.
And then I can actually see like my forward acceleration.
G you can see what I did is I over slowed a little bit right there.
And it lost me.
Look at right there.
So the black value is the the what I should be doing.
And you can see I'm two, three miles an hour off pace, leaving this corner.
And just get those are like specific measurable things that I can do next time.
I take that corner literally the very next session.
OK, so is there an option that we can upgrade so that this doesn't
come through in my voice to Miss Vicki?
Is that is that extra?
Is that included?
I'm just saying this this this this program is very unapologetic.
It just lays you bare.
It's you know what?
And it's it's just the data doesn't lie.
So of all of it, this one just is like, oh, this is what you did.
This see your jerk, you drove like a jerk.
The old Shakespeare games.
Now, this is this is very good.
This is this is very, very good.
It's it's like Shakespeare.
How do you suck?
Let me count the ways.
That's right. That's right.
Exactly. Well, it's cool.
I mean, it looks at your all of your laps.
It looks at your laps throughout the weekend.
It looks at laps of other drivers.
Sometimes you'll get a notification that'll say, based on laps of other drivers,
you may be able to carry more speed here or, you know, whatever.
And so like that's something that's really like a new concept
in the world of motorsports data.
And every single other data logger or product out there
does one thing very well, it records your data
and you can go look at it and try to decipher it
and figure out where you could find some time
and how much time that might actually be.
But we are the only platform that we're actually taking all of this data.
We're analyzing it for you at a super human level.
And then we're giving you those insights on a silver platter that say,
hey, look, here are your biggest opportunity to to find some time.
So that's that's what the Intelligent Lap Coach does.
And what we've refined, this has definitely grown a bunch since we met last.
So for sure. Yeah, I think.
So so if if I recall, you could sort by,
you know, friends and compare to them, you know,
and then I believe you could sort by car type,
like if it was spec Miata or whatever, you can.
I don't think there's an easy way to, Daniel,
is there a good way to sort by vehicle?
I mean, vehicle setups are so widely different.
Like my Miata, I race against Porsches and BMWs.
So my Miata is not a super helpful, you know, benchmark there.
But what you can do is make a group like this GLGT group,
which we'll talk about our grid life sponsorship.
But this is all folks running GLGT that have decided to share their data
publicly in a group so they can overlay data with their competitors.
So all these guys are running in this same new series.
And so it's been interesting to look at it and see, you know,
two guys that run, I was doing this with Hans,
who actually won the championship and used Firelapse a bunch, actually.
He and I looked at our data at Autobahn, I think.
And we were within a tenth of each other.
But the way I was making it, I was making up time on corner entry
and he was making it up on corner exit with his with his V8.
And it was pretty cool to see the way that the speed traces were so different,
even though the even though the like lap times were nearly identical.
So, yeah. All right.
So, so, Daniel, I've got a request from a listener code named Bill.
I think we need a metric. OK.
I think we need, like, just a one number that kind of granular
scales everything, and I'm going to call it Percent Tomo.
So. It just judges you as as what percent of Tomo are you?
I think we could get the license to it.
It might, you know, we might know somebody who could probably get that.
But I think percent of percent Tomo.
I think that might be the the key metric to overall, you know.
Well, I'll show you.
We don't have something as humorous as comparing you to Tom, but it will look
at would be very humorous to compare me to Tom.
It would be very fun.
We need a picture of him with his glasses.
Here's the big bad wolf.
But this is interesting.
It will show you your consistency and it will show you like in this
in this session, I'm two seconds faster than average average car
with the rate of acceleration my car has and the grip that my car has.
So you'll see when you go to these sessions, you've got your, you know,
you've got the date, the track, the weather, that session,
what your best lap was, your consistency.
And then you if you're faster or slower than average.
So it's a good metric to say, hey, at least I'm doing something right.
I'm actually, you know, ahead of what someone may be doing in this
with the same equipment, you know, on average.
So same equipment.
Now let's let's for the people who are visually challenged right now.
We're talking about a turbo case WAP Miata.
We are, we are.
So you're you're no joke in it now, you know, I'm no joke in it.
But what I mean by same equipment is not the actual.
I know, I'm just looking at this car going.
No, it's really about, you know, we can measure.
We have all the data that we can see the acceleration rates,
the longitudinal G's and we can see, you know,
the max lateral G in any specific corner.
So based on that, Daniel has built this all out.
So we know, you know, we can generally tell.
