Glossary

A reference for the racing-data terms PaceBoss surfaces. Most mirror what SimResults publishes; a few are PaceBoss-specific (cohort, pace bands, claim-a-driver). Each entry includes how the value is computed and why it matters in practice.

New to ACC timing data? Start with the ACC timing primer for a brief orientation before diving in here.

For a deeper treatment of any single concept, follow the linked guide under it.

Best lap

The fastest valid lap a driver completed in a session. Invalid laps — cut, in-lap, out-lap with no time, or lap times that aren't finite — are excluded.

The best lap appears as a dashed reference line on the driver-detail pace-trend chart and as the headline lap time on /me per-track chips.

Theoretical best

The sum of a driver's fastest sector 1 + fastest sector 2 + fastest sector 3 across all valid laps in the session, even if those sectors came from three different laps. PaceBoss computes it as bestS1Ms + bestS2Ms + bestS3Ms and renders it as a dashed reference line above the best lap on the pace-trend chart.

The delta from theoretical to actual best is uncombined potential — time you've shown you have but haven't strung into a single lap. See theoretical best lap, explained for the full treatment, including when it lies (one-off purple sectors, fresh-tyre bias).

Personal best at track

The fastest lap a single driver has set at a specific track across all imports stored locally — the basis for the per-track sparkline tint on /me.

Cohort

The set of competitors a driver is compared against within a session. In a single-class race, the cohort is the entire field. In a multi-class race, the cohort defaults to your class only — a GT4 driver isn't told they're 10 seconds off pace just because GT3 cars exist.

The cohort mode toggle in the driver-detail hero switches between class and overall. Pace bands, gap-to-leader, sector ranks, and theoretical-best deltas all re-anchor against the new reference.

Class filter

Used at the championship level on /leagues. Set a class string (e.g. GT3) and only entries with Entry.class === 'GT3' count toward standings. Drivers in other classes are excluded entirely from that championship's row list, even if they're in the same CSV.

Sector

ACC reports three timed sectors per lap (S1, S2, S3). Each sector is timed independently. PaceBoss surfaces sector data in three places:

• SectorsChip on the driver page — three thermometers showing your gap to the cohort best in each sector.
• Laps table — every lap's three split times, with deltas to your personal-best sector and to the cohort-best sector.
• Theoretical best computation (see above).

Strongest sector

The sector where your gap to the cohort's best in that sector is smallest. If your gap is zero, you hold the cohort best for that sector.

Biggest loss

The sector where your gap to the cohort's best in that sector is largest — the opposite of the strongest sector. PaceBoss surfaces this as a callout on the driver page so you can see at a glance which sector to attack first.

Pace %

(cohort best lap / your best lap) × 100. 100% means you matched the cohort's best lap; lower means you're slower in proportion. Useful as a single-number summary of where you sit in the field.

Pace band

A five-colour palette that classifies a per-lap or per-sector delta against a reference time:

PaceBoss uses bands on the SectorsChip thermometers, the pace-trend chart's per-lap dots, and per-track chips on /me. You can toggle pace-band colouring globally in the header theme menu.

See pace bands explained for why these exact thresholds.

Consistency

How tight your lap times cluster around the mean. PaceBoss prefers the consistency value SimResults publishes (the source of truth for official championship pages); if it's missing for a session, the fallback is the coefficient of variation:

consistency % = 100 − (stddev / mean) × 100

100% means every lap was identical; lower means more spread. The "± X.XXXs" alongside the percentage is the population standard deviation in lap-time units.

See consistency in racing for what 99.5% vs 97% feels like in practice and why consistency wins long races.

Gap to leader / gap to winner

For race sessions, the time difference between a driver and the session winner at the chequered flag. SimResults emits this as a string ("+12.483 s" or "+1 lap"); PaceBoss parses it into milliseconds where possible for sorting and chart rendering.

Field benchmark / fastest recorded

The absolute fastest valid lap by any driver at a track across all imports stored locally. Used as the right-edge anchor on the /me per-track sparklines so the line shape encodes "how close to the front have I ever been here." Distinct from your own personal best at track.

Pit lap

A lap noticeably slower than the running median — PaceBoss flags any lap with lapTimeMs > 1.5 × median(validLapTimes) as a pit lap. SimResults doesn't tag pits explicitly, so this is an inference; treat it as a hint, not authoritative.

Pit laps are excluded from consistency calculations and rendered with a dashed vertical marker on the pace-trend chart.

Cut

A track-limits infringement reported by ACC for a given lap. Cuts may invalidate the lap depending on the regulation set used by the server.

Invalid lap

A lap whose time is not eligible for the timing board — typically due to a cut, a track-limits invalidation, or a missing time. PaceBoss shows them in the laps table with an INV badge and excludes them from best-lap and consistency calculations.

Claim a driver

PaceBoss's identity model: click the Claim button on a driver row in the classification table to mark that driver as you. The name is stored in localStorage and matched case-insensitively across imports — your claimed name in another league import or an older CSV gets the same accent-tinted highlight.

