FAST Novice School - Digital Edition

[shakedown067]

I've found that hand positioning has also helped me look further down the course. If you can shuffle your hands in position before you get to the turn, then you are clearly looking ahead. This is VERY easily practiced in your daily driving. As you come to that 90 degree turn down the next street, reposition your hands so they'll be at 9/3 at the apex, then quickly get back to 9/3 at turn exit. Probably one of the best things I've developed over the years. The next thing will be known when to cross over and when to shuffle...and if you aren't looking ahead, you'll be WAY behind in a hurry. I found it was a quick study.

[Loren]

Funny anecdote:

My wife has learned to watch my hands. If she sees me prepositioning for a turn, she knows to hang on! She claims not to be a car person and to have no interest in racing stuff... but she's also pointed out to me when I missed an apex on a mountain road...

[shakedown067]

Yeah, my wife is a quick study as well. One of our favorite shows now is Fast N Loud! She'll also point out things wrong with road signs, billboards, and store frontage signs (being an artist has rubbed off too) and also now has a distain for the font papyrus.

Edit: wow, that had absolutely nothing to do with this thread.

[Loren]

Just got my hands on another video, and it's interesting. It shows that different cars and different courses sometimes require different technique.

This course had a lot of "hard slalom" maneuvers in it, and I was driving a car that required a fair bit of steering input to get through them. (and I wasn't used to the car at all) As a result, you'll see me use some pretty sloppy hand technique in some of the slaloms. But, you'll also see my standard "shuffle" with proper hand position in places like the turn-around.

It's things like this that make hand position so hard to teach! I always try to tell people "this is what I like to do, but you need to find what works for you". The key is to make sure you don't have bad habits that are costing you in some way. Poor hand position can cost you in lost smoothness (which can translate to lost time), sometimes in all-out loss of control (not enough range of motion to get the steering input you need), and depending on what you're driving and for how long, even muscle strain from just plain inefficient use of your arms and shoulders.

Here's the video I'm speaking of:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfXy41qj ... e=youtu.be

(I was slummin'... driving Rob's FR-S instead of a Miata... and at an SCCA event!)

[Loren]

Slalom Logic

[blacksheep-1]

I'm stalking this thread because I don't want anyone to know I'm picking up valuable information here.....I already picked up on attacking the rear of the cone in a slalom, I never really looked at it that way.

[Loren]

This. (a really good read)

[Loren]

Hmmm... kinda dusty in here.

Here's another good article that sort of fits my line of thinking.

http://jalopnik.com/5930557/why-you-mus ... drive-fast

[Ohno ItstheRozzers]

This is all really good stuff!
I don't know if it's been mentioned before, but there's a movie that came out a couple years ago called "Weekend of a Champion" in which Roman Polanski followed Jackie Stewart around during the 1971 Monaco Gran Prix weekend. Absolutely brilliant footage and very candid talk from Stewart about racing.

One of my favorite explanations of driving comes in that movie as Stewart talks to Polanski about driving Monaco while they're eating breakfast (It also just so happens that Stewart is in his tighty-whiteys as he's explaining).

I can't find the Youtube clip anymore, but the way that he describes the smoothness needed in throttle, braking, and steering is fantastic. He mentions that you and the car should not be arguing with each other, but instead "You're married, you're getting along, it's a beautiful affair." Very insightful and almost poetic. It's also cool to hear Polanski, who doesn't know racing, say to him that he looked the slowest on track but his times were the fastest.

The movie is still on Netflix last time I checked.

[Loren]

Someone posted a link to that video before, I remember seeing it.

Here it is:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1568&p=26514&hilit= ... art#p26514

But, the video is gone.

[Loren]

Okay, time for some more wisdom. I'll see if I can sufficiently put this into words.

What kind of driver are you? Something I noticed a long time ago is that beginning autocrossers generally fall into two broad categories: Those who underdrive the car, and those who overdrive the car. Timid or Aggressive.

The ones who underdrive are generally easier to teach. You sometimes have to get behind the wheel and SHOW them how much they are underdriving, and you just keep pushing them to go faster. Get them past their fear of losing control of the car (by making them do it) so that they know they're not going to instantly DIE if they spin the car. After that, they eventually start getting up to the limits of the tires and finding their groove.

