If you've got the time to spend doing it, autocrossing is a great way to
learn how to hustle the car around corners. In terms of track time/time at
the site it doesn't compare to track racing (usually get 4 minutes of "seat"
time in an 8 hour day) but you do learn the cornering limits of the car, and
maybe some tweaks on setting it up too.
In autocrossing (or slalom) you learn the exact limits of the tires and your
suspension setup. Granted, it's at 20 to 50 mph instead of at speed... But
the handling skills do help when you do make it to the track.
In the SCCA the consensus is that autocrossers make an easier transition to
road racing than road racers do trying to autocross. When I ran TWS in my
Mini Cooper S back in the mid 90s on street Yokos, most of the infield turns
were like autocrossing. :D
Cheers,
Jim
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-fot@autox.team.net [mailto:owner-fot@autox.team.net] On Behalf
Of Bill Babcock
Sent: Friday, November 07, 2003 10:37 PM
To: Henry Frye; Larry Young; fot@autox.team.net
Subject: RE: Learning to Drive
There's one thing that I think rapidly improves lap times (once handling is
sorted out) and that's learning to hustle the car in the fast corners. It's
not something I learned in any class I ever took-Dick Barbour just told me
at a party "If you're going to really race you have to learn to hustle the
car in the faster turns. The fiddly stuff has very little time difference
unless you're blowing it completely, But fast turns at the beginning or end
of a straight are where you win races."
So what does that mean? Simply that you have to use up all the turn. If you
can position the car anyplace else in the turn but on the line and still get
through it, then you're not hustling the car. Seat time only helps if
something different is going on at the end of it. You've got to really
concentrate on perfecting turns and knowing where the edge is. Most times
you find it by going a little past it (oops, so that's how this turn looks
going backwards). I'm still edging up on quite a few turns at the tracks I
run frequently, but I've taken big chunks out of my lap time by pushing
myself harder in the sweepers. There's a turn at the end of the straight at
Pacific Raceway in Kent, WA that I used to brake hard and drop to third for.
Now I'm staying in fourth and just tapping the brake. I'm pretty sure it can
be done flat out with some margin for error. I'll get there.
Of course Dan gurney said "It's better to come in slow and come out fast
than it is to come in fast and come out dead." But the sequence most books
recommend is first learning to manage entrance speed, then exit speed, then
mid turn speed. You can't jump from one to three and see any improvement,
but hustling the car happens in the middle of the turn.
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