Well, I shouldn't say generally, we can exactly tell who is a great driver
and who is a mediocre driver and who is a poor driver.
And you can just tell based on what they're doing.
We would never target you like that, Bill, never, never just look at the back of the back.
I'll be there.
Yeah, we'll be looking for you.
But anyway, so, you know, you do get that.
You don't get Tom, but you get at least a compare yourself to an average driver.
So if you're if you're ahead of average, you're closer to Tom than further away from Tom.
So if you did this, I'm just brainstorming here, you know, Daniel, you can overrule.
You've got Grand Puba technology here.
If we had like a percent of Tom, you could have this this icon of blue sunglasses
and however how we're filled the sunglasses are, you could you could get there.
And then it's like one of those thermometers.
Exactly.
Like a like a light blue sunglass thermometer would be fantastic.
Maybe if you got really good, you could actually get the perfect hair
even when it comes out of a helmet.
Oh, I know, it just he does that little swoosh.
I talked to him about that one time.
Mike, how's your hair always look like that when you get out of
and he's like, I just have one swoosh that I do and it's back.
And I'm like, normal people like me put a hat on Tom doesn't.
He just the hat doesn't even begin to get my hair back.
He has a cut out in the top of his helmet.
I'm sure that I think there's no padding on the top or something.
Yeah, exactly.
But it's not safe, but he trusts himself.
So he doesn't mess up too many times.
But OK, so Miss Vicki, does this look like something that would take
the squiggly lines and make it a little more palatable for someone like you?
I think it's basically a coach without having a coach next to you.
It's basically what it is.
Well, interpretation of the data is tough.
I mean, that's right.
That's a skill unto itself.
You can be a driver and still not know what a squiggly line looks like.
And and more so what the squiggly line is telling you you're not doing.
Yeah, that's exactly it.
This is again, this everything else will record the data.
I'll show it to you, but this will give you the insights.
And, you know, it's really the difference between looking at data
at the track between sessions and not or maybe looking at it later
that week at home because you can in five minutes, you can gain insights
and say, oh, cool, I'm going to go out and do this and this and this.
And so, you know, that's really that's really what it's all about.
And so what we find is that drivers will use this throughout the weekend
in a way that they wouldn't be looking at their aim data and using, you know.
So that's really I mean, that's a big difference.
That's the difference between winning and not winning very often.
And just that you've you've got strong support from Dewey
on the podcast almost weekly.
So yeah, yeah, exactly.
Enjoying it. He was using it, you know, and literally 20 minutes ago
before before we got on.
So you can tell him to listen to this podcast because I'm about to say
if Dewey can do it, anybody can do it.
It's he'd be the same.
He'd say the same thing.
He would say the same thing.
But we've got a bunch of new stuff going on.
And I know this is just the this is just the iceberg tip
that we covered somewhat that's much better.
I mean, it wasn't bad before, but now it's it's even further along.
Daniel, you've been bored. I can tell you haven't done anything.
Yeah, nothing going on.
He's nothing at all. Nothing to see here.
Yeah. So what what other new toys and
genius ideas have you guys come up with now?
So the I'd say the most notable change took place a year ago.
And when we developed and released our own hardware,
so we now have our own data logger that we sell.
It's called the Firelink.
And it in and of itself is nothing
particularly fancy or special compared to other devices out there.
A same 10 Hertz GPS, like an AIM solo or an apex pro or race box.
But what makes it very special is it has a 4G connection as well
as the GPS antenna.
So what that means is that you never have to go find a USB
cable and upload data, download data and upload data again.
Your data is live streamed to our server
while you drive.
It's being analyzed while you drive.
And by the time you get out of your car and you take off your helmet
and you open your computer, your phone or your iPad,
you have what I see what I'm looking at here.
You have a ready to go.
And so you'll just complete your session and say I was in this vehicle
and I want to share this session with this group maybe or this group or
whatever, click Save.
And then it's going to show you this screen right away.
So instead of going and pulling files like opening race studio,
pulling those files off and then going to the upload screen, you know,
and dragging and dropping them here and uploading,
it will actually just do it all for you automatically.
And then on top of that, it allows you to actually live stream
your data while you are on track.
So, Vicki, if you're in the car, you can have a fire link in the car.
Bill can analyze the data.
He can see exactly where you are on track, how fast you're going,
what your G forces are, whatever he can.
He can give you insights over the radio.
If you so desire or maybe you just decide to turn off the radio,
but you would have that available to you as well.
