> o Everything pushes on street tires.
Well, that M3 is a pig, IMHO. At Thunderhill it was a wonderful car, easily
faster around the track than any stock car I've ever driven, but for an AutoX
is was just flailing around trying to find grip while the suspension wobbled
around like jello.
> o Slow in, fast out really does work.
I had already explained to him the whole slow-in fast-out concept, but until he
really pooched it in his second run did it click, and I'm incredibly proud of
him for being able to mostly correct that tendency in a single run. I've had
students who failed to grasp that concept event after event and still don't get
it...
> o Even when you think you're close to an apex cone, you
> ain't. The fenders should overhang the cones.
I was way off them too, didn't want to muss up his shiny 12K mile old M3 :).
> o Never get behind in a slalom... and if you do, don't flap
> your arms like a chicken.
OMFG, my first run in that car was a MESS, especially on the slalom because the
M3 seems to have very over pumped power steering, lots of body roll, and a very
tall ratio steering system so you almost have to do hand over hand to get down
the *#&@# slalom.
> o You'd be surprised how many constant radius, double apex
> turns there are on most autocross courses.
Well, it's a pig of a car with a soft-ish suspension that really wants to find
a set G-loading and stick to it for as long as possible. I'm sure many other
cars would be faster on lines less swoopy.
> o You can never say "Look ahead!" too many times to a novice,
> and even when he claims he is looking ahead, he isn't looking
> thaaaaat far ahead.
Hahahahah...that was so funny, kudos to Sony for a fine external stereo
microphone to pick that up cleanly.
> o Carl left time out there :)
Yeah, I know, lots of time. It's a pretty alien car compared to my normal toys.
That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.
> o Orange cones look blue on my laptop, and blue cones rock!
If anybody wants true torture, I can cut a DVD of the full hour of footage with
my soapboxing on racing theory in between runs =P.
-Carl
> "Carl Merritt" <CMerritt@luminous.com> wrote ..
>
> > This was my co-driver/student/car owner John Nitis's VERY
> FIRST AutoX or
>
> > motorsports event of any sort, driving his 2002 BMW M3 SMG.
> He was a total
>
> > rookie, besides one BMW car control clinic down at Marina
> and frequent
>
> > terrorizing of the local wildlife on Skyline and Mt.
> Hamilton, so I've
>
> > included all 7 of his runs to provide you veterans a walk
> (drive?) down
>
> > memory lane on what it's like to learn on those first few
> laps. It's not
>
> > light weight, 10 minutes of video is 35MB, roughly a 2 hour
> download on
>
> > a 56K modem but far far faster with any respectable
> broadband connection:
>
> >
>
> > http://www.zfilms.org/temp/JohnsFirstTime.wmv
>
> >
>
> > First run, 46.x
>
> > Simply navigating the course, trying remember the course
> and not to DNF
>
> > on the slalom.
>
> >
>
> > Second run, 46.x
>
> > John tries to drive "more aggressively", and ends up diving
> into every
>
> > big corner too fast and whacking his first cone.
>
> >
>
> > Third run, 46.x
>
> > After explaining to John that to go fast you need to be
> more aggressive
>
> > on corner exit not corner entry, he drives a little timidly
> and smoothes
>
> > things out considerably.
>
> >
>
> > Fourth run, 44.6
>
> > After the smooth 3rd run, he starts pushing it more and
> scores his best
>
> > official time of the day good for first place in AS-N!.
> (yeah, well, so
>
> > he was the only one in AS-N, just a technicality...)
>
> >
>
> > Fifth run, first of 3 fun runs, 44.0
>
> > A beautifully smooth and 'slow' feeling run and another big
> improvement.
>
> >
>
> > Sixth run, 42.9
>
> > I start yelling at him to get on the throttle earlier and
> to look ahead,
>
> > huge improvement.
>
> >
>
> > Seventh run, 42.7
>
> > More yelling, even faster, hmmm....that seems to work well. ;-)
>
> >
>
> > And lastly my last and fastest fun-run in the car for reference.
>
> >
>
> > Thanks again all, great event, and the ability to give a
> rookie 7 almost
>
> > consecutive runs REALLY made the difference and pumped the
> fun-factor up
>
> > substantially.
>
> >
>
> > -Carl
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