I am going to my first Autocross meet tomorrow and i wanted some helpful tips to help me out. Thanks

 

Mark your tires to see how your tires are wearing (shoe polish works great). Fill the tires up to 40-45 (depends on tires) psi cold and when you get there and do a few runs so you can find which tire to reduce pressure by seeing how the tire wears. If possible get a front-end alignment. Network Alignment does a great job (not sure if they have those in illinois). When you go get as much neg. camber as possble but as much positive castor that you can get without sacrificing neg camber. Also make sure you have zero toe. But.... if you cant get an alignment go out there and have fun. Autocrossing is a blast and be ready to get your *** handed to you by better drivers (I did my first time, now im handing them theirs).haha Also remember that a smooth line is a fast line.

 

Yep, what firecrotch said. You will probably need 5 to ten psi more pressure in your front tires than the rear. Try 40 to 45 in the front, with about 32 in the rear.

AX is all about skill; the car you have is secondary. I would say it's 80% driver skill, 10% tires, and 10% car.

The most important driving technique is to look ahead to the next turn; don't foccus on the one you are currently at. At first you may have a hard time reading the cones (seeing where the hell the course goes) but that will come with practice. Also, anytime you break traction you lose time. If you push the front end, hang the tail out, or spin the rear tires, you lose time. But go as fast as you can without breaking traction; try to keep it right on the edge.

 

Well aside from all those himts it wouldnt hurt setting up a bunch of cones in another parking lot, just to used to following them, as well as using the space allowed, as it is different than hauling *** on a road. Also if you dont already get comfortable with driving your car right on the edge, and dont swing the back end out or start sliding, the spectators may think youre cool but its a great way to first off go much slower, look like a jackass to anyone who has raced before, and probably get kicked out. Much better to go too slow than too fast.

Oh and a little peice of personal advice make sure the new brake lines you put in arent leaking.....

 

All of the above are great tips. Tire's/tire wear is key! If you can pick up a set of rims and get race compound tires, you will not go back to street tire class. Trust me......

Sway bars are the best bang for the buck for autox racing. How far do you want to go after that???? Springs, D/A shocks, brakes, ADJ Pan rod, etc......

The list goes on.......it never stops!

 

I got reamed by some diehard autox guy at my first AX event. He said "This ain't no drifting contest." I was there to have fun and not get ticket for driving like an ***. But as the night went on I quit horsing around and found myself trying to be more more technical. Sorry no real advice I'm a newb to AX as well.

 

another thing is to try to maintain momentum and not have to slow waaaay down then speed up again. Also sometimes you need to look out the side window to where you are going and not always out the windsheild.

Have a blast!

 

That's a good tip for looking ahead to the next two turns also; many times you can't see what you need to out the front windshield. Another hot tip is to twist the rear-view mirror up and out of the way. I actually have a wing nut on mine so I can easily take it right off while I AX.

 

Walk the course, and if you aren't given a course map, use a clipboard and paper to make you own. Pick a bunch (10ish) reference points to look for, and write them down on your map, and write down what you do at each one (ie point 5 might be: exiting 2nd slalom, slow down early for right hand pin turn). Memorize these, then while driving, look ahead for your reference points. I don't always write them down, but doing this helps you memorize the course and find the best line. Often, my points are a cone that doesn't affect the course, and my note is 'completely ignore that this cone exists' .

 

I envy you, I wish we had something like that in my area, I'd love to give it a try!

I can't speak from experience, mind you... but, I did just watch a tv show that was talking about this, they were talking to a guy that worked at the track, his suggestion (and it makes a lot of sense) is not to power into a corner, be mellow so you can power OUT of the corner and not lose control...

 

Yes, it's commony refered to as "slow in, fast out" and is a good rule, especially for a heavy *** fbody. If you go in too fast, the front end just plows and you loose a ton of time. In reality though, the best thing you can do is enter each turn at the optimal speed; not too slow or too fast. But yes, being on the slow side is much better than being too fast.

The "fast out" part is also a problem with these cars; you don't have IRS, and you have torque out the wah-zoo (compared to imports.) So you must resist "stabing" the gas on turn exit. You have to roll into the throttle smoothly, or you will be hanging the tail out. That may look cool, but again, like plowing, it scrubs off speed big-time.

 

1. Look ahead. Not just one or two gates. Keep the next 3 or 4 gates in your field of vision. See the whole track in your field of vision. If those gates are completely behind your car, LOOK BEHIND YOUR CAR!! It sounds funny but it works. Take an instructor or another passenger with you to remind you to do this and to point out to you where you SHOULD be looking. In a slalom you need to be looking at the cones in the distance, not each one in front of you or else you will hit them and end up late in your racing line.