So what would happen is I would get the insights.
I would tell someone else she would then be told by them what goes on.
And then she'd listen.
So it's it's a little quirky, but it gets the job.
It's like a game of telephone.
I love I love how Dave is describing it.
Just keep hearing in my head, but wait, there's more.
I mean, that's kind of how it's been lately, it seems.
Yeah, I mean, it's really neat.
I mean, it's so cool because like in our race cars, you know,
I've got AIM stuff in the cars and it's great, but I have a fire link in every
car and it prompts you to look at your data.
You drive a session, you log in, you have a notification that says we found
you, you know, 0.6 seconds at mid Ohio.
Oh, cool.
Let me take a look.
Let me analyze it.
You if you don't check your laps for an hour or two, you'll get an email
in your inbox that will tell you the same thing.
Hey, check this out.
We've got something for you.
Click here, view your session and like to actually just be handed
that from a system like this is just unlike anything else out there.
And we're really excited about it.
So that's our fire link that pairs with fire laps.
So fire link interfaces with the other systems or it just does it on its own.
It does it on its own.
So it has its own.
I'll show you the.
I'll log myself out here.
But you can see.
There we go.
So this is the fire link.
This gets mounted in the car.
You've got your two antenna leads that connect here.
This, the square black antenna, you mount like where you would mount
an aim antenna from a, you know, whatever log or usually just like behind
in the behind you in the middle of the car is perfect.
But once it's done, it literally it's awesome.
It has a QR code on the side of it.
All you do, you're logged in on your phone to your account.
You scan the QR code.
It says this device is connected.
Boom.
And you're done.
You wire it to switch power.
So it has switched 12 volt power with ignition.
So you get in the car.
You never think about it again.
You go drive the car.
You don't have anything to turn on or charge or anything.
And you just drive.
And then when you're done driving, you have those insights handed to you every time.
So it's got for the non-visuals, it will be on YouTube.
Garage heroes and training surprise, surprise.
You got your antenna, which in this case is square.
Sometimes they're round and then you've got the boxes.
Probably looks like a one by two by three.
Yeah, it's I should have had one here.
It's yay big.
Yeah, it's it's small.
It's palm palm hand size.
Yeah, exactly. A couple of cords.
Looks like a one stop shop solves all problems.
Because, you know, I know it's hard to imagine Daniel,
but I will say that your interface is is
slightly better than the aim interface, shall we say?
Well, thank you.
Slightly.
Shall we take that as a compliment?
The bar is pretty low.
I'm pretty sure.
I know I know I had zero chance at getting Vickie to use her aim
interface with the Race Studio.
So I tried to do Apex Pro, but now this is even easier.
It should be as easy as it gets.
And look, I think aim makes fantastic product.
So we don't mean to knock them.
I mean, we have I have probably on a half dozen aim devices.
And that has to be built our plan.
Yeah, exactly.
And we built the platform just to make that aim data more accessible
because we found that eight or nine out of 10 guys in the paddock
or girls in the paddock have the equipment
and weren't actually looking at the data
and they were using it as a lap timer.
And that's it.
And this is an expensive lap timer at that point.
Really, lap timer.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
So this this looks like it solves some of our problems.
And, you know, I just want to make sure you guys are aware
since the intervening time has traveled,
we have come up with more problems.
So don't worry.
We're we're still coming up with them on a race by race basis.
But this looks very cool.
This is this could solve some problems.
We might the team and I, probably more specifically,
I are going to have a hard, hard return to racing next season.
This was kind of a regroup recharge.
Love season.
Survive.
Don't don't make too much pain.
And I think the batteries are full goes.
And now we got a couple of things we need to put in the car.
So all right.
So let's let's talk.
How long is installed?
Looks like it's like quick power 20 minute thing.
We installed them at the track plenty of times.
It's it's literally just 12 volts switch power and ground.
That's it.
Very easy.
And it's, you know, adhesive, you know,
the adhesive Velcro on the back of the box
and the antennas adhesive and a magnet in magnetic also.
So yeah, it goes, you know, depends on the chassis,
but it's really not somebody we've had a hard time
putting it in the track.
All right.
So we do that.
That's that's that's something even I could do
as long as I can reach where we want to put it.
That's fine.
So this is a hardware with a subscription.
It is.
Yes.
So the fire link comes.
It's 499, which is, I think,
very reasonable for a data logger.
If you look at everything else out there
and that does come with your first first year
on the platform with the intelligent lap coach,
which is normally two twenty nine a year.
