College Station AutoX Round 2
 

http://www.tamscc.org/forum/attachme...9&d=1236017959

You can check out the results here, I am currently the only one repin the max at this event. I am the 96 Maxima, you can scroll down to h stock I got 6th and my friend go 5th, I hate him. I did manage to take out three wrx's and one s2000, 4th gen woot woot.:D

Doood.. you guys sure racked up a lot of DNFs!! Did you walk the course beforehand?
SLOW DOWN! You'll go faster if you actually finish. ;)

when did the 4th gen maxima move to HS?

why didnt that strelniecks monster rx7 finish. did they blow the diff again?

:sprint:

Thought it was always GS from 1982 on to 2004-ish...

I don't think they really know where to put the max, I'm the only one reppin the max on the scene. Ya I am the one that racked up all the DNF's didn't know that when I had some catastrofic understeer instead of coming to a dead stop to avoid the cone I should have just plowed right through it. Ya on top of needing to slow down I do need to learn how to interpret the course better. I noticed a lot of the prepared classes taking there first two runs at grandma speed. I am guessing this is to learn the course without heating up the tires to much. Then on the last two runs they would get a lot more aggressive. I think the heat was really getting to my tires, in the beginning when it would understeer I could feel it still really wanted to catch. But by the end the steering would go numb and plow for no reason it felt like.

Nice work..
I love seeing our "grocery getters" stomp the " sports cars".
I know we can only get so fast, but we hold our own.
I'm currently looking for tires for May 24th Autocross at VMP in Virginia.

Remember, slower IS faster.

Many drivers will start slow and speed up as they learn the course better.
This is why you need AT LEAST two full course walks before you ever drive it.
...... And if you're walking with your buddies talking about going to Hooters or Freebirds or Two Rows after you're done, then you're not doing a course walk- you're just walking.

If you're doing a true course walk, you'll either be by yourself and stopping to look at corners (possibly even making notes on your course map), or walking with a novice instructor helping point out things like key cones, apex points, turn radius, and slalom entry options.

Before you ever get behind the wheel of the car, you should know the course well enough in your head to be able to close your eyes and visualize it from end to end. not necessarily at speed (you do that for a road course, FYI.. I can 'drive' Tx World Speedway in my head within 1 sec of my usual lap times), but you should be able to think about how the course progresses and which way you'll need to turn next all without looking at the course map.

If you haven't gotten to that point, look at your course map some more and watch other cars go through the entire course. Don't watch just the first tree turns a car makes from the start.... the start is the easy part... watch after that and see which way they're turning and try to follow the course map in your head while watching them.

It takes some practice, but those are the kinds of things you have to do if you're going to get good at autoX.

quick reflexes and knowing the limits of the car are fine and dandy.. but to be really fast, you need to know how to look at a course map and walk the course and then think to yourself "okay, I need to be entering the corner in the middle, not the far right, and I need to be going about 30mph and slightly on the gas, then increase throttle as I steer through the corner"......... AND be able to remember it after you walk the course. Thus TAKE NOTES!!


Hope that helps. :)

Oh that really helps, I'm laughing right now because I am a textbook case of what you said not to do. The first time I went I walked like 2/3's of the course and was like "hey that is to far we'll just cut across". The next time we walked the whole thing, once, and about half way through we weren't really paying attention to where we were going. Hearing you say it makes me feel like it was possibly basic knowledge, but now at least I will know what I really should be doing.

If you're depending on reflexes, you're already "behind".

Even if you can't remember the whole course, you do want to have a general "feel" for how it "flows". Take any instructed "novice course walk" that is offered - I still do, because there is a very good chance that something will be mentioned that helps. Sometimes during one of your course walks it helps to look back to where you've been to help you figure out what you need to do to get to where you are.

Once you start thinking in terms of "features", it gets easier to remember. Last Sunday for me went something like this I could probably still "walk" the event of three weeks earlier in similar detail.

Drawing your own map may help (whether one is available or not). If nothing else, it forces you to think about the course and disregard all the distractions for one walk. Not a bad thing to look at it as you're waiting for successive runs - you should know where you had problems.