This unlocks the /me career view (cross-import per-track aggregation) and the "this is me" highlights everywhere a driver appears: classification table row tint, podium-tile micro-badge, driver-detail hero strap, session-list dot, championship-standings row.

/me view

The career page at /me. Aggregates every session you've raced (across all imports) and surfaces:

• Career totals (Races, Podiums, Wins) in the hero
• A per-track tile grid where each chip shows your best lap, the gap to the field benchmark, session count, sparkline of session history, and a pace-band tint
• A flat list of "Sessions you raced" linking back into the originating import

Requires you to have claimed a driver first.

Championship

A named collection of rounds with a points scheme, an optional class filter, and an optional dropWorstRounds count. Created and managed at /leagues. Standings are derived at render time — never persisted.

See how to run a championship for the full league-organiser workflow.

Round

A single saved import (CSV) tagged as the Nth race of a championship. Drivers attribute the standings result of the round to whatever finish position they took in that import's first Race session. Rounds with no Race session are flagged · no race and contribute 0 to standings.

Points scheme

A mapping of finish position to points. PaceBoss ships four presets (F1, F1 Sprint, IndyCar, WEC) plus a Custom option. The chosen scheme is deep-copied onto the championship at create time so future preset changes don't rewrite history.

Drop worst rounds

A championship configuration: drop the N lowest-scoring rounds per driver before summing totals. Used in "best 8 of 10" league formats. Wins and podiums in dropped rounds also don't count, so a dropped P1 isn't a recorded win.

Soft-link

PaceBoss's policy when a CSV import attached as a round gets deleted from /sessions. The round record stays in the championship, rendered as · missing import, and contributes 0 points. Re-importing the same CSV gets a new ID — reattaching is a manual step, not an auto-match.

Friction circle

A model from vehicle dynamics: a tyre has one finite friction budget shared between cornering, braking, and accelerating. You can use it all for one (max braking, no steering) or split it across multiple (some braking + some cornering = trail braking) — but the total can't exceed the budget. Exceed it and you slide.

PaceBoss can't measure friction-circle usage directly (no telemetry). But the conceptual frame explains many plateaus: a driver who is "trying to brake hard while turning hard" is asking for more grip than the tyre has, and pays in scrubbed speed, missed apex, or both. See the grip envelope.

Trail braking

The technique of carrying brake pressure past turn-in — easing off the brake gradually as you increase steering, rather than fully releasing the brake before turning. Loads the front axle, helps the car rotate, and is the difference between "slow in, fast out" working and not.

PaceBoss can flag that a sector is slow on entry; it can't tell you that trail braking is the specific issue without you verifying in the in-game replay. See trail braking explained.

Threshold braking

Maximum brake pressure short of locking the wheels (or, with ABS, short of triggering ABS for sustained periods). The peak-deceleration setting on the brake pedal — used in straight-line braking zones where there's no cornering force on the tyres yet.

ABS settings change the calculus: ABS-on threshold is just under the ABS trigger point. ABS-off threshold (where supported) is just under wheel-lock — harder to find, easier to lose, and rarely faster for most drivers. See threshold braking.

ABS on / off

Anti-lock braking system, modelled in ACC at multiple effectiveness levels (1–11 in some cars). Higher values increase ABS aggressiveness — more anti-lock intervention, more forgiving, generally slower at the absolute limit but more consistent across many laps.

For controller players, ABS-on at default level (3) is the right starting point; experimenting with ABS-off is rarely worth it on a controller because the trigger resolution can't reliably hit threshold.

Throttle modulation

Rolling onto the throttle as you reduce steering at corner exit, rather than stepping straight to full throttle at the apex. Manages the rear axle's grip budget — too much throttle too early overloads the rears and produces snap oversteer or wheel-spin (depending on TC settings).

PaceBoss can show that S3 (or whichever sector contains the exit) is your weakest sector consistently — exit-throttle technique is one common cause. The replay shows whether it's specifically you. See throttle modulation.

Looking ahead (vision)

The discipline of moving your eyes 1–2 corners ahead of the car. Real-world racing schools coach this in the first hour of any program; sim racing makes it harder to build because the consequence of missing is forgiving (off-track, respawn) rather than expensive (wreck).

The PaceBoss tell: when you're learning to look ahead, your consistency rises before your peak pace moves. Smoother laps come first; faster ones follow. See looking ahead.

Bracket-relative learning

A coaching principle: the right driver to study is someone roughly 2 seconds per lap faster than you, not the world record holder. They're operating in a regime you can imagine inhabiting; the world-record holder is operating in a regime you can't see. Study the next bracket up, repeatedly.

PaceBoss's classification-table sort + cohort filter is the workflow for finding your bracket-relative target. See bracket-relative learning.

Deliberate practice

Focused practice with explicit goals and feedback, distinct from time-on-task driving. Anders Ericsson's research on expert performance shows it produces faster skill acquisition than unstructured practice. The sim-racing application: a 4-block protocol (warm-up → goal laps → rest → race-pace simulation) with a PaceBoss-driven post-session review. See practice session protocol.