So we give you that and that's going to give you
all of the features and more of what I just showed you.
And and then from there, yeah, you can.
We have our two different plans,
either one that's ninety nine dollars or one that's two ninety nine.
I'm sorry, two twenty nine.
And so you can it depends on how much of the coaching you want
versus just being able to visualize the data
that's really up to you.
And yeah.
And, you know, it's it's important to, you know,
I know that, you know, we've got plenty of folks,
you know, myself included.
Sometimes I feel like, oh, man,
I feel like I subscribe to a lot of things.
The difference with Firelapse is that
it's I think really highly justified
because of what you have seen take place
over the last two years with the platform,
how much has developed and grown
and it's just gotten better and better for our drivers.
And then we also have ongoing costs
regarding the cellular connectivity.
So the servers cost money, the cell service costs money.
So it's one of those things that the tech necessitates
some ongoing cost and it also lets us,
one, exist as a company,
but two, allows us to continue to pour in resources
to make all these things happen.
So the feedback we get from drivers that jump in on it
is, hey, this is like the cheap,
this is the least amount of money I've ever spent
for the lap time gain that I'm getting.
And that's a, and then that's a,
that's something we'll hang our hat on all day long.
So when you look at your total race budget,
this is a minuscule amount of it
and it's gonna make one of the biggest impacts.
All right, so I've got a couple of problems
with what you have.
How am I supposed to forget my SD cards
if you're gonna solve all these problems for me?
What do you mean?
Well, I mean, every other time I either forget my SD card
or my SIM card or forget what was the other thing
we did last time we went to the track.
Do you remember of it?
I don't remember.
I mean, we've messed this up in so many different ways.
You've got everything solved.
We've got it solved.
You can still forget your SD card
when you rear-end somebody on track
and then the stewards come by and ask for that SD card.
That's when you want to forget the SD card
or how to be perhaps corrupted.
We're not even gonna talk about our GoPro issues.
Those are just big teases.
Anyway.
Yeah, so anyway, but you know, look,
we back everything with a guarantee as well.
We've just, it's not even on the website yet,
but we're calling it a 100 lap guarantee.
Basically, get a Firelink, put it in your car,
run it for 100 laps, which is usually like a weekend.
If you don't find time and you don't improve,
send us an email, we'll send you a shipping label.
We will pay for the return shipping,
send it back to us if it's not working for you.
We're just that confident
because we've seen this work for so many people
as we've rolled this out over the last,
you know, a couple of years.
So yeah, so we believe in it.
And I think that, you know,
there's this inherent skepticism
because people are like, wait, this is new.
I've not really heard of something like this,
but the reality is like, we know we're new.
This is a new category that didn't exist before.
And so we expect a little of that.
And so we wanna put our money where our mouth is
and say, hey, look, try us.
You're going to go faster.
And if you don't know hard feelings, send it back.
Right.
So that's kind of our angle there.
All right, so you know where your problem trials,
where the endurance team,
how do we chop this up for three or four drivers?
Is it doable?
So, yeah, so it is.
So you can run this in an endurance race
for the entire time.
You guys, you run in lemons.
Do you have to do a certain length pit stop?
It's like five minutes?
No, we've managed to take it in.
We wouldn't use it for lemons.
Well, you should.
Well, the issue with lemons is that lemons
spends most of his time with traffic management
more than it does with racing.
Yeah, I could see that.
Yeah, so we would probably use it more for track training.
But they should put that together.
Daniel, correct me if I'm wrong.
If you're, because we do, let's say a stint's 60 laps.
That's kind of a standard stint for us.
Maybe 100 laps on a type.
If it sees a hundred laps,
but 20 of them you were free in this section
and 10 of them you were free in this section,
eventually you get a free lap.
Does it kind of figure out what you could be doing
if these people would just get out of your way and then?
Yeah, exactly.
So the coaching tips are built in,
built based off your best possible lap time,
given the laps that you ran.
So if, you know, on one lap,
you got stuck behind someone on one straight,
the coaching tips will give you a friendly recommendation.
Hey, go faster here and you know what that means.
But it's always going to find insights
based on your fastest possible theoretical lap from that data
and from some other sessions
like the ones that happened at other times
during the weekend,
some other drivers too in similar cars,
but it's going to try to stitch together
the best lap it can that you could have done
and then give recommendations based off that
and how to get closer and closer to that optimal lap.