The overdrivers... often (but, not always) teen/20-something males and/or "muscle car guys" who don't think they're going fast unless they FEEL every input that they make. They want to FEEL when they accelerate, they want to FEEL when they brake, they want to FEEL when they initiate a turn. Sometimes this "muscle car" mentality equates to DECADES of conditioning, and can be very hard to overcome. It's hard to get somebody to back off and do things "slower" and feel things "less" to go faster. But, as the old adage goes, "sometimes you have to slow down to go faster".

I mention this as an introduction to something I've learned (or been reminded of) over the past year or so of driving the FASTiva, and trying to stay ahead of my co-drivers in that car. I am what I call a "finesse" driver. If I had to guess, I'd say that I generally drive at somewhere between 92 and 95%. I tend to leave a little "on the table" because I don't like to spin and blow a run (not afraid of it, I just find it frustrating, so I try very hard to NOT do it), and especially don't like spinning off into the grass at Brooksville! So, I've learned to keep myself close to, but just under, the limit of the tires. And I'm pretty good at that. I'm smooth. I'm consistent. It works pretty well.

Enter my co-drivers. Ben has come a LONG way over the past few years, and is actually very good. Where he differs from me? Aggression. He will attack a course harder than I will. Occasionally, he'll hit a course with crazy harsh steering inputs. But, more often, he's not doing that and he's simply driving more aggressively than I am. Pushing the car harder, for better or worse. He will get sideways and spin (or almost spin) a lot more often than I do.

Steve drives a little closer to how I do, but he's also slightly more aggressive a lot of the time.

So, what have I learned? Well, on certain courses, I'll take a run and feel like it was pretty good. Respectable time, felt right, probably about where I should be. And then Ben (and/or Steve) will take a run, and DESTROY me by a second or more. What??? "Push harder and suck less, Loren". That's it in a nutshell. Sure, I'm driving a good game... I'm not "sucking"... but, I'm not "pushing" hard enough, and my codriver clearly is.

What I've learned (and I've actually known it for a long time) is that I'm "tentative". I left-foot brake, and I do it A LOT... not with the intention of slowing the car, but as a means of "settling" the car. Net result, I'm slowing myself down!

With the FASTiva in particular, being a really slow car (0-60 in about 12 seconds), we really need to be on the gas as much as we possibly can on every course! If you don't absolutely HAVE to slow down for something in this car, you simply DON'T! Losing momentum takes big huge chunks out of our times because it takes us so long to regain speed. One little bobble that costs 5 mph could cost us a half-second!

This will apply to varying degrees with different drivers and different cars, but to try to apply this in a "general" fashion, co-drivers or not, when you feel like you've laid down a decent run... the line was right, you were smooth, everything felt right... ask yourself if you felt your tires giving up ANYWHERE on that run. If the answer is "no", or "only in this one place", then you need to be PUSHING HARDER (except in that one place). Your tires should be talking to you, both with the noise that they make, and with the feeling that at least SOME of the time, they're starting to lose grip.

Think about all of the places on the course where you are braking or lifting off of the throttle. Don't try to change the WHOLE RUN at once, but identify one section of the course. Can I get through THIS section without braking? Or without braking as much? Or with a slight throttle lift instead of braking? If I REALLY think about setting up for it and taking the perfect line through there, can I "flat-foot" it through there? Try it and see! But, be ready... if you MAKE it through there, remember that you're going to have more speed to manage on the other side of that element!

Keep applying that logic wherever you can. Pick the course apart, and find the places that would be easiest to experiment with going faster through. Find the places where there is a long straight (remember, for our purposes "straight" means "I can accelerate all the way through it", doesn't have to be literally straight) and try to maximize your EXIT SPEED of the turn immediately before it.

In short, if you're the "timid driver", the "underdriver", the "finesse driver", or just "slow"... after you're sure you're taking the correct racing line through the course, add some AGGRESSION. Not saying you should YANK the car around the course, just add SPEED by slowing down less and staying on the gas more... maintain your smooth steering inputs! Stay smooth, but try adding speed by braking less or not at all wherever you can.

For me in the delightfully underpowered FASTiva, I find that on a lot of courses (especially Brooksville), where I might have been "breathing" on the brakes with my left foot to plant the front end in a LOT of places before, I now find that I can STAY on the gas throughout most of a course, maybe only braking 3-4 times. Obviously, you can't do that in a fast car... but, you get the idea.

Go fast in the fast parts. Go slow in the slow parts. But, don't go any slower than you absolutely must!

