I attended my first practice event of the season yesterday, the "Weather
or Not" event in Kent, WA. Had a blast and No, It didn't rain. Quite a
good turnout too. Anyway I was thinking about my runs afterwards and
thinking back to the thread that's been going around lately about
memorizing courses and choosing lines. I walked the course twice (it was
a fairly easy course) and mostly paid attention to what side to enter
the slaloms. I thought about what some people were saying about not
looking at gates but picking up specific cones. Now I'm fairly new to
the sport so these are just my thoughts. I had some ok runs considering
I was running street tires. The fast cars were running in the low 40
sec. range. My best was a 48.5. Reflecting back on the runs it occurred
to me that I was using a kind of connect the dots approach which
obviously doesn't work real well. I would pick up a cone and make a
beeline for it and then I would turn. The result? I figure I early
apexed 80% of the turns. I didn't think about using the whole course. I
guess if I opened up some of the turns, I wouldn't be fighting the push
that I was getting because of this line. I wouldn't be scrubbing off
speed by sliding. Also I can see where memorizing the course would help.
Yes, I concentrated on certain parts of the course but I found that I
would run one section well and all of a sudden I find myself in the next
section way out of place and I would revert to reaction driving; just
trying to keep the car on course! I did enjoy myself very much though. I
see where seat time is so important to excelling in this sport.
--
Jenaro Rodriguez
'83 RX7 GS
THE CSP-RX7 PROJECT
http://www.cnw.com/~dicej
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