Yeah, the more you run it,
the more effective it's going to be.
If you go run two laps, you're only going to get so much,
but you go run 200 laps,
yeah, you're going to get really good insights.
And you can also change, you know,
every time you make a pit stop,
anytime that device is powered down,
it will consider that a completed session.
Okay.
Or anytime it's stopped for what,
two minutes or so, Daniel?
If you're off track, it's like one minute or two minutes.
Yeah, so if you're doing a pit stop and a driver change,
it's going to like reset itself
and it's going to prompt you to look at a new session.
So what you can actually do
is if all of your drivers have a Firelapse account,
whoever's got the Firelink in their car,
when that session gets finished,
you can actually assign it to a new driver.
So you can actually do that and say,
okay, hey, I've got your 50, 60 laps, whatever here,
send it over, you can go review it on your own time.
And then you also have the benefit
of actually seeing where the car is on track at any points.
And, you know, just being able to have any,
you know, you could see, oh, our car's off track.
Our car is way slow.
Something's going on, we've got a mechanical, you know.
So it's just nice to know,
and that's feedback we've gotten
from other interns drivers,
especially at big tracks is like,
oh, it's nice to know where our guy or girl is right now.
Yeah, for sure.
Sometimes you're looking for people to come in on a pit
and you miss them, you know, and they're like,
they've been gone a very long time.
Where are they?
So, yeah.
Yep, exactly.
Sounds like we got a winter project, my dear.
There you go.
It should be about the easiest winter project you do.
So we'll have to get one of these out to you guys
though to play with.
We'd love your feedback next season.
That'd be fun.
That's not a problem.
We've got two primary cars
that are going to be sitting there with one.
So we'll talk.
Now, knowing you, David and Daniel,
you got other stuff, you got more toys.
What else you got?
We do.
We've rolled out a couple of significant partnerships
this year.
One of them is brand, brand new
and hasn't even been announced,
but by the time this airs, it will be.
But the first of those is with Gridlife.
Gridlife announced a new race class in,
it started in June at the Gingerman Festival
and it is Gridlife GT or GLGT.
And that's to be kind of a counterpart to GLTC.
GLTC is the 12 and a half to one power to weight
ratio cars and GT is 8.9 to one power to weight cars.
So more tire under the cars, more provisions for aero,
more power, et cetera.
So that class is steadily growing.
I did the first race weekend there.
I detuned my Miata and put three tires on it
to go run with everybody, which was fun.
But what's very cool and what we did with Gridlife
is we actually, for the first 25 GLGT drivers,
we gifted them a Firelink and they ran them
in all the cars throughout the season.
And what was very cool is that we worked very closely
with Kyle, you probably know Kyle who announces for them.
And Kyle's an awesome guy and he has taken
all the graphics production in the house this past year.
And we worked with Kyle to actually overlay data
during their live stream.
So we started small at, I think we believe
we started at Road America and then we trenched out
more and more features throughout the season
for the following four events after that.
And it's pretty cool because you're watching a race live
and then you see a graphic overlay that says,
let's look at min and max speeds of every car.
Let's look at min speed through the kink at Road America.
Let's look at maximum braking Gs
or maximum cornering Gs or whatever graphic
he wants to overlay or let's compare these two drivers
that are battling, let's see who's actually faster
on the straight or whatever it may be.
So we did that and it was a great success.
We got lots of great feedback from people.
The vibe in the paddock among the GT drivers was like,
this is awesome, thanks for giving this to us.
I will continue to use this.
We got a lot of great testimonials
and yeah, we were just at a bunch of events
chatting with drivers and hooking up,
that's why I know we can hook them up decently
well at the track because I've had to do it a bunch
and yeah, it's been a really good partnership.
So that was the big one starting off this year.
It's awesome.
We noticed the, it was kind of a gradual rollout
through the season.
It kept getting bigger and deeper and more
and I think Ms. Vicki's gonna be angry with you guys
because the broadcast is my favorite
and I waste most of my weekends
when you're live streaming
and don't get anything done in the garage
but you gotta keep up with the friends.
I know, I know.
If you got buddies out there,
I mean, like we do the same thing and it's a,
yeah, it's super fun.
It's just neat to see us be able to like add that layer
to an already really professional live stream.
Yeah.
And yeah, we enjoyed that.
It was fun to be at a bunch more events this year.
So we did all that rollout and then on top of that
we are also rolling out a partnership with SCCA.
