Caithness
15+ Year Contributor
- 342
- 1
- Nov 2, 2003
-
Tampa,
Florida
I finally made it out to an autocross event after years of wanting to do it. When I saw the event listed on the local forum I racked up several hundred dollars on the credit card just to push to get everything I needed to safely run, and I don't regret it.
It was a school event put on by the local autocross club FAST, who used to be associated with NASA but broke away to form a non-profit club this year. It was the first school event I've seen listed in a long time so I was quick to jump on it and register.
The event was held at a police training skidpad at Saint Petersburg College Allstate Campus. It's right off of interstate 275 just a few miles north of the Sunshine Skyway. It's a smallish site and the course was a fairly basic setup- a tight starting section with a 45 into two sharp 90s exiting onto the longest straightaway on the course, leading into an optional slalom that ended with a wide 90 onto a short straight, going into a Figure 8 skidpad that took you to the end of the course. (Main Course;Training Exercises).
This is the write-up I made on the local board:
"Yeah, thanks a million to the guys on the slalom. I knocked over the fourth cone in that slalom probably 5 runs in a row during practice . Thanks in general to everybody who volunteered to help put the school on. It was a great introduction to autocross and the massive amount of seat time and personal instruction was invaluable.
My rundown on the day (ADD warning)-
The reason I got less than 2 hours sleep was that I was replacing broken wheel studs and welding up a battery bracket so I could actually pass tech until about 4:00 AM. I got there about 30 minutes late after driving 25 minutes on some horrible 35 mph road parallel to the interstate. It turns out there's a 22nd North and a 22nd South and I got off at the North exit.
I somehow managed to miss my first run of the course while in the restroom, teaching me the first lesson of the day- avoid the super-size gas station coffee no matter how tired you are. My other pre-runs were really sloppy and didn't feel great, but I stayed on course which was good enough for me as I had trouble visualizing the course layout just from a walk through.
After the first runs we broke up into run groups and started doing practice exercises with instructors at each of the elements of the course. There were groups at the slalom, the figure 8 skidpad, and a braking exercise accelerating hard toward the offset start, braking for the 45 and then taking the two 90's to the first straight. I did pretty well in the figure 8 and the car was surprisingly neutral at the limit. I was pretty bad at the slalom to start with but after practicing it over and over again I got the hang of it and the slalom is where I pushed hard enough to get that first two-feet-in experience under my belt . I think that's where I improved most of all. I was really bad in the sharp 90's at the offset start but I finally got a decent line through there. The value of breaking up the course into single elements and being able to run each element 10 or even 15 times in a row with instructor guidance cannot be underestimated.
About the time I was starting to figure out the offset start my car broke. I'd had some fuel starvation on the skidpad earlier that was simply poor gas tank design needing more than 1/2 tank of gas to keep the pump submerged. Easily fixed by a quick trip to the gas station. This second problem was not so easily fixed. After running to 8500 rpm and braking for the offset, when I got on the gas in the offset the car cut out and sputtered. I tried it again, it did it again. The 4G63 can take 8500 no sweat, and I found no signs of valvetrain or bottom end damage, so I then theorized that it was loading up on fuel or something when I hit the rev limiter entering the braking zone so I made a normal run shifting to second instead of running first out. It still cut out in the offset. I pulled over and let the car cool down because everything in the engine bay was red hot from repeated runs and no wind speed to cool it down. Still didn't fix it. I eventually figured out that it was a broken wire to my mass air flow meter that was giving a sporadic connection and losing connection completely when I went around turns, especially tight first gear turns. I'd had this problem previously a few months ago and I'd just fiddled with it until it made a connection and left it at that. Street driving, that was fine, hard 90 at speed, not fine .
Even with this problem I was not going to give up. If I part throttled it the car would sputter but not die completely, so for my final runs of the day I just had to drive around the problem. On my final runs I came out of the starting gate, went into the hard 90s, sputtered my way around taking the outside on the first and cutting to the inside on the second to set up for the turn on the straight, came out onto the long straightaway and sputtered through first at part throttle. Second was better than first as the g-force was less sharp and I could get to about 75 percent throttle, then it was braking into the slalom. I didn't push it as hard as I had in the exercises because I was focused on making good clean runs without hitting that daggone fourth cone. Then it was into the short straight struggling to accelerate, then braking for the figure eight. The car didn't struggle as much here because it was all part-throttle anyway. Finally I exited the figure eight and had a short burst of speed to the finish, in which the car would actually accelerate full throttle as it was in a straight line.
The last runs of the day felt great despite the car problems. It was a huge improvement from the beginning of the day, so much smoother and faster that I was amazed at the difference. I definitely got my 60 dollars worth of quality instruction and seat time. I hope these events can become a semi-regular happening, as I think it would be of great benefit even to a more experienced autocrosser.
Overall I had a blast driving my car to the limit, everybody out there was friendly and very helpful, and I'm going to start coming out to least one event a month. Hopefully the first one will be the April 14 event at SPC, which I'm now looking forward to with great enthusiasm."
My car really did well and handled a lot better than I ever thought it would. I was able to go around the skidpad so close to the cones you could reach out and touch them, with all four tires yowling at me on the limit of adhesion and the back end stepping in and out based on throttle input, and the car was neutral and controllable. It was also pretty good through the slalom when I didn't over-drive the car and took the correct line through it. 1G DSMs may not have the best suspension design ever but with a few simple mods mine felt great.
I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. Even with the car problems I had the fastest time of the newbie run groups, #4 all students included. I know I gave up a few tenths on the straightaways because of the maf problem and I was about 1.5 seconds off the pace of the instructors which is a lot on a 37 second course, but not too bad for the first time out. I can't wait for the 14th of April and my first "real" autocross.
