The weather forecast says "sunny".
I was up at 4:29am, in time to beat my 4:30am alarm (which I forgot to turn on)
Got to the event and started to chat away (instead of concentrating) :roll:
Ran over a cone while maneuvering to GRID :x
1st run...so so
2nd run...shaved 1.5 secs (ok...)
3rd run...DNF...messed up the one of the slaloms :cry:
4th run...killed 2 cones... :cry:

Needless to say...turned out to be a sh***y day (for me). Still got lots to learn. Was trying to get out the corners with higher speed. Accomplished that...but too high for the ensuing slaloms...ARRGGHHHHH. :evil:

 

I have been avoiding my local autocross club myself. I want to go but know I will suck real bad. My brothers best friend use to do it and he seemed to have controlled slides through the whole course. He live very far away and is of no use. I know people that race quater mile with cars and even one with an actual dragster. I know others that race stock cars but when I mention wanting to do autocross driving they don't seem to be able to help me with learning this set of skills.

I don't know anyone doing it at work but am thinking about emailing the autocross president to see if he can hook me up with someone to learn the ropes. I was really busy and out of town when they that their anual beginners class. Currenlty they are 1/3 way into their season so I don't know if I should just wait untill next year or try to jump in now. I think all I need is a helmet and to pay the dues.

I can understand your fustration but always remember that you are probably one hell of a driver compared to most of us.

-marc

 

Sorry to hear you had a bad day...... My day went pretty good. On my 4th run I shaved 2.8 seconds off my first run. I only had one run that was a DNF for a missed gate. I drove the car too hard to the finish and just plain missed a gate. But, made up for it nicely on the last run.

One of the best things you can do to get familiar with the course is walk it. Not just once or twice. I walk it about 4 - 6 times. By the time I get in the car I have a pretty good mental map of the course. On my first run I don't push it very hard. I get a feel for where the fast sections are and where the really tight sections are. Then get more aggresive with each subsequent run and the 4th run is a "let it all hang out" run.

They videoed one of my runs again. I will post a link as soon as it's up. This one should be the best one to date. The car actually got a little drift going. It was a BLAST!!!

 

Landho.... Here's a link to some very good tips on everything from how to set the car up to walking the course and driving it. I got a lot of info from this. http://www.tirerack.com/features/sol...dbook.htm#tips

I hope it helps.

 

Well, like I said, I was socializing before the race (dumb me :x ). I only walked the course twice.

I also was concentrating on the speed in the corners...Should have been paying attention to the [WHOLE] course...

Don't have any more races until mid August , but I am going to couple of autoX classes to improve myself....

 

I have a really big one coming up on Father's Day. Over 125 cars. I sure would like to see more Crossfires! The only thing I can guage my runs against are the 350Zs with the touring setup. The 350Zs with the compitition setup and a decent driver gets me by about 1 to 1.5 seconds. But with my PAX it's very close. But I run even times with the touring Zs.

I'm hoping they get the videos from Sunday posted online today. They told me that because my videos are getting the highest number of hits that they will make sure they keep taking videos of my runs and posting them.... It's thanks to those of you from the forum that view the videos that makes that happen. Thanks to all!!!

 

Maybe when I stop killing cones, I'll meet you somewhere in the middle for an AutoX. How about BeaverRun, north of Pittsburgh?
http://www.steelcities-scca.org/index.html

We typically have 200 drivers at SE Mich events. Smaller ones may be around 100.

Aren't 350z in Bstock? How do you compare against the BMW 3xx

 

That would be cool to meet somewhere like Pa. I'm sure we could get some of the folks from that area to join us. If even just to watch and cheer us on.

A very good friend of mine has a BMW M3, but that's BS also and yesterday I beat him by a little over a second. The only thing we really have that's also DS is a SRT4 Neon that really come close to my times in DS. Here's a link to the pre-registration list for last Sunday's autox. http://www.odr-scca.org/