We started this fall and it's not a partnership to this level
but we are a preferred partner of SCCA.
We're offering some special discounts to SCCA drivers.
You're gonna start seeing more about fire laps
in the SCCA ecosystem, articles, things like that.
But yeah, I was at the runoffs as well
just what, a couple, three?
No, geez, a month ago already?
Yeah, a month.
And yeah, chatting, we had drivers that were there
running them and like the feedback was just awesome.
We just, I talked to three different drivers
just in that afternoon when I was out there.
They just, hey, they bought fire links
and they showed up at the track and they loved it
and I said, send me some testimonials
and they sent them back.
So yeah, it's just like good things going on with SCCA.
That's about as much as I can say right now
but there are potentially some larger things in the works.
We'll just have to see where things go.
We'll start small with this partnership
and see where things evolve too.
So yeah.
Well, I know a guy with a podcast
so if you ever need to get the board out
to literally tons of listeners.
Hey look, when we were on two years ago
we definitely, we saw your listeners
take advantage of the promo code.
In fact, we have a new promo code.
New promo code.
Plug for you.
Breaking news.
Because now we have the fire link as well.
So we made a promo code just minutes ago
that is GHIT25 and that will give you $50 off a fire link
and Daniel, I believe we're mirroring that same promo code
just if you're looking for software
and that is also gonna give you three months
for free on the platform when you sign up for a year.
So you get some extra time on there
if you just decide you wanna use your existing data logger.
So either way, we got some good options
and then we backed that like I said with our guarantee.
So yeah, I think it's hopefully compelling
and it's something that your listeners wanna try.
We're really proud of it.
Obviously you can tell we're excited about it.
So yeah, if you're listening, give us a try,
give us some feedback, let us know what you think.
Absolutely.
Just think Bill that we knew them.
We knew them when they were just starting this promo.
I know, I know.
They were so excited back then.
I know, well they should be.
I mean, it's been fun.
It's been fun to watch from a distance
and see how you guys are growing.
And Daniel obviously has just been sitting back,
sipping my ties, eating bonbons, doing nothing.
Just nothing at all.
Just sitting on the beach.
Yeah, it's a good job.
Good gig, man.
I appreciate it.
But it's easily seen.
You know, I'm not even gonna say
from when we guys were last on to now.
It's seen, it seems like week to week,
month to month.
It's like, oh, it does this now.
Oh, you can do this now.
It's kind of crazy, because to me it happens more,
like when you're in it every day, you don't realize,
oh my gosh, looking at how much we changed.
But then I go back and look at our social media posts
from six months ago and I'm like, whoa,
we've come a long way since then.
Look at all this stuff we've done.
We've got a couple, not to just pitch things all day,
but we do have a couple things.
But while we're here.
Wait, there's more.
You're just working for zero dollars worth, right?
I mean, if you're gonna spend zero dollars,
you should get ahold of it out of it.
Exactly.
Well, look, I mean, we talked about what we did in the past
and what we've done recently, what's available now.
But there are a couple things
that are just worth mentioning, I think,
that are coming and it's because,
and the reason I wanna mention it
is because these are the questions
that we are getting all the time.
And so the first thing that I will mention
is that we will be releasing a Canbus-enabled device
in the near future.
Oh, cool.
What is that?
So we will have a, there will be Firelapse
and then there will be, as we're calling it at least for now,
Firelapse Pro and there will be a Firelink Pro.
And what that's going to do,
instead of having just a power and ground wire,
we will be adding a can high and can low wire
and using that to interact with your AIM device
that has vehicle data, your various standalone ECUs
that we're pairing with.
And what that will do is now, all of a sudden,
we'll be pulling in all of that vehicle telemetry
into the platform and using that and leveraging that
to give you even more pointed and direct coaching.
And so that's coming hopefully 2026.
I don't have a firm launch date,
just know that it's well in development right now.
And we've heard customers loud and clear.
There are a lot of loggers
that will just record your GPS data.
And the feedback we got is, but wait, we like this,
but we want more, we want all this stuff.
And hey, I already spent this money on this data system,
so can I get that into your platform?
So fortunately, because we've had so much AIM data
uploaded over the years,
we have a lot of this type of data
in our platform already.
We have throttle position and steering angle
and brake pressure and on and on and on.
And so Daniel's been able to begin training models
on all of those metrics and all those channels.
So once Firelapse Pro is available,
we'll have a whole lot to be able to offer our drivers
once that rolls out.
