During my first autocross I managed to go from 52s on the first run down to 50 seconds, but I could trim another second off for my third run. Now I'm trying to figure out what I should do next time.

My primary goal is to have fun and not get lost on course, but I would like to consistanly get faster with each event.

During this event I did not make any adjustments to the car. I ran my normal tire pressure (tires were already hot when I got to the gas station so I didn't add air). One of the drivers suggested the I let some air out of the front. I decided not to because I didn't want to jinks myself this go around. Next time I will probably following that suggestion.

I am looking for specific things I might be able to do while on course to help me go faster.

 

www.bondurant.com

 

Oh no!!!!

They're more of a road racing school. Autocross is quite a bit different, as you will be told by any road course instructor who finds out that you are an autocrosser.

Road racing is about being smooth and predictable on a course where you have run many practice laps, generally at speeds where losing control of the car will often cause injury or property damage. Autocross is about fast transitions, often tossing the car around in a way you would never do when road racing, on a course which is basically brand new to you, at speeds where losing control of the car usually leads to nothing more than a few moments of embarrassment.


Start by reading this: http://www.tunnellracing.com/advice.html

Read it three or four times. It's short, so you can afford to. The author has won many National championships in autocross. Read section 3 a dozen times.


Also realize that a difference of 1 second on a 50 second autocross course can be the difference between winning a National level event or going home empty-handed. Consistently running a full second faster may not be easy -- depends where your current skill level is.


Your best bet is to have an experienced autoXer ride with you. What you want is for the experienced guy to tell you what you need to work on -- there are a number of ways you can leave time out on the course. Are you driving a good line? Are you looking ahead far enough? Are you looking at the "wrong" cones? Are you aggressive enough with accelerating, cornering, braking? Are you too aggressive with accelerating, cornering, braking?

I'll give an example from last weekend. In the divisional championship event, we get three runs on Saturday and three on Sunday, with only your best run from each day scored. My first two runs on Saturday were "dirty" (had cone penalties), so for my third run, I needed a clean run. What I did was essentially drive a line which left an extra 2-3 feet of space between my car and the cones, at least for those cones which were "key" cones which are likely to get hit. Just running a conservative line like that cost me probably over a full second on the clock.

Another way to put that... if you're not hitting cones at least occasionally, you're not driving the fastest line.


Good luck.

 

look ahead, drive smooth, and get lots of seat time.. The key to a fast run in the EVO (or any other turbo car) is to be as smooth as possible.

practice, practice, practice....

 

My biggest gains in time happened when I realized just how deep you can actually brake these things. I already was 1st in AS, but wanted to beat my dad in his basically BSP E36 on Hoosiers. Last run of the day, I basically went for broke, and managed to brake my way to a .7 quicker run.

 

I have found after winning the last 8 events now that the way to drive the Evo fast is to hold a tight line in any corner. Give up speed early so you don't push into the corner so that you can be aligned for coming out of the corner the fastest. I have also learned the Evo loves slaloms. Use that to your advantage. I don't know if I agree about being smooth. The rougher I get with the car, the faster I get as long as I give it up in the corners and hang a tight line. Avoid understeer at all costs! It is a time killer.

As far as tire pressures go, I have found on the stock Advans, they love about 48-50psi front and the rears are good at 38psi. That might be different if you aren't as agressive or have some of the suspension modifications that I have.

An alignment is a huge improvement on this car. That is maybe worth .5 seconds right there. Throw in a rear swaybar, and that might be worth another tenth or so.

Have fun.

 

Simple. Find ten places to knock a tenth of a second off. It may sound like I'm joking, but I'm not. Too often people think that to go a full second faster, they have to really crank it up, which is just not how it works. Unless you are just blowing one particular part of the course, the only way to really improve is to make small gains in lots of places. Think about how much time you could gain if you did each element of a course just 0.05 faster. Then think about how much 0.05 is. It ain't much.

And as for smooth, that's a relative term. Being smooth is always key to being fast, if you are not being smooth, you are upsetting the car and you are losing time. But because the transitions in autocross are much quicker than on a road course, what is smooth for autocross is most assuredly not smooth at the track...

JW

 

yes, smooth is a relative term. I guess I should clarify. When I say "drive smooth", I am refering to how you apply your inputs to the car (steering, brakes, throttle, etc). You don't want to yank the wheel in a tire squealling effort to change direction. Instead you want to adjust the attitude of the car and present it to the corner paraphrasing Sr. Stirling Moss.

You very well may be sideways in a full on power drift, but if that works for you go for it! (it does for me )

 

Look ahead...well ahead. Use the side windows. If you find yourself reacting to the course rather than looking to the next corner (or the one after that), then you aren't looking ahead enough. It's an easy concept but very difficult to master (I know I haven't).

 

Practice, practice, and practice. Also, attend an autocross school and read Secrets of Solo Racing http://www.soloperformance.com/Deskt...64&selection=0

 

Try a really hard launch-Launch traction is one of the EVO's big advantages. Don't over drive, take what the course gives you (slow up to go faster).

 

brakes baby! pick two or three trickier corners and practice braking (when to start and stop braking)

 

I agree with JW, however in practice, finding times in 10 different spots are really tough mentally and concentration wise.

My first couple of runs, I learn the course; then for my 3rd run I try to determine the places I feel I did good and figure out 2 or 3 places where I can make the most improvements; prioritizing.

During the 3rd and 4th run, I try really hard to concentrate to perform equally well on spot where I thought I did well and to fix my mistakes on those 2-3 places.

This scenario leads me to be a little inconsistent however. Generally there is 3 to 4 second difference between my 1st run and 4th run. Top drivers seem to run quite consistently across all runs and sometimes they do their best runs during the first two.

As mentioned before, probably braking is one of the most important thing to do right. Carroll Smith said that the last thing a driver learns to do well is braking

I used to loose most of my times at slaloms, braking and sweepers. I have been working really hard on those aspects in the recent weeks with a lot of seat time in autocrosses and schools; braking is still a little shaky though.

Now the next priorities are looking further ahead, better identifying the key cones, pushing closer to the limit earlier in the runs without going too much over. I don't know what comes after that LOL.

 

How bad will autoxing tear up a new set of tires? I've done it a couple times, but after spending about a grand total on new Toyos I'd hate to rip em up.

 

I have never noticed any severe tire wear from Auto-X'ing, although I have beat the tires up doing lapping days at road courses. I auto-X'd my Miata on street tires for 3 years without adverse tire wear, before switching to race rubber in order to shrink my lap times.