First AutoX on Sunday
 

Signed up for PITL on Sunday.. Can't wait. Other than have a blast and enjoy.. Anyone got any advice or things I should watch out for? Please share your experiences.

Cones?

I like to adjust my seat to a more upright position, makes it easier to see those pesky cones.

Learn the course (walk it) and try not to get lost.

I can't stress the importance of sunscreen, water, snacks, a folding chair, sunglasses, and shoes that you can run in enough. Then of course, the obvious stuff that you are bringing for the car like tools, etc.

I'll see you there. I have the blue brz with red wheels... there's a bunch of us that go! I hope your significant other is okay with this because you're about to catch an addiction that will cost entire Sunday/Saturday mornings

Brake early is faster then braking late. :scared0016:

This^

Interpreting the sea of orange cones can be difficult at first. Your right foot may want to go before your eyes have figured out where you need to go.

Try not drive faster than you can see. Before getting into the throttle, try to figure out two things;

1) "Where am I going?" (Stay on course)
2) "What do I intend to do when I get there?" (Don't just drive at the next element. Approach it at an angle that makes what comes next easier)

Get good veteran drivers to ride with you and drive your car if you are comfortable with it.

Have fun!

I'll also be there. I drive the blue binary brz. Best advice I can give you is to first learn the rhythm of the course. That means walk the course and go SLOW in your first run. If this is your first autox, adrenaline would kick in and you might go all out on your first run, getting lost in the process :( Try to avoid that.

The school I teach with (Pinnacle Advanced Driving Academy) will offer free instruction. Take advantage of us and have us ride along and give you pointers!

1. Show up as early as possible and walk the course as soon as its available to walk.
2. Bring plenty of water and stay hydrated. Your brain is mostly water and if it dries up, your skills go along with it!
3. Look ahead. Hard to figure this one out without having done it before but don't react to gates. PLAN for them.
4. Ride with as many people as possible. Even if they aren't good, I use other ride alongs to see if I can predict the next gate at speed. This reinforces the course layout in my head.
5. GET A TIMED RUN IN. People rush too hard right off the bat and go off course (DNF) and then can't figure out why. If you get a timed run in, it sets the course in your head and now you can build on it.

Awesome, thanks for all the advice! Can't wait for Sunday even more now. Looks like it's gonna be a really hot one.

I shall definitely take it easy first couple of runs. Sounds like memorizing the course will be the biggest challenge but I will be there as early as possible to walk it as many times as possible.

Hopefully some of you can come for a ride and give me pointers, I cannot wait to let my car loose, honestly this will be some much needed release time.

PADA will have a tent set up where all of us instructors will be sitting (when we aren't driving), come let us know you want instruction, tell us your car number and we'll be more than happy to come out with you!

I highly suggest taking it super easy the first time out because that way, we can point you back on track (and you can recover in time) and thus get a timed first run. This will greatly help you build a foundation to get better runs in the next four.

Looking forward to meeting you!

That sounds great! Thanks. :thumbsup: Likewise looking forward to meeting you all.

Try to take the fast turns fast, and the slow turns slow. Beginners often do the opposite.


And don't drink the night before.

i'll be there, you can get a ride a long with me if you'd like, Looking for the white 13 FRS with TRD spoiler and TOM's Taillights.

That only works if you know which ones which lol...

Confirmed Dat will be sending it

Part of the whole beginner thing.

In my years of autox and solo here in NorCal, everyone was super nice and willing to help. They need new people all the time to help pay for everything, or it dies. Don't be afraid to ask people for help. When I was a beginner in the 80's I would park next to the guy who had his car on a trailer and stickers on his car and pick his brain. Don't be afraid to ask the experienced guys to walk the track with them for help. I've been out of that for a while now, but I can't recall anyone ever not willing to help me, and when I was a veteran, I helped all I could. Race people are usually very cool. Here is me in 1992.

Cool to see that so many twins will be out, I'm looking forward to my first PITL of the season lol. RIP my schedule this year.

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If I'm not sending it. who will, am I right?


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AHEM.

I'm trying something out Sunday to give me a bit of an advantage in C mod to take on the triumph that always wins... let's get an 86 in podium of c mod, a mod and a stock!

the closes i have come is 2nd place in A Mod, I will never be able to beat Yang in the miata :sigh:

14 86s and a brz joining me in C mod!!! See you all tmrw

My first autocross experience was pretty eye-opening when it comes to driving fast in other-than-a-straight-line. You will very likely get addicted to this, fair warning. There are more costly vices out there, though, right?