So nothing now, but just it's,
I mentioned it to say that, hey, everybody,
we hear you, we know there's demand for this,
we're not slowing down.
And we recognize that this is a really logical
and important next step for our platform.
So it's coming.
Two things, Daniel, why are you wasting your time
talking to us?
You should be making this thing happen.
It's had to do that for you.
What do you think?
I was working on it about an hour ago.
I'm sure.
You're doing it in a little bit.
I'm sure, I'm sure.
And then we need to talk more in-depth on that
when that comes out.
So keep us in mind, please.
Yeah, for sure.
It'll be some time, but it'll probably be
about that time for another chat.
And we will be, and we also will be doing,
I won't get into it in detail,
but we're gonna be doing a very limited time offer
starting, it's looking like in November,
where we're going to be making things even easier
for new drivers to join our platform.
We're gonna make onboarding faster, more personable.
It's gonna include some direct one-on-one communication
with us to get drivers up to speed,
some monthly webinars, we'll review data with drivers,
and just a bunch of different bonuses
and some exclusive stuff that we're gonna be putting in,
and it's gonna be capped, it's gonna be limited
because there's only so much that we can do
in one month.
But that's coming, and it's gonna be,
I think, a ton of value for new drivers.
So I would just say, I'll leave it at that for now,
but keep an eye out for what is coming.
I think it's just, it's gonna be tough to say no.
I think it's gonna really appeal to anybody
who's perhaps on the fence.
So.
Sounds awesome.
More here.
So I had two more questions before we depart,
and Daniel, you've been very quiet.
So last time we pestered you,
we had to get Daniel on track.
Did we accomplish this goal?
It's been a couple of years.
That has still not happened.
It's still in the center.
The right seat.
I've taken him out for some fast laps.
We've had a good time, but.
Yes, okay.
That was funny.
He took me to my physical limits in the Turbo Viata,
and it was a lot of fun.
I'm still trying to find a way to get my CR-V
on track, and so far that's been the hurdle.
No worries, no worries.
And then David, you did a little bit of driving this year.
How'd it go?
It went well.
It went well.
I was driving in two different series.
I was driving in the new GLGT class,
which was a bit of a challenge for the car
because I had to put street tires on,
and I can only really fit a 245 tire.
So I've got a Turbo K series,
and I'm trying to put it down out of corners
on a 245, you know, Falcon or something.
And so definitely when all your competition
has like a 295 or 305 under their Corvette,
that's a little bit of a challenge,
but I still actually managed to place
mid-pack pretty consistently,
and the car ran awesome.
I had to detune it a bunch too
to get to that power to weight,
but it was a blast.
I had a great time.
It was good racing.
It was fun.
I went to Road America and Autobahn and Gingerman.
We're the three that I did,
and then I was at some of the other ones.
Like at Laguna, I just didn't get a car out there.
So that was fun.
I think the series is gonna take off big time next year,
and it's been fun to be a part of that.
And then at Autobahn, just in the member race series,
where I run the car on A7s
and with the power of another 90 horsepower
against basically factory portion BMW race cars,
I actually won my class.
I ran GT2 for the season in my 2001 Miata with the K series.
So it was very fun to do that.
And I came down to the last weekend.
So hyped about that.
And yeah, we got a little awards banquet on Saturday
and just pick up a trophy and yeah, can't complain.
It was, that was also a blast.
So I have to say for doing the two classes
and kind of swapping the car back and forth between them
and doing that many race weekends, everything went,
I'd say extremely well.
So.
You know what?
You forgot to say.
What's that?
The only reason you had that success was Firelapse.
Uh-huh, you're right.
Ah.
I'll say it for you.
I can't plug it too hard, Bill.
I can't, I've done it off.
Like the philosophy of our team.
I'm beating up into the ground with this.
The philosophy of our team is if it's worth doing,
it's worth overdoing.
I'm just saying.
It's true.
It's true.
I mean, but you know, jokes aside,
yes, I did review data incessantly throughout the season
and it was super helpful and it was very fun.
There's now a couple of the Audubon GT drivers
that are running Firelinks
and not obviously all the GT guys on the good life side.
And so just to look at all the data and overlay,
like it's just fun.
It's fun to look at and you learn things
just by comparing with other drivers.
So it's just like adds this richness to racing
that just isn't there otherwise.
You don't have that easy way to share with people.
So just that, it just more, I went faster
but I enjoyed myself more also, just as simple as that.
