Orthonormal

Brake or lift -- however you want to adjust your speed -- before the first turn of the slalom. If you wait to slow down until you have already started the slalom, it's too late.

glagola1

.... simple answer? Drive more.

.... complex answer? There is a lot more going on than we could possibly describe here. The thing with this car is that when you get up high in the revs, the gas pedal is very touchy. It's like an on or off switch since the difference between the huge amount of drag created while lifting and the huge amount of power made by part throttle is so large.

Try second gear where odds are, the revs are lower and there is less on/off acceleration going on. The motor will have less drag under lift at low rpms and it won't be able to put down enough power to get you in trouble either. After you start to get the hang of general vehichle dynamics you can put in first more and really have fun.

Wildncrazy

A loose car is typically faster than a tight car. Yes, it is scary, but I am faster everytime I set the car up loose, I am just not as comfortable with the loose back end. I can always envision it getting too loose.

Maybe because of that I (have to) pay more attention to the little details like making sure I don't enter a section too fast or to make sure I do get the weight transferred.

More rear toe &/or more neg camber will help but at the expense of tire wear. I thought a higher percentage of rubber on the rear than stock percentages would help, but it has not. Then again maybe I didn't put enough extra on the rear.

PedalFaster

[QUOTE=Wildncrazy,May 22 2006, 10:11 AM]A loose car is typically faster than a tight car.

mikegarrison

Almost every race car driver and driving coach I've ever talked to or read comments from has agreed with this. Loose cars feel faster and can be more entertaining to watch and drive. But lap times strongly suggest that a very small amount of understeer is actually the fastest way around almost any racetrack.

This is even more true at high speed, but if Steve says it is true at AutoX as well then I'll believe him.

glagola1

Pushy wins....

pointa-b-c

+1 my car's setup is a little bit more pushy than oversteer. You need to put power to the ground in order to exit corners faster.

Wildncrazy

Conventional wisdom for decades has pointed towards a loose car being faster. I didn't believe it and feel more comfortable with a "little" push. I love a more balanced car feel, BUT the fact is that I am faster with a loose car and the guys in the Porsche & BMW clubs nearby all find the same things. I don't know what the S2000 guys in the local club think, we've never talked about it that I remember.

Skip Barber preached looser. NASA school preached looser. Drivers Edge has preached looser. All the professional race car drivers I know preach looser. Every class I have taken and every race course that I run on all the old hands and track experts preach looser. With that said, just like push there are degrees of looseness.

Go with what feels the best for you. I'm faster looser even tho it feels slower when I'm on the track.

EDIT: the one exception to this has always been a car with enough power to let you oversteer with the go pedal, then they have said set for understeer and use the pedal to get your oversteer or to help you rotate when needed. When you think about it I can't even trying to manage a V8 that is set up with oversteer.

mikegarrison

"Looser" than what? What I'm talking about is a car close to neutral on the skid pad, with a very small static bias towards understeer. Not a car that plows.

If the car is biased towards oversteer the driver has to stay a little farther away from the limit than if it is biased towards understeer. It also makes trailbraking a real nightmare.

But you still want to be able to smoothly roll on power in the middle of the corner and drift out to the exit, so it can't be biased very far towards understeer.

glagola1

exactly....