Try to get good rest the night before. It can really make a difference in your concentration.

Make sure your tires aren't underinflated.

Do the pedal dance before you go out on the course. The stability nannies will throw off what you're feeling with the car if they step in during your run.

You're very likely to, like I did, walk the course a few times in the morning and think "Ok, I think I've got it, not too bad" and then once you're out there and take your first turn, you look up again and all you can see is a sea of cones with no idea what to do next. That happened on my first run, and the only reason I got through was because I had an instructor sitting next to me guiding me through. After that I got some more confidence and sped up through the day, but it started to rain after lunch, and on my first run out in the rain I had another moment halfway through the course where I took a turn and had no idea where to go all over again and missed a gate. No instructor with me that time.

It's easy to want to get right to going out by yourself and running solo, but even after doing this for about 5 years now I still take one of the instructors with me on my first run if I can, and focus more on getting the course right than being fast out of the gate. If you blow your first run, it's very likely to make the rest of the day tougher until you get a good, clean run in. Better to get it in early and have a good baseline to work off of.

Even when you start to feel more comfortable out there, don't feel bad about taking an instructor with you to start your day or if you keep having trouble with the course. It's especially good when you find an instructor that you gel with (and/or who drives a similar vehicle) because the more comfortable you are out there, the less unnecessary thinking you'll find yourself doing. To me that's probably the easiest and best thing you can do for yourself is take instructors with you as often as you can, and gradually build up your momentum through the day as you gain confidence in yourself and what the car can do before it reaches its limits.

At the very least, having another person with you puts some weight on the right side of the car, which will help balance the car out better on right turns.

Keep looking up and looking ahead, and not just through the windshield. You've got three pieces of glass to see through, so don't be afraid to use your neck muscles and turn to see as much as you can before you drive up to it.

If you hit a cone, you hit it. Forget about it and keep focused on what's next. Thinking about that cone is just going to snowball into more mistakes ahead since you're not thinking about what's ahead of you. Think about it after you finish the run.

Don't expect to blow the doors off the car on the first run or even the first day. Have fun, and enjoy learning just how much you can really do with this car. This is the kind of thing the car was built for. :cheers:

I would get comfortable at the limit with the 5 second hold method before trying the pedal dance.

My last autocross vehicle (base model 350Z in STU trim) had no traction control and no stability control. The only difference between the FRS with the 5 second hold method and the Z with no nannies at all is the FRS vary rarely has diff assist kick in. (Like 3 times over an entire season.)

https://iaindonnell.pixieset.com/pit...Mzk4Nzg1ODc2Nw

BEST.TIME.EVER

Cannot wait until next year already. Gonna buy some bridgestones and a back sway bar over the winter to prepare but man.... Never been so satisfied with a day in my life. Eye opener to say the least.

Thanks for all the great advice. Didn't get to meet as many of you as I would have liked (@frost) but the excitement is now real and I am sure there will be many opportunities in the future. I was advised that SPADA will be doing autoX courses beginign of next year before the season starts and I will be doing this 100%.

Managed to set 2 times out of 4 runs. It is exactly as @Overdrive and others said it would be... You think you got it after the 5 walks but you get out there and face nothing but a sea of cones. Managed to set a time on the first go and improve by 7s on it the second time I made it without going offtrack so I am happy about that however the other two runs I got wayyy too excited.

Here is a pic. Cheers all

Nice, the autox bug gets another one lol. Glad to hear you had fun. Too bad I couldn't make it, was it as crowded as the registration list made it seem?

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with a sway bar you will jump into my class, A Mod.

lets have some fierce friendly competition next season then :laughabove:

Don't get the swaybar just yet, depending on the ruleset, I think some Canada guys run by SCCA rules, but someone can correct me if I'm wrong and there's a better path to building a good car that's competitive, get some OE camber bolts up front and get it aligned for maximum front camber (the most negative number you can get with equal value left to right, usually -1.2 or more), zero out the toe on all four corners.

Most people go for a stiffer front swaybar to autocross to make it quicker on turn in and through the slaloms while also reducing how much of a camber problem they have.

Many people (including myself) make too many changes but really aren't good enough drivers yet to really drive the car at the limit and understand what it needs, you may make it feel better, but you're not fixing the slowest part of the car: the driver. And then you buy one wrong modification and you get bumped to a higher class with more modifications and you're even less competitive than before. It's a classic tale.

