I had my first autocross yesterday and I was a little dissapointed in my driving skills. The course was in an old mall parking lot in fair condition at best. It was pretty short and not to complicated. I had a lot of trouble in the corners with my RWD, but I noticed other high HP RWD cars weren't doing too much better. I never got a lot of speed on any of the straightaways which I thought would be an advantage over other cars.. Overall I had a good time though and am looking forward to next year.

Good things:
-had a better time than a newer corvette, and not too far off a z06
-I improved my times after the first 2 runs
-Hit no cones
-Had a great time and it was pretty fast paced
-Really nice cars there and a very friendly community
-didn't kill anybody

Bad:
-didn't always have complete control through turns
-couldn't memorize the course
- Thought I could have done much better on the last run
- Inexperience on when to brake/accelerate

If anybody wants to check out how I compared to other cars, here's a link.
http://www.nrscca.com/files/results/...ov6Results.pdf

My only mod is the CAI, which I don't think helped me out. Wish I would have my pulley/tune installed which i'm waiting to get around to.

 

Just finished my 4th season of autocrossing and all 4 were in my SRT6. The conclusion I've come to is, the most important mods are tires designed for autocrossing, negative camber and as much seat time as possible.
Our cars push in corners and I've found that lowering the rear air pressure 4 or 5 lbs below what you have up front will help. And again, negative camber comes into play here a bunch. Unless you've got money to burn, I'd recommend waiting on the pully and spending the money on tires and camber. The pully will help getting out of a corner faster but you've already got more power than you can currently put down.

Apologies if you already know all this.

 

Thanks for the advice. I've actually already bought the pulley/tune before i even thought about autocross.

I don't really plan on doing it very competitively so I won't be dumping a bunch of money specifically for it. However I have thought about getting the sprintbooster. Would this give me a noticeable difference?

Honestly I wish I had a car with less power to work with in this sport so I could get the skills down first. Unfortunately my MR2 is going to the junkyard, and I'd have to put about 2k in suspension and brakes on my maxima just to make it safe.

 

+2 on what Wedge said... seat time, seat time, seat time.

Congrats on your first run! Your observations are quite accurate.

As you learned, power is nothing without control. At my last HPDE, I was pushing a C6 Z06 through the technical portion of NSS. Once we hit the straights, he never had to give me a point-by because it simply rocketed away with its 505 horsepower...

These little cars love turning. I like the fact that our cars push slightly... much better to learn on than a car with violent snap-oversteer.

 

I autocross in manual mode which keeps the rev's up which means you have to roll the throttle on gently coming out of corners so I've not seen a need for a sprint booster yet. There's no delay.

Have fun playin' with it

 

I'm glad to hear you had fun. I love HPDE and Solo myself. I have a tune and while it resulted in more power the sensitivity of the gas pedal causes me problems. It's too on or off with little else in the middle. To be good at autocross, or road racing for that matter, you have to extremely precise with braking, turn in and feeding in the throttle. I'm still working on precision myself but have a good handle on what the car can do when I get it right. I'm lowered and have K&W's with street tires and my car likes what Wedge's likes. More pressure in the front and less in the rear. On my tires about a 2 lb. difference. What's most important isn't power, it's being able to use all you have and keep your momentum in the corners. For autocross (after seat time) it's tires, tires, tires, then suspension and weight reduction.

I'd adjust on what you have until you can get on the gas earlier and harder. It's actually easier to learn the basics on a car with less power. We have a group of Fiestas and Yaris that fight tooth and nail and are getting real good.

Les

 

Glad to see you are going out there and using the car for what it loves. As Wedge and others have said, tires and suspension make a lot bigger difference in AutoX than anything else, although brakes are extremely important as well.

The biggest thing I would pass along, from experience, is LEARN THE COURSE. I always do several walk throughs and mentally 'drive' the course in my mind setting up every turn long before I even get in the car. This gives you the confidence to attack all the other aspects of racing you need be thinking about and the course is simply second nature. I had a hard time with this at first, because I could only get to events after the track walk, but getting there early and memorizing the track IMHO is more important than anything else. As you said, it is too much car for you, between the small track and inexperience, but you will only improve, glad you are having fun. I am not extremely competitive either, but I do like beating friends I can get to go out with me....