andy g

Hello, my question is this. Will autox time realy help you when you begin to track your car? I know the theory of entry, apex, and exit will remain the same but I would hate to autox for years and still have no clue how my car will behave in an 80 or 100 mph curve. I do plan to track my car but it will be a while before time will allow. (I live in batonrouge no tracks close).It would be nice to not be a total novice the first time I track the car. autox is alot of fun but I can see how track racing could be realy addictive! So if I undersand how the s feels at its limits on the autox track will It feel relatively the same when the speed is up?
Four example if while in lets say a 40 mph curve, you trail brake to induce some oversteer and you leave on a bit to much brake, and the slip angle is to high its okay to abruptly get on the gas to transfer weight and prevent a spin. Will that same "abrupt" transfer be ok in a 100mph turn? Thanks for your time

Wildncrazy

Yes autocross will help. Actually anything that helps you learn your car and the skills of handling a car will help.

Yes, autocross is more 'abrupt" than the track but the understandiing of the feel of the car and how it handles will translate directly to the track.

andy g

Thanks for the input that is what I wanted to know.

Nimbus

If you are an experienced autocrosser you should have no problems at the tracks.

snakeeater

andy,
No Problems Raceway is near Donaldsonville. A great track not far from you at all.

Iceman1

im sure you know this, but id say the only thing is, the car behaves differently in high speed sweepers... the S is more than happy to rotate in tight corners as in an auto-x, but the last thing i want in a high speed sweeper is rotation...

and obivously if your S is talkin proper English to you at the auto-x, itll be rappin like "Twista" in the middle of a 100MPH corner...

other than that, everything else can only help... but there is a lot of new stuff to learn...

andy g

The few times I have been to no problem the crowd has been um not realy my style, maybe you know what I mean? However I did not know that the track was open other than for drift events and such. Is there a local club that will host a track day? none of the scca regions in LA have information about track days at noproblem. thanks I'll see what I can find out.

snakeeater

Check the New Orleans chapter forum here in S2ki. Those guys get together occasionally and rent out the track for a day.

mikegarrison

Um ... maybe. The two disciplines are related, but not really the same. All seat time is valuable, but seat time doing exactly the thing you are practicing for is much more valuable than seat time doing something sort of like the thing you are practicing for.

One of my students at a track school last year was an experienced autoXer. He had better car control skills than I did, so it was a challenge figuring out how to coach him. But he was terrible at traffic management. It was not that he wouldn't let anybody by, it was that he went too far out of his way to make sure people got by. It messed up the traffic flow. Also, the generally higher speeds threw him off.

As the school went on, he became much better on the track. He advanced a lot faster than he would have without all the autoX experience, but it certainly was not true that his autoX experience meant he had no problems at all.

cthree

I find auto-crossers tend to make average track drivers. It's a generalization obviously, some are much better than average and some much less. It certainly helps to have experience with car control and a feel for the car in a performance situation.

The disciplines are different with autocross drivers being somewhat heavy handed with the controls at first when they move to the track. Some make the adjustment better/more quickly than others.