[Loren]

This. Watch THIS. Everything anyone has ever told you about looking ahead, setting up, staying ahead of the course, being "early", etc. THIS. Watch it. Wrap your head around it. This is what we're talking about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... DZTMf16jpI

As far as autocross sites go, this isn't a great one, BUT... it does readily display the path that drivers are taking through the course after a while. You can see in this video a path that's maybe a couple feet wider than the car that shows where most people are driving. Notice THIS GUY'S line through the course. Look where he is. Look at how he's setting up.

And you'll notice at the beginning of the video, it says #1 PAX time. What that means is that statistically, he was THE best driver at the event. Why? Because he's driving that line! It enables him to carry as much of his speed as possible through the course.

Go watch it again.

[CaptainSquirts]

When I first started autocrossing I would over drive the car and overshoot a nice chunk or corners because I wasn't looking ahead. I just had the go fast mindset. I backed off the go fast mindset and focused on getting a good line. My times from slowing down to get a proper line actually were worse than my over driving times. Focusing on the proper lines made me take things a lot slower but my tires weren't getting worked at all. Eventually after a good number of events under my belt, I was able to have a lot better racing line, but with my tires still getting worked(squealing, but not over driving squealing/scrubbing).

Right now I'm mostly focusing on keeping the proper line(trying to at least) with my tires being worked enough to not be over driving or under driving. From my experience currently, it was sucked to try and learn to look ahead and getting a good line, even though your times might be worse than your over driving times. But eventually it will get better the more you do it and your proper driving line will be > your over driving lines. Well at least for me it was.....

[Loren]

You have to enforce the fundamentals. If you're not on the right line, you'll never be fast.

[Bigdog]

great stuff here.

Many thanks to you guys for taking the time to assist us NEWBIES.

first autoX was 11/18, great fun. the instructors and instruction was much appreciated.

Unfortunately, out of town for the december open. will see you in january.

Mike

[Loren]

Glad people are still reading this stuff!

[Loren]

Really cool article about how to drive a slalom.

http://www.beyondseattime.com/wp-conten ... laloms.pdf

In it, you'll learn about several different techniques for driving a slalom, and perhaps learn why you'll hear different things from different people depending on their driving style, and why people like Philip insist that the car "must" be set up loose. He's not wrong, but it's not the easiest technique to learn.

[Magooiii]

Really cool article about how to drive a slalom.

http://www.beyondseattime.com/wp-conten ... laloms.pdf

In it, you'll learn about several different techniques for driving a slalom, and perhaps learn why you'll hear different things from different people depending on their driving style, and why people like Philip insist that the car "must" be set up loose. He's not wrong, but it's not the easiest technique to learn.

Awesome read!

[Carracer]

This got me thinking about what I have learned about slaloming. Here is Philip's top 10 tips for better slaloming!

1. Attack the first cone. This is the number 1 thing I see people do wrong when I'm out taking pictures and the biggest mistake I make based on video. It cost a bunch of time and hurts every other cone in the slalom. Turn in and backside the first cone, get the rotation started and the rear loosened up. By the time you hit the 2nd cone you should be fully committed to the slalom. Mess up the first cone and you really can't fix it without losing lots of time.

2. Don't think about a slalom as a bunch of linked S bends, think about it as a bunch of lane changes. Imagine how fast your car could change lanes if you just sawed at the wheel like a crazy person. Do that but add a little extra room for cones.

3. Commit early and keep the intensity up. It's easy to get lazy in a slalom. You need to be working the tires at 100% from start to finish. You should be hearing screaming from your passengers and tires throughout if you are on all-seasons and even on some performance tires. Chirps and mumbling noises from the typical top shelf 200TW tires. A perfect slalom should feel shockingly easy when you get it right yet you or your car never got a moment to rest.

4. Backside the first cone and after that you should be able to get the rear rotating so you wiggle past the rest of the cones. In an ideal world the front tires would drive around a cone hitting the front and rear edge of the cone base, the rear tires would slide past. This effectively shortens the wheelbase of the car. The only reason we backside cones in a slalom is because the rear tires would hit cones. If we can get the rear sliding just a bit we can basically make them a non-factor in the slalom since they are now taking an equal or lager arc than the front tires. In short I don't aim to backside cones in a slalom, I backside only the first cone so I can break the rear free and after that I aim to take the shortest distance possible.

