How do you assess your autocross speed

Hello All,

Sitting here thinking about this years upgrades and just wondering how you all make assessments of your speed in you and your car, everyone has a different way of making these calls, Pax, Feel, Data, comparison to your competition or maybe because you made add on to your car you feel like 1 extra Hp's makes the difference or lighten this or that.

I make it about my driving and then making sure the car is drivable at every event, meaning corner weighting, alignment, to make sure my brain is thinking about driving, not about the car.

Well that's me how about you?

Ben

Little personal experience in CMOD, but the cars I've driven seem to be very similar to my CSP car in that they like being driven with "momentum", little horsepower and lots of chassis.With cars of this nature I personally like to have the car set up with some constant rate oversteer forcing me to drive aggressively - for me that means high entry speeds at part throttle to balance the car combined with lots of corrections at the wheel where needed. Example
Driven this way any run that I A: Don't spin/cone and B: Get all the way to my "apexes" while having some degree (but not to much!) of slip angle, will be one that I'm happy with. Beyond that I like to watch side by side videos of the runs to "see" where I'm making gains or losses. Example
Last (but not least) I look at my results. Generally I run in a PAX class of some level against 10 to 20 competitors, so these results help define overall speed for the day.

Number one thing for me is.. Drive more aggressively then you think you can, and accept the results... good or bad. This is Autocross not road racing.

Pretty cool weekend with my Car, the new Penskes shocks are a Wow factor, what I mean is when I drove my car this weekend it felt slow but the times were great, a very funny feeling.

Can't wait until this weekends event!!!

Ben

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CM/FFdriver

Pretty cool weekend with my Car, the new Penskes shocks are a Wow factor, what I mean is when I drove my car this weekend it felt slow but the times were great, a very funny feeling.

Can't wait until this weekends event!!!

Ben

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Always great when you get results better then expected. Post a video if you have it.

Phil

So after analyzing all the Data off the car, video and from me I have a great path to work off of.

1. the tires I have are over a year old I found out last week, would I have gone faster with 6 mo old tires or even 3 mo old tires?, the tire durometer showed a 45, seams pretty soft to me.

2. Drove well on day 1 but because I have never led a National type solo event on day 1 in the dry, I under drove on day 2, pick up a sec on every run on day 2 and even my 3rd run was on pace to pick up another 1 sec. not a enough to Win but Wow that's never happen before.

3. Car was great but it felt like my power was down on day 2, I feel like I was geared wrong were as Eric car was geared right, should have shifted down to 2nd gear for the 180's because when I left it 3rd the engine drop to under 3000 rpm's. Live and learn!

4. So after seeing Chris Warner video and looking at every apex and then timing from apex to apex, I saw that when I got a little over steer I lost .700 just in that small straight, so with these cars smooth is fast.

Working on driving better and looking at the little things so **** doesn't happen.

Ben

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CM/FFdriver

So after analyzing all the Data off the car, video and from me I have a great path to work off of.

1. the tires I have are over a year old I found out last week, would I have gone faster with 6 mo old tires or even 3 mo old tires?, the tire durometer showed a 45, seams pretty soft to me.

2. Drove well on day 1 but because I have never led a National type solo event on day 1 in the dry, I under drove on day 2, pick up a sec on every run on day 2 and even my 3rd run was on pace to pick up another 1 sec. not a enough to Win but Wow that's never happen before.

3. Car was great but it felt like my power was down on day 2, I feel like I was geared wrong were as Eric car was geared right, should have shifted down to 2nd gear for the 180's because when I left it 3rd the engine drop to under 3000 rpm's. Live and learn!

4. So after seeing Chris Warner video and looking at every apex and then timing from apex to apex, I saw that when I got a little over steer I lost .700 just in that small straight, so with these cars smooth is fast.

Working on driving better and looking at the little things so **** doesn't happen.

Ben

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Great post Ben. Yes to #3, 3000 rpm is too low in 3rd. Also #4, smooooth works best and usually neutral handling is best set up except maybe on some stupidly tight course.
I think I may make some real data acquisition my next major purchase. I should see if I can get Harry's to work first.
Are you going to Nationals this year?
Mark

Thanks Mark,

What I should have said is that I need to have a lot more confidence in my driving and get the car right. It's good to know that I'm making little changes now, not big changes to get the car faster. I believe this is the hard part because you don't make up big speed, it's little by little.
With the Data I'm getting I'm hoping to get to the "Mark :cone:" and I will feel prepared.

Ben