I had to write up my own Garmin Catalyst impressions after 2 full days of playing around with it at Eagles Canyon Raceway outside Dallas where I'm a member. Thanks to Andy Pettit from Clown Shoe Motorsports for letting me rent the unit for the weekend and also providing his coaching along the way. Drop him a note if you're also interested to try before you buy if you find yourself in Dallas.
Here's my quick recap... 2 days, 2 seconds. I shaved my PB time at ECR from a 2:12's to a 2:10's in about 5 sessions over the 2 days in my E46 M3 that's stripped, half caged, on rcomps, and no aero. I also have an AIM Solo DL that I've been using for years, but haven't really graduated beyond being a newb with squiggly lines.
The following notes is what Andy and I observed around the Garmin. Some videos will be shared further below too:
Overall, I was just super impressed with the Garmin and will very likely buy one to complement the AIM Solo DL that I already have. The hype is real... now the real test is whether I can replicate those times when I don't have the coaching turned on!
First video: Garmin Audio Coaching through the lap.
Second video: Comparing 4 different optimal laps from 4 different sessions. After each session, the Garmin will produce a stitched video of your best segments to give you a visual of a best lap *could* look like if you get each segment right. I put together the 2x2 video on my own, just for an interesting comparison of optimal laps over the course of the day.
I also forgot to say, one pleasant surprise was looking at the video folder structure. You get a nicely organized folder structure with folders for each session, one big file for the recorded video, then one video for your optimal video stitched together. Sadly the optimal video doesn't have any audio (yet?), but for all the whiners saying that the video quality isn't good enough, it's plenty good enough for your YouTube creds.
Here's my quick recap... 2 days, 2 seconds. I shaved my PB time at ECR from a 2:12's to a 2:10's in about 5 sessions over the 2 days in my E46 M3 that's stripped, half caged, on rcomps, and no aero. I also have an AIM Solo DL that I've been using for years, but haven't really graduated beyond being a newb with squiggly lines.
The following notes is what Andy and I observed around the Garmin. Some videos will be shared further below too:
- The device might take one session to really set a baseline of your lines and find 'opportunities' for improvement. We did a blind test for the first session with the Garmin in the car, but not pumping coaching instructions to my helmet for a good clean baseline. You may not need a whole session for this baseline, but we wanted to test a few scenarios out, so we took our time.
- After each session, you receive 3 opportunities for improvement with details around braking points, apex, and speed, which to me were great bite-sized suggestions to think about when you get into the car for the next session. These were made available immediately after you click the end session button. In the distance of walking from the car to the ECR clubhouse, I had suggestions I could look through without having to pull out a laptop to pull the data.
- The audio coaching is really well timed for upcoming turns and just enough instruction to push you more. There also appears to be some form of gamification that happens where the Garmin is looking for you to consistently hit the corners it's giving you coaching on, before it finds some other corner to work on with you. I felt encouraged when I heard the Garmin moving it's coaching around the track to new corners.
- Contrary to some posted YouTube videos, you get a lot of audio coaching. I came in with low expectations based on what I've seen on YouTube, but in each 30 min session at ECR, I would get coaching on nearly every corner at least once. This part really exceeded my expectations.
- Now, to get the most of the coaching, you really need to push the car, probably beyond what you're typically comfortable with. I found my braking points being later, my braking pressure much harder, my long/lat g's being higher, and I tried a whole bunch of new lines to see what the Garmin might suggest. You should approach the sessions with the Garmin as a testing day to try new things you haven't
- We did do some data comparison between the AIM and Garmin and they both were in the same range around what the best laps were and what my hypotheticals could be. This was just a good validation check to make sure the Garmin wasn't too far off from an industry standard.
- One thing that we did test was to put Andy in my car but under my profile set in the Garmin to see if we could trick it to having a totally different driver in the car with an entirely different style of driving. When I returned back into the car, I noticed that it took longer for the audio coaching to come back on, almost as if the Garmin was confused by the driver switch. But after a few laps it did come back on, it just took longer than usual.
Overall, I was just super impressed with the Garmin and will very likely buy one to complement the AIM Solo DL that I already have. The hype is real... now the real test is whether I can replicate those times when I don't have the coaching turned on!
First video: Garmin Audio Coaching through the lap.
Second video: Comparing 4 different optimal laps from 4 different sessions. After each session, the Garmin will produce a stitched video of your best segments to give you a visual of a best lap *could* look like if you get each segment right. I put together the 2x2 video on my own, just for an interesting comparison of optimal laps over the course of the day.
I also forgot to say, one pleasant surprise was looking at the video folder structure. You get a nicely organized folder structure with folders for each session, one big file for the recorded video, then one video for your optimal video stitched together. Sadly the optimal video doesn't have any audio (yet?), but for all the whiners saying that the video quality isn't good enough, it's plenty good enough for your YouTube creds.
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