A fascinating video, well worth the download (well probably not if you're still
on a modem)!!!! I highly recommend it for novices and experienced folks.
Lessons learned:
o There is full power foot to the floor, and there is what you think is full
power.
o Everything pushes on street tires.
o Slow in, fast out really does work.
o Even when you think you're close to an apex cone, you ain't. The fenders
should overhang the cones.
o Never get behind in a slalom... and if you do, don't flap your arms like a
chicken.
o You'd be surprised how many constant radius, double apex turns there are on
most autocross courses.
o You can never say "Look ahead!" too many times to a novice, and even when he
claims he is looking ahead, he isn't looking thaaaaat far ahead.
o Carl left time out there :)
o Orange cones look blue on my laptop, and blue cones rock!
--Darren
"Carl Merritt" <CMerritt@luminous.com> wrote ..
> This was my co-driver/student/car owner John Nitis's VERY FIRST AutoX or
> motorsports event of any sort, driving his 2002 BMW M3 SMG. He was a total
> rookie, besides one BMW car control clinic down at Marina and frequent
> terrorizing of the local wildlife on Skyline and Mt. Hamilton, so I've
> included all 7 of his runs to provide you veterans a walk (drive?) down
> memory lane on what it's like to learn on those first few laps. It's not
> light weight, 10 minutes of video is 35MB, roughly a 2 hour download on
> a 56K modem but far far faster with any respectable broadband connection:
>
> http://www.zfilms.org/temp/JohnsFirstTime.wmv
>
> First run, 46.x
> Simply navigating the course, trying remember the course and not to DNF
> on the slalom.
>
> Second run, 46.x
> John tries to drive "more aggressively", and ends up diving into every
> big corner too fast and whacking his first cone.
>
> Third run, 46.x
> After explaining to John that to go fast you need to be more aggressive
> on corner exit not corner entry, he drives a little timidly and smoothes
> things out considerably.
>
> Fourth run, 44.6
> After the smooth 3rd run, he starts pushing it more and scores his best
> official time of the day good for first place in AS-N!. (yeah, well, so
> he was the only one in AS-N, just a technicality...)
>
> Fifth run, first of 3 fun runs, 44.0
> A beautifully smooth and 'slow' feeling run and another big improvement.
>
> Sixth run, 42.9
> I start yelling at him to get on the throttle earlier and to look ahead,
> huge improvement.
>
> Seventh run, 42.7
> More yelling, even faster, hmmm....that seems to work well. ;-)
>
> And lastly my last and fastest fun-run in the car for reference.
>
> Thanks again all, great event, and the ability to give a rookie 7 almost
> consecutive runs REALLY made the difference and pumped the fun-factor up
> substantially.
>
> -Carl
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