On edit - just what does "repin" mean? :confused: Bowling over lots of cones? :laugh:


Norm

I may have a lot of DNF's but I seldom hit a cone, the first time I went I didn't hit one. This last time I think I hit one in a free run, but that was just cause the course was all messed up. Reppin means UNDERSTEER (PLLOowww) I realize I am definately going to hit a cone turn wheels straight come to dead stop just before the cone and go around it on the wrong side. Thats how I roll.

Sounds like overdriving. Probably better to just run it over and continue, as that way you'll at least get a run time that won't be way off what a clean run would have had and you will have seen the next features after the downed cone at speed (instead of looking at them like the first features after a start, downshift+upshift and all).


Norm

even the pros mow down cones sometimes. :)

they don't do that much to the bodywork (I hit one at 80mph on a roadcourse one time and was still able to buff out the orange /\ on my bumper!)

Any time you drive around a cone the wrong way is an automatic DNF. do a circle to come back around in front of it so you don't DNF and you just wasted 10 seconds. you're better off to just mow down the cone and take a 2 second penalty.

heh.. exaggerated case in point... I had one autoX course a few years ago with a "chicago box" in it. If I went around the cones, I had to slow waaaaaay down and damn near turn lock-to-lock to get through it all. Miatas were flying through, but larger cars had hell. Mustangs and Camaros were absolutely murdered on that course.

After two runs, I thought about it... went back and looked at a run on someone's camera and said f*** it. My third run I went out there and mowed down the end cone in the box. I was able to take the turn nearly flat out at 40-50mph. It dropped my time by 4 seconds. Add the 2 sec penalty and I was still up by 2 seconds!
By halfway through the fourth run group, EVERYONE was mowing that cone down :wall:

Point being, you're better off hitting a cone than getting a DNF. they don't hurt your paint much, if any, and you still at least have a time to show at the end of the day.

BUT... you shouldn't EVER be at the point where you're screeching to a halt on course. That's a safety hazard for you, the workers, and the car behind you. that's a classic sign of overdriving the car anyway.


If you guys can find an Evolution School or a Novice School in your area, you will learn a LOT. I highly recommend going if you want to improve your driving. Lots of seat time and more runs than your can stand for cheapola. They host them in Houston region a few times a year. just 1.5 hrs from College Station.

^ Nice story! That poor cone... :D

Matt93SE has pretty much hit the nail on the head as for as how to get better/faster... Personally, my region is having an AX school next month and I damn sure intend to be there!

http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j2...n/P1010549.jpg


http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j2...n/P1010550.jpg

http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j2...n/P1010565.jpg

Holy positive camber, Batman!!!


Norm

That thing is going to flip the **** over!

^ :lol: I don't know if you've talked to them, but the father/son that now race a blue CS Miata used to AX their 99 SE Maxima. I saw that thing on 3 wheels on stock suspension many times! :cool:

I think I may have talked to them at the last Walter State event. We all kind of found each other on the main drag there and then proceeded to get lost. They were asking about the car a little bit and mentioned they had one.

All I have to say is stock suspension + throwing it into corners + hanging on for dear life = big balls. :lol: I would just never gain any confidence from a stock 4th gen on an autoX course. I would be scared for myself and all the workers out there.

^ :lol: Yeah, their wife/mom wouldn't ride, but she'd watch! :lol:

:lol:

My mom won't ride with me either... :hahano: I'm still trying, though! :D

I usually walk the course slowly the first time to scout out the apexes and setups, and then I'll walk it much quicker as many times in a row as I have time too. Course walk is more important than car, driving skills, tires, or anything else in determining how well you'll drive.

btw, if these guys knew how to read the solo classing/rulebook, they'd know you should be in GS, not HS...

Ya, I drove a 26ft box truck that was 13ft high around DFW airport for about 8 months. I have done some pretty insane stuff that I hope my boss never finds out about. I ve driven 2 hours in wind with 6,000 pounds on one side only because I didn't have enough time to load it properly. Now let me tell you I'm not saying a maxima can't roll, but I can pretty much tell when it isn't about to roll over. Also my first car was a Chevy Tracker, it had a makeshift picture of itself rolling over on the visor. I never even got it up on two wheels.

This is me a few weeks after I got my license.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze2SH3QzS4c

That driver is a Dumbass.

I had no idea that was going to happen, besides the tracker had it coming.