Results sheet
It was a school event put on by the local autocross club FAST, who used to be associated with NASA but broke away to form a non-profit club this year. It was the first school event I've seen listed in a long time so I was quick to jump on it and register.
The event was held at a police training skidpad at Saint Petersburg College Allstate Campus. It's right off of interstate 275 just a few miles north of the Sunshine Skyway. It's a smallish site and the course was a fairly basic setup- a tight starting section with a 45 into two sharp 90s exiting onto the longest straightaway on the course, leading into an optional slalom that ended with a wide 90 onto a short straight, going into a Figure 8 skidpad that took you to the end of the course. (Main Course;Training Exercises).
This is the write-up I made on the local board:
"Yeah, thanks a million to the guys on the slalom. I knocked over the fourth cone in that slalom probably 5 runs in a row during practice . Thanks in general to everybody who volunteered to help put the school on. It was a great introduction to autocross and the massive amount of seat time and personal instruction was invaluable.
My rundown on the day (ADD warning)-
The reason I got less than 2 hours sleep was that I was replacing broken wheel studs and welding up a battery bracket so I could actually pass tech until about 4:00 AM. I got there about 30 minutes late after driving 25 minutes on some horrible 35 mph road parallel to the interstate. It turns out there's a 22nd North and a 22nd South and I got off at the North exit.
I somehow managed to miss my first run of the course while in the restroom, teaching me the first lesson of the day- avoid the super-size gas station coffee no matter how tired you are. My other pre-runs were really sloppy and didn't feel great, but I stayed on course which was good enough for me as I had trouble visualizing the course layout just from a walk through.
After the first runs we broke up into run groups and started doing practice exercises with instructors at each of the elements of the course. There were groups at the slalom, the figure 8 skidpad, and a braking exercise accelerating hard toward the offset start, braking for the 45 and then taking the two 90's to the first straight. I did pretty well in the figure 8 and the car was surprisingly neutral at the limit. I was pretty bad at the slalom to start with but after practicing it over and over again I got the hang of it and the slalom is where I pushed hard enough to get that first two-feet-in experience under my belt . I think that's where I improved most of all. I was really bad in the sharp 90's at the offset start but I finally got a decent line through there. The value of breaking up the course into single elements and being able to run each element 10 or even 15 times in a row with instructor guidance cannot be underestimated.
About the time I was starting to figure out the offset start my car broke. I'd had some fuel starvation on the skidpad earlier that was simply poor gas tank design needing more than 1/2 tank of gas to keep the pump submerged. Easily fixed by a quick trip to the gas station. This second problem was not so easily fixed. After running to 8500 rpm and braking for the offset, when I got on the gas in the offset the car cut out and sputtered. I tried it again, it did it again. The 4G63 can take 8500 no sweat, and I found no signs of valvetrain or bottom end damage, so I then theorized that it was loading up on fuel or something when I hit the rev limiter entering the braking zone so I made a normal run shifting to second instead of running first out. It still cut out in the offset. I pulled over and let the car cool down because everything in the engine bay was red hot from repeated runs and no wind speed to cool it down. Still didn't fix it. I eventually figured out that it was a broken wire to my mass air flow meter that was giving a sporadic connection and losing connection completely when I went around turns, especially tight first gear turns. I'd had this problem previously a few months ago and I'd just fiddled with it until it made a connection and left it at that. Street driving, that was fine, hard 90 at speed, not fine .
Even with this problem I was not going to give up. If I part throttled it the car would sputter but not die completely, so for my final runs of the day I just had to drive around the problem. On my final runs I came out of the starting gate, went into the hard 90s, sputtered my way around taking the outside on the first and cutting to the inside on the second to set up for the turn on the straight, came out onto the long straightaway and sputtered through first at part throttle. Second was better than first as the g-force was less sharp and I could get to about 75 percent throttle, then it was braking into the slalom. I didn't push it as hard as I had in the exercises because I was focused on making good clean runs without hitting that daggone fourth cone. Then it was into the short straight struggling to accelerate, then braking for the figure eight. The car didn't struggle as much here because it was all part-throttle anyway. Finally I exited the figure eight and had a short burst of speed to the finish, in which the car would actually accelerate full throttle as it was in a straight line.
The last runs of the day felt great despite the car problems. It was a huge improvement from the beginning of the day, so much smoother and faster that I was amazed at the difference. I definitely got my 60 dollars worth of quality instruction and seat time. I hope these events can become a semi-regular happening, as I think it would be of great benefit even to a more experienced autocrosser.
Overall I had a blast driving my car to the limit, everybody out there was friendly and very helpful, and I'm going to start coming out to least one event a month. Hopefully the first one will be the April 14 event at SPC, which I'm now looking forward to with great enthusiasm."
My car really did well and handled a lot better than I ever thought it would. I was able to go around the skidpad so close to the cones you could reach out and touch them, with all four tires yowling at me on the limit of adhesion and the back end stepping in and out based on throttle input, and the car was neutral and controllable. It was also pretty good through the slalom when I didn't over-drive the car and took the correct line through it. 1G DSMs may not have the best suspension design ever but with a few simple mods mine felt great.
I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. Even with the car problems I had the fastest time of the newbie run groups, #4 all students included. I know I gave up a few tenths on the straightaways because of the maf problem and I was about 1.5 seconds off the pace of the instructors which is a lot on a 37 second course, but not too bad for the first time out. I can't wait for the 14th of April and my first "real" autocross.
Results sheet
The last few times I went to the drag strip I had no fun at all. I guess I'll go just to try to get an 11.9 to put in my profile and look "cool" but I'm not very excited about it now.