2. Take someone with you. Preferably an instructor or someone with the most experience. They will show you where you are going too slow or too fast. Take different people with you. Get many people's opinions. Let the instructor drive your car. Ride in the instructors vehicles. You will pick up on things they do in their or your car and it will click in your mind, and then you will go out on the track next time and shave off 3-4 seconds. (btw don't forget to look ahead)

3. Smooth on the gas, smooth on the brake. Never jam the gas pedal in. That will induce spinning. Let your car grab the pavement and progressively gas it. Never stomp on the brakes. The brakes aren't a digital switch. Even when you have to brake hard after a long straightaway, still just squeeze the brakes. (Think about the difference between stomping on the brakes, and squeezing the brakes and then try it yourself). (I hope you didn't forget to look ahead)

4. Turn earlier and smoother. Begin turning a half a second before you think you should, kind of like turning to hit a cone, but very smooth and slowly. Think about it. You could turn your car 90 degrees to the right by either turning your steering wheel all the way and making your turn very sharp, or you could turn your steering wheel only a few inches and eventually let your car compete the 90 degree turn. Our cars like the second idea better if you can set yourself up for the next turn correctly. Same as well when releasing the wheel from a turn, release it smoothly. Your car is happier if it can complete a turn when you minimize how far you had to rotate your steering wheel. It also helps to anticipate your car drifting before it even happens by turning into the way your car would drift. If the drift doesn't happen then no problem. win win situation :-) (are you still looking ahead?)

5. Learn how to slalom fast. If your running on stock springs regardless of what other suspension mods you have (probably applies to aftermarket springs too). Turn a half of a second early when weaving through each cone, try to keep the turn smooth and minimal. You need to realize what our 4th gen fbody car's do in these slaloms. Each time you weave through a slalom cone, this is what happens: Car is leaning left, you turn steering wheel to left, car chassis takes a half of a second to lean from left to right, car jerks to the right because it can't lean to the right anymore, NOW car begins to turn left. I didn't pick up on this for a year and a half from when I began autocrossing. What does this mean? When your car hits that max left lean, or max right lean, it jerks your car in the direction that you turned. That may sometimes mean loss of traction. When you turn toward a cone in a slalom at a decent speed and look like you are going to hit it, the car leaning to the opposite side will jerk the car a tad and pull you around the cone, making your slalom times faster. I hope this made sense (Look ahead you idiot!!!)

6. Did I mention look ahead? I swear I forget this all the freakin time. You will forget it too. You will learn it, try it, see it work, and then try working on other flaws, and then forget about looking ahead because your concentrating on something else. All I can say is the more seat time you get, the more all of this **** becomes second nature.

I hope this stuff helps

 

i want to thank you all for your advice, i went to a test and tune event a couple of weeks ago and got in about 12 runs. I started the day with a 58 second run and cut it to a 49.4. I thought i did fairly well but i have plenty of room to improve. I am going to an actual race event soon so i will see how i stack up against others. Thanks for the advice, it helps out a lot when you are first starting out.

 

Not to steal your thread but I just went to my first AutoX event and I wanted to share how much fun I had!! It was unbelievable. Unfortunately out of the 4 runs I only stayed on course for 2 of the 4 Although I never hit a single cone I got lost in the course. Never did get out of 2nd gear the whole time 1st - 2nd and 2nd to 1st the whole time. I did my fair share of drifting though...its just too easy and fun not too My best run of the day (completed without penatly) was a 46.03. There were some Lotus elises doing 40's and 41s' so im pretty happy. Unfortunately its addicting and the next day I looked up the next event so i can already see me getting into another hobby I can't afford.

 

Do you know how you went off course? Was it a confusing set of cones, or did you go too fast or lose control through a set of cones you knew you were supposed to go through? Definitely try to take an instructor or experienced driver with you as passenger because not only can they help you get better, but they can point out gates you may have missed.

Our cars never leave 2nd on a solo2 autox course. We can hit low 70's before we redline in 2nd gear. Not sure about any other cars out there that have a higher redline than ours (if anyone knows of one, let me know). You must either have some seriously tight courses or you might be downshifting when its not needed. Downshifting takes time in itself. Usually you have to figure out if the time it takes to downshift and then upshift back to second, uses up more or less time than just leaving the car in second and having slightly low torque for a fraction of a second. I've only shifted to first for one situation before where the turn was a one cone 180 degree turn. I probably shouldnt have even done that, but a more experienced driver would be able to tell me if that was a good idea or not.

You also can't get cheaper for a racing event than to do autocrossing the cool part about it is that the best mod you can make to your car is to the driver. What mods have you done to your car Vertigo?

 

Sry I forgot to update my sig...I have a solid 35mm front swaybar and I just put Eagle F1s on the back other than that just what is in my sig.

Ya i know where I went wrong...long story short I didn't even realize I was missing these cones lol.. it was on the longest straight away and there were three cones set up along the stretch. I was supposed to thread the middle cone. The first and last take to the left and the middle to the right. I was going by them so fast i didn't realize they were there. Now I know....and know is half the battle LOL

 

Oh ya I forgot to ask this earlier...After my very first run I noticed on my way to the grid, my power steering pump started really whinning like a little b#%ch. Any ideas?

 

Vertigo, yes now you know, but next time they will throw something else confusing at you! LOL! But after a while, you will have seen everything they can throw at you.

z28brian, your comments are well said! Same thing I was trying to say, but you did a much better job! I doubt they will see more than a turn ahead on the first time, but it's something to work toward.

 

Check your power steering level. That happened to me and it was just low.

Also, this hobby eats tires like it is nobodies business, so just be prepared. We have Autox's in college station,tx about once a month, if you want to come out and try it, let me know.

Josh

 

Tire wear seems to vary greatly with the surface you're on. On sealed asphalt, your tires will seem to last forever, but you slip all over the place. On rough textured concrete (like at an airport,) you could chew up a set of tires in one event if you don't drive right, but you get great traction.