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Practice, Product, and Progress

I’ve been spending time in iRacing learning the line, got both of David Murry’s excellent Sebring, and Car Suspension webinars, as well as reviewing playbacks from the VRS datapacks. I really look forward to working with David directly on the Test/Tune day before the weekend at Sebring. I was also able to spend some very productive time this week out at Harris Hill with Andris of Gradient Racing. More seat time, and getting everybody familiar with the car is always a good thing

David Murry in the BGB #38

Over the holiday, I got a lot of work done on the trackNotes app, it is nearly ready for an alpha release. I am using creator, for the front-end, and firebase for the backend. I put together some wireframes for another app I am developing called setupBoard, that will work either standalone or together with trackNotes. Regarding my work with Kubeflow, it has gone very well, I was able to train against my dataset with multiple models, distributed across three cloud providers: GCP, AWS, and IBM. Inception v3 is the current leader with predictions of 85% accuracy against the ground truth in testing. I am going to test a couple more models: Random Forest, a TF Boosted Tree, and a DNN Classifier. Once I have another round of training, and testing I will start working through AI assisted hyper-parameter tuning to see if I can get the error rate any better. At that point I will switch gears and start working on the front-end.

setupBoard wireframe in creator.ionic.io

On the health front, I was having a hard time finding someone who could help me with both my nutrition, and training. I was referred to Phil Gephart who immediately exceeded my expectations for his knowledge, and professionalism. Phil is awesome! He worked with me to switch around my macros, added some supplements, changed up my training program, I am already seeing some incredible results with a 3% drop in body fat within the first week!
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Over the Holidays

I have always loved this time of year, it has given me a chance to focus on the things that I really want to do, interesting projects, time to catch up with friends, and family, play games (or get in some iRacing time, got to get Sebring down), watch movies, and just relax. I am off from work for the next couple weeks, and will be focused on a quite a few things, as usual.

I have built, and deployed three kubernetes clusters on the three different cloud providers that came with my having joined FFL (GCP, AWS, and IBM), I have tested all of my training jobs, and am now ready to do a big run on distributed training using kubeflow, I will be working on a couple different models, Inception v3 to start, and will be working through all the hyperparameter tuning involved with trying to get the best RMSE for what I am doing, hint (it’s motorsports related).

Also, I have a prototype of the trackNotes app, that I released to the Play Store for a closed Alpha, to get some feedback on the UI, I am putting it together with creator.  I am working on the backend data-model in Firebase, which is pretty straightforward, there are some really good materials out there, I really like the codelab, it is ridiculously comprehensive. I am also going to start a wireframe for another app called setupBoard.

On the racing front, I am doing outreach for sponsors, and will need to get all of that loaded into Hubspot so I can keep track of it all. I am also loading in a bunch of leads which, I will see if I can turn into opportunities for everything that I am doing (vaguely described above). Also, I have been talking to Andris over at Gradient Racing to see what support would look like for 2019, we are planning a test day in January.


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Preparations for 2019

Continuing my work on track notes, I have a working prototype, just need to clean up the UI, and then start working on the iPhone cross-compile, I hope cordova works well for that.

I started a new 6-week workout block with two HIIT days, it is pretty rough from a recovery perspective, I do 45-minutes of HIIT cycling on Monday/Wednesday with 30-minutes of weight training, on Tuesday/Thursday I run, and do weights for 30-minutes each, on Friday I swim, and then do endurance focused weight training. Talking to my nutritionist about a Ketogenic plan to go with my training platform.

I keep adding to the backlog of reading materials, going through the bibliography of Michael Krumm’s excellent:  Driving On The Edge: The Art and Science of Race Driving

I have made some significant breakthroughs on my upmarket product, currently building out the underlying development platform, and pipeline using the cloud credits from FFL.

I am dying to get out in my car for a test day, looking at the next edge addicts event, or maybe just a session out at Harris Hill (which would be my preference). Hopefully, I can get that setup over the next couple weeks.


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Celebrating Little Goals

Making some little milestones along the path to my new business venture. I opened a business checking account, and deposited my first racing related check!

Also from my previous post about starting my business I have been working on getting all my reporting into data studio this will help my highlight the value of having all your marketing data collected in one location. 

On the product development front, I have been working on some code that can use computer vision in simulation.

This weekend I am going out to Harris Hill to get some more video for the YMCA Austin story, and little more seat time.

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Getting it Together

Busy couple of weeks, I am working to get everything together for my next race, tie up loose ends from my previous outing, see if I can get a couple sponsors, and just generally have a lot of “irons in the fire”. Got a chance to get out with the amazing team at Longhorn Racing Academy last week, my parents, and the TPWS crew, came out, it was a blast. This post is going to be me getting my thoughts organized, and trying to get it all written down.

Getting ready for Barber:

  • Ordered another set of wheels from Bilt Racing Services, they are such good people, 
    • They should show up this coming week.
  • Need to order another set of tires from Frisby I want to use my contingency certificates
    • Need to follow-up and get the order in.
  •  I booked my travel, need to get it organized for Chris, and LeAnn, who are coming with
    • Hotel, Airfare.
  • Have to find a panel van/transporter for rent so we can keep all the tools, wheels/tires, and everything stored at the track.
  • Need to get racing fuel 101, or better delivered to the track.
  • Have to find a carrier to move the car, and all of our equipment (fuel bottles, wheels/tires, and tools (jacks, stands, wrenches, etc..) 
  • Have to get the outer rim on one of my wheels replaced, and installed
  • Need to get with Wrap Dynamics, get the new sponsor logos printed, and put on the car

Getting a couple sponsors

I want to get a marketing campaign going with Longhorn Racing Academy, that tells my story, and shows the journey that others could take, something along the lines of a here are our Graduates: I started with them doing one of their exotic driving experiences, I then attended one of the HPDE’s that they organized, following that I purchased one of  their cars :-), I then started taking lessons with Courtney, doing DE’s with PCA, went to Driveway Austin, I joined SCCA, and started going to Track Night in America, drove/drove/drove, took the courses at Porsche Sport Driving School got my PCA license, bought a racecar, and ran my first race at Circuit of the Americas this last month.

The other story that I have is the one regarding my health, I decided in October of 2017 that I wanted to  get serious about the racing, and was determined to be competitive, and enjoy myself, so I started a very tough diet (liquids only, 800 Calories a day), and workout regimen. Over the course of the last 6 months, I have lost 94Lbs, I have 6Lbs more to go, and I will be transitioning back to solid foods. I would like to tell this story with the help of my doctor, and the team at Oak Hill Wellness Clinic and involve Nestle Health Sciences.  

I want to find someone with experience writing to help me get a bio together, and start putting together my marketing package, as I approach this campaign, I want to provide my expertise around marketing data analysis, with all of the tooling.

Lastly, I am super excited to have had Chris from TPWS drive the car, would love to get him his license so we can start working toward a two-man enduro format, here is his video:

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