I mean, getting better is half the fun.
The other half is the people.
Yep, absolutely.
That personal improvement is, you know,
before I was wheel to wheel racing,
I spent a lot of time just going to the track
and just getting my driving dialed in and my setup
and just I want to find time.
I want to go faster.
So there's, you know, we help with all aspects
of driving on track.
So from that to, you know, whatever,
whatever level you want to take it to.
Yep.
And, you know, there's two things.
You got to come back when the CAN bus system is compatible
and open invitation when the Tomometer comes in.
That's another, that's a full episode.
We, you know, I can't wait to see what Daniel comes up
with my brilliance, you know,
I'm sure he's going to interpret it
and make it even better than I envisioned it in my head.
And Vicki's just sitting there going.
He's something that's in here.
I'm listening to you.
I'm listening to your giants.
You know, yep.
And for anybody who's intrigued by the Firelapse Pro stuff
and kind of like, yeah, but I'd kind of like
to check this out.
No, I don't know when that's coming.
I will say this, that early adopters,
people who have purchased Firelinks now
will actually part of what we're offering
will be a $499 credit towards your Firelapse Pro
and your Firelapse Pro membership.
So literally, there's no reason to wait,
get on the platform now and start learning.
Once it comes out, you're effectively getting
a $499 discount.
So it's like you didn't even spend any extra money.
So check it out now and play with it
and start learning.
Don't, don't wait.
Cause I don't know how long Daniel's going to take.
You know what I mean?
It's very cool.
No pressure there, Daniel.
I was subtle, but I somehow I pieced that
to, you know, a little bit.
So cool.
Well, it is great to see you guys.
You guys were just getting started
and kind of looking forward and had some great ideas.
And many of them are fulfilled.
I'm sure the to-do list has gotten even longer.
And the, oh, wouldn't that be cool list
got even longer?
It is.
You know, it's, it's racing like everything.
I could do just a little bit better.
And it's part of the fun, but anything that'll help
my beautiful bride look at data.
I am in, Marcus down.
We got at least two of them coming.
I'm going to talk to the rest of the teams
and cars and see what they want.
So we'll be there.
We, we will request when we, when we place
our order that you said this lots of stickers
cause you have lots of cars that need to have
fire laps on the side.
We will load you up.
We'll get you some, some shirts and some hats
or whatever.
There's some koozies.
I got a lot of koozies.
Vicki's, Vicki's a fan of koozies.
Yep.
I will get you hooked up, Vicki.
I'll give you a lot of koozies.
Yeah.
That sounds awesome.
Love it.
Well guys, I can't wait to see how this goes.
And we're going to definitely be using it.
We're going to be using it next season.
We might even squeeze a, if we can get an HPD in
before the winter comes, we might do that.
Yeah.
And it should be fun.
And I can't wait to see what comes next year.
And now you got me sitting there saying,
where's the can?
Where's the, do I sound like David now
for you, Daniel?
That's where's the can.
That's right.
We'll give it to you eventually.
We'll, you know what?
We'll chat.
We'll get you an early unit.
We'll get you a pre-production.
There you go.
We'll play with.
How about that?
We'll test run it for you.
That's right.
Look at all these things I'm promising already.
Why is it saying I'm so slow?
Well, it's because you are.
Oh, okay.
Awesome.
Oh, one thing I forgot.
I got a autocross compatible.
Good question.
As of now, it is not.
We do get emails regularly from the autocross crowd
and the hill climb crowd.
Currently, you do need it to actually complete laps
in order for it to learn.
There's not a A to B, you know, two points, you know.
But we, you talk about the long list.
It's on there.
Yeah.
I was gonna say Daniel's list did not grow
by one increment when I asked the question.
So that's why I felt,
okay, I didn't wanna bury you, Daniel, you know.
Yeah.
So we've got some thoughts there,
but you know, look, there's a lot of things.
Would we like to eventually have our own display?
Yes, of course.
That's also on the list.
There's things that will happen,
but if anything, if it gives you any confidence
in these things happening and, you know,
take a look at what we've done over the last three years
and you can see we're not slowing down.
We're pedaling to the floor,
coming out with new features and new products
and we're gonna continue to do so.
So we'll do it as quickly as humanly possible.
And if anything can get Miss Vicki to look at data,
it's gotta be good.
We'll make sure it is only the best for you, Vicki.
Got it, love it.
Thank you guys.
Great having you on again.
Thank you.
Absolutely, thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
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