Colin

Ha Ha, that'll teach you to walk the course with us next time.....

bdrift

dayum. i cut before the 3 cone stuff too. i took L,L,R,R
i think it was the finish after the 3 cone.
oh well.

colin, the driving style is easy to hear with the motor winding so high, esp with steves mods. also, jimmy's style is actually visible when he is off/on throttle. i figure i must look the same but maybe my heavy car hides it from the outside. haha. i'll put an intake and have someone film me to see my sketchyness.

yep. mind game is exactly it. my GF needs to mimic my driving style with her car's capablilty and i need to somehow tone down my style to match the level of my car's suspension and overall handling capability. so how can i lower the boost so i don't get into trouble...... b

Hyper-X

I need to know ahead of time what I can and cannot do in regards to finishing and DNF'ing. I heard from 5 other drivers that you had to enter before the 1st set of slanted cones so that's what I did. When I worked heat 4, I saw almost everyone who's not a novice take it past 1st and entered before the 2nd set (which was the better line for faster entries and speed in the slaloms)... so that totally threw me off since I couldn't figure out how to shave off any more time than I already did, and that's exactly where I could've gotten it.

The motion of my driving style is attributed to my choice in driving lines. The technique I use in the off-camber was a quick turn-in followed by a near zero-countersteer using my throttle to steer (hence the pumping of the throttle). I cannot take the same lines as Colin and Steve because my car doesn't pickup speed as quickly as their's so I need to take the shortest distance around the cones to make up for the power and acceleration difference. My friend's camcorder video shows that Colin is about 3 inches from the base of the cones in the slalom while Steve is about the same, but most of my runs are about 1 inch from the cone's base, nearly tipping a few in the process.

Until I can get my friend (or someone) to do a back to back to back video capture of our runs in the slaloms and at the off-camber, I can't say this for sure but in my opinion, Steve is the smoothest driver but from what I can see, Colin's outbraking us and getting on the throttle earlier. My friend believes that my slalom driving technique was good but I need to work on controlling the mild oversteer better (I guess I need to learn how to drift). I feel that the entires is where I'm weak at and that's due to my lack of braking skills and approach lines.

All in all, it was a great event, 2 out of 3 drivers made it into the top 10 and the S2000 was the fastest car in stock class this month.

Colin

Jimmy,

The only time you NEED to do a slalom ONE way is if they have a directional cone pointer >^ means you have to enter on the right. If there are no pointers, it is up to you to decide which way is the faster route and I usually make this decision based on where I'll come out.

When going through the off camber, IMO the tight line was not the best way to go. We simply don't have enough grip. The tight line means you are scrubbing off speed and are late on the throttle. The wide line means you only make one braking manouver and are back on the throttle. This makes the off camber less of a sweeping turn and more of a heavy brake, and squirt out corner.

Stephens car may have more power, but do not discount the effect of the loss of RPM. There were so many instances where in a stock S2000 I'm sure I could have used first gear and been in the power band vs. lugging along at the bottom of second. I'm always reminded that jason Dovgan kicks my ass wit a Miata with 100 hp less than our cars.....

Hyper-X

Good point, and believe me... I won't make that mistake again.

My concern isn't with power most of the time, it's the line I'm targeting and the concern is always on traction. For now, I have to deal with the active rear end until I put on a new set of OEM tires (my current ones are worn to the rim... almost). That'll be the time to implement a few adjustments to the car to tackle some of the traction issues I can't resolve with driving technique alone.

The car needs a clutch job soon enough (it's slipping even out of VTEC) so when time permits, it'll be time to put the parts that's been gathering dust to use.

I wonder how the AWD guys were doing in those Bento boxes at the start?

bdrift

badly. more importantly, was the gearing. i had to shift out of first a couple seconds before the boxes to second and then back to first inside to help turn. it sucked. being in first helps the car temendously. otherwise, the car pushes and is hard to turn.

i really really wish i drove the mini instead. it would've been stupid fast. b

avery

You S2K boys went fast in the December AutoX.

Happy Holidays, Avery

Hyper-X

Oddly enough, it didn't feel as fast as I've thought. I honestly didn't experience too many problems as the course was arranged in favor of my car's strengths. If the car didn't perform up to par, I only have myself to blame.

The 2 consecutive "Chicago boxes" looked like a FWD/AWD car's nightmare (since they don't turn sharply) as I imagined that cars prone to understeer would lose a lot of speed there. I couldn't see how it'd affect Miata's and S2000's much due to the nimble nature of a small RWD layout. For the Miata's, I theorized that the lack of power (acceleration) from 1 box to the other was where time was lost since forward momentum was reduced due to gear ratios and time wasted by shifting back and forth. I ran out of gear just before the entry into the 2nd box (so having a 9000 rpm redline and the ability to stretch 1st gear from box to box) was a definite advantage.

Colin appeared to shed some time off at the 3 cone slanted slaloms (by targeting a higher entry speed and smoother line through the triangle at the S-turn) and used his superior braking experience before the off camber allowing him to jump on the throttle earlier than me (due to my lack of confidence in precision, high power braking) so that caused me to hug the inside early and steering the car with throttle blips. Good braking techniques also setup the best line before the finish (since the last section was designed to kill all speed).

Now that I've had some time to re-think my strategy and approach on the 21st, this is what I've come down to...

1. A fast, hard launch was possible since it was pretty much a straight line out of the hole for a Miata and S2000. I could've tried a 6500rpm launch.

2. Driving past the 1st set of the slanted 3 cone slaloms was a good place to shed off .5 seconds IMO. This setup a nice line to enter the triangle from the left.

3. The off camber should've been approached with the classic "slow-in, fast-out" technique by using full braking before the entry allowing for a later apex. This would allow "as Colin's video would show" the ability to push the throttle earlier.

4. The last section may be attacked by using full (but late) braking before the entry into the first part, then gradually building up speed as you negotiate the 2nd section, then carrying enough speed to take the line to hit WOT with the most traction possible that your driving line would allow for the finish.

5. I theorize that by trying to find ways to drive the faster sections faster wasn't the key to success this month. I think it was a better idea to focus more attention on how to take the slowest sections at the best speed possible.

avery

Good analysis Jimmy,

I could hear you guys making use of the high redline on the December track layout. It sounded great. I really enjoyed the layout, although, I think I could have driven better. I hit too many cones.

Happy Holidays, Avery