Yesterday I did my first Autocross at Tire Rack here in South Bend.

Here is the idea of the track layout, excuse the extreme roughness:





Anyway, I did terrible. My best was a 65 something, with my friends in a Porsche Turbo and an R33 Skyline winning with a 54 something. I got beat by a freakin VW Jetta if that tells you anything.

My friends were helpful but some of the things confused me. They said I was to choppy, and I agreed with them because I was. The track was EXTREMELY tight though. My friends dad in his 911 said it was the tightest he had ever seen, and he's been doing it for a while, to say the least. I'm disappointed with my performance but also with my car's performance. Everytime I turned the wheel my tires seemed to squeeling. I had WAY too much body roll, and my ABS seemed like it would kick in everytime I hit the brakes. I also had an understeer incident. I nailed it going around a turn and went off the track.

My biggest fault was with the cones however, I didn't hit one, some of my friends through 8 runs hit 3 or 4. I need to be more aggresive but smoother how can I do this?

What can I do to make my car perform better?

Mikey

 

Fixed it for you.

Short answer: seat time. Lots and lots of seat time. Get instructors in the car with you and be totally open to their words of wisdom. Try to get ride alongs with instructors in their cars or with them driving yours - then observe them from the passenger seat. You'll be blown away by how much quick someone else can be in an unfamiliar car they just stepped into.

The best possible thing you can do is get more experience and be open to feedback.

Also, don't get discouraged. You will make progress along the way, but it takes time.

I now have about 10-12 autocrosses under my belt. I'm by no means "experienced", but I am feeling cleaner and quicker. That said, even though I was able to win my class the last two events, I know I still have a lot of progress to make. It'll come, but it is going to take some time, and a willingness to apply what instructors are pointing out to you.

 

Pulling from the book I reccomended,

1. Ride along with some one and watch how they do it
2. Have some one instruct you several times (even the best benifit from someone else who know what they're doing)
3. Pratice, Pratice, Pratice
4. Be smooth with inputs

 

Yeah I tried to find that @ B&N and it was in like some weird section, consequently I got it last night... a little late.

Mikey

 

Mikey

As the other have said, it take A LOT of practice.

If you think you just going to walkin there and rule, not going to happen.

In another lifetime, I Xcrossed with the local PCA club. On one occassion, up comes some guy in his 930 Turbo. After all the runs, somebody else runs in a rabbit. They were urging him to do it ... Turns out he was a professional race car driver for something or another. He literally blew away everyone's times in his "lowly" rabbit.

There were a lot of embarrased faces that day in their very expensive machines.

I learned then its all about the practice.

 

nothing is wrong with your car, just "tighten the nut behind the wheel" as they say. It takes some time to get used to autocross, most beginners will try to overdrive the car in the wrong places (myself included). Changing things on the car at this point will only confuse you, you've got to get used to the car in its current form first. Once you master that, start to tweak the car to bring times down further, but focus on "the nut behind the wheel" first, thats where your biggest gains are to made for sure.

 

What Dave said, exactly. Seat time. Then more seat time.

The next most single useful thing to do is to have someone who is really good drive your car and show you what it's supposed to feel like.

Then after three years, you might be quite good. It's fun getting better. But there are rarely quantum leaps.

 

Nothing beats seat time.

Don't get discouraged, keep at it. I can't count the number of events I did lousy in. But, I got better, even won a few!