But if you don't give a shit about having your name at the top of a spreadsheet and getting a plastic trophy and a pat on the back then do whatever the hell looks fun. It's an amazing challenge and ever since getting hooked I have little desire to go to a track day more than about once every few years.

:burnrubber:

Yeah the swaybar would definitely be an eventual upgrade come to tihnk of it.... I like it when the tail steps out a little anyway. I was running pretty used up tires and had literally zero grip so for sure getting new ones over the winter. But mastering stock is the goal for now. :cheers:

Op, yep, addicting. I did it for 20+ years.

I agree with others, build to a class you want to run. I made so many mods to my first auto cross car that I went to street prepared and was no longer relevant. My favorite was showroom stock. Did some B production racing a couple seasons, that was really fun. Seems like 100 years ago.

Glad you had fun!

Piece of advice: I highly suggest NOT modding your car until you've got enough seat time to truly determine what you need. Based on what you did, I think you still have plenty of driver mod improvements to make. I know that seems like a cop out answer but you don't want to shift the platform you are learning on, until you truly know where you are heading in terms of driver development.

I highly suggest attending the SPDA two day course in the spring next year. It is EXTREMELY worth it (check out my review here: http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showp...27&postcount=2) and I'll likely be there as a volunteer.

Also, regarding the rules, PITL is NOT a regional or national event so do NOT use the rules we run at PITL to build an autocross car. The regionals and nationals use SCCA rules so that we can hop over to the US and compete there as well. For full rulesets on autocross, check this out: http://www.casc.on.ca/autoslalom_rules

If you don't plan on doing any track days, then as you become a better driver, you can aim your build strictly based on those rules. Otherwise, be careful as the perfect autocross build is NOT a good track build normally.

Cheers.

Kev

Much appreciated, I was definitely sliding around a whole lot and could use some pro advice. Will not do anything to the car except tires (Mine were/are basically bald atm) for now.:thumbup:

All that being said.. What is there to do in the winter? Would it be possible to do a autosnowcross type thing? I wouldn't mind standing around a snowy, cold, wet parking lot for a day in exchange for a couple runs throughout the day.

The only things I found (After not much research tbh) Seem to be actual Rallycross events that are really competitive and frankly, dangerous for a novice like myself.

Go karting is fun... but not really the same after getting a taste of this.

I spend my winter reading a lot of books on racing and play a ton of Sim racing, with a proper 3 pedal wheel

There is an ice racing league but I highly doubt you want to use your autocross car... it tends to be... bumpy... as in bump-n-grind.

I'll beat the drum one more time with the others and say don't mod the car. When you reach a point where the car doesn't give you enough to match the skill you have, then you can mod it to suit.

Tires don't count all that much though, so go right ahead and get something grippier than what the car comes with. The car will still let you know when you make mistakes.

If there's any sort of winter event in your area, you'll get to put your winter tires to fun use. You won't believe how easily you can hang this car out and control it in the snow (with good snow tires).

I agree with almost everything except do NOT get RE71Rs if you're still truly trying to learn. I find that they instill over confidence in rookie drivers because of their INSANE ability to grip right off the bat but then fall off as you run more and more hot laps.

I actually discourage most of my students (especially for track days) not to get RE71Rs because their grip tends to mask bad behaviours and habits that usually show in the first few laps. Tires like the RS3s and RS4s which is what I use, take time to warm up and you can't drive like moron right off the bat and still have a great session.

All of my students who bit the bullet and 'downgraded' to RS4s all complained about lack of grip initially but then as they picked up their skill, they started to plateau less compared to RE71Rs and have since cleaned up their line and are faster than their old RE71R times. Now when they go back to RE71Rs, they understand the profile of that tire and know what they didn't appreciate from before.

Just my two cents.

I certainly don't disagree with you, but I didn't mean to imply one should get the grippiest tire they can find, just something better than the stock junk. As it goes with anything, you can always reach a point where you've gone overboard.

It always bugs me when I try to get friends to just come to an autocross and throw their car around as-is, and they tell me they want to change this-or-that first (virtually always a handling enhancing mod) before they do it. If it were a thing of "I need to fix x-y-z so I don't drop the transmission in the middle of the parking lot", that's a different story, but I get blue in the face trying to tell people who want to improve the handling before they know what the car will do as-is that they won't really get to appreciate the mods until they get out there and run without them.

I'm ready to get out there again tomorrow morning and beat these Primacy HPs up some more, and can't wait until I can put some better tires on and see the difference from that alone on my slow-but-fun car.