5. Very related to #4 but use the throttle to steer the car just as much as the steering wheel. This works for both FWD and RWD and I'm sure AWD as well. In a FR ( Front engine Rear wheel drive ) more throttle should make the car rotate more. If not you might not have gotten aggressive enough in the entry of the slalom and are late. A VERY sight lift of the throttle in a FR car should reduce rotation. A BIG lift of the throttle will add rotation but it will be hard and fast ( snap oversteer ). In a FWD or MR ( Mid-engine Rear wheel drive ) car it's the the exact opposite. A little more throttle = less rotation, A lot of throttle = snap oversteer , less throttle = more rotation.

6. Don't get late. You can't fix getting late without losing heaps of time. You should be starting the turn-in for the next cone in a slalom long before you pass the cone you are currently navigating. When a slalom starts feeling like work and you start wishing you had better tires or better shocks you are late. Fix it by turning in sooner.

7. Obvious but get close to the cones. If you aren't hitting cones you aren't getting close enough or you need to go faster. Take note if you are hitting cones more frequently on the drivers side or or passenger side and correct as needed. Aim to be hitting them on both sides equally*. After than keep adding distance until you stop hitting cones. Find points on your car you can use as a crosshair/repeatable reference that you can line cones up with and know you will be close but won't hit them.
* Course works might hate you for this.

8. Get out of a slalom as soon as you can by frontsiding the last cone in the slalom* Maximize exit speed by just barely squeaking past the last come, your only goal for that cone should be just not hit it. If you aren't exiting with enough speed to make that cone difficult to get around start feeding in more power sooner.
*Assuming it exits onto a straight. Otherwise setup accordingly for the next element.

9. If you car has old or just bad shocks slaloms are unfortunately even more difficult. The trick is to aim to hit the cone, when the car runs out of suspension travel and bumpstops it will "skip" a bit and hopefully slide just past the cone instead of hitting it. The hard part is learning just how far your car will side and the timing of it. This takes seat time.

10. When you walk the course take note of the spacing in between slaloms. Are they are all equally spaced or is it increasing/decreasing/random. Are they offset at all? Remember or write down your pacing. It will help for the next event. For example in my car I know that a 75 ft slalom at brooksville will have me tapping the revlimiter in 2nd if I do it right. If I'm not hearing that limiter I know I can to go faster.

[friskyflea]

This got me thinking about what I have learned about slaloming. Here is Philip's top 10 tips for better slaloming!

5. Very related to #4 but use the throttle to steer the car just as much as the steering wheel. This works for both FWD and RWD and I'm sure AWD as well. In a FR ( Front engine Rear wheel drive ) more throttle should make the car rotate more. If not you might not have gotten aggressive enough in the entry of the slalom and are late. A VERY sight lift of the throttle in a FR car should reduce rotation. A BIG lift of the throttle will add rotation but it will be hard and fast ( snap oversteer ). In a FWD or MR ( Mid-engine Rear wheel drive ) car it's the the exact opposite. A little more throttle = less rotation, A lot of throttle = snap oversteer , less throttle = more rotation.

Your FWD recommendations must be aimed at a driver of a bone stock FWD that understeers like a horse with a broken inside rein? If you use set up to eliminate as much understeer as possible (stiff rear sway bar, softer rear springs and fiddling with tire pressure adjustments) you can set up your car to snap oversteer all day long if you lift suddenly and sharply --other than in a straight line-- especially during fast transitions (got that T shirt in a couple of colors). The other thing is that you have to maintain an intimate awareness of the so-called "friction circle." For me... easier to think of just balancing front-back forces & sideways forces so I don't push my tires over the edge.

As I did when I first began, and still do, I rely on several excellent websites for the physics, math and engineering of car control and driving fast(er). Here's a direct quote regarding oversteer

"Front wheel drive (front engine)
[e.g. Peugeot 205 GTi, Renault Clio Cup]

Front engine, front wheel drive

Causes, and likelihood of oversteer for a front wheel drive car
Cause of oversteer Likelihood of oversteer
Entering the corner too fast More likely to understeer initially
Accelerating early or aggressively Low
Lifting off the throttle High
Braking High

Sporty front wheel drive cars are more likely to experience oversteer than a standard car due to the vehicle setup. Dial out the inherent understeer tendencies of a front wheel drive car using clever engineering, and the result is a better ‘turn in’ and an increased ability to oversteer due to the naturally light rear. In this case, it is usually possible to accelerate out of the oversteer situation, using the rearward weight transfer to actively increase levels of grip at the back. Front wheel drive cars are especially prone to lift off oversteer due to the forward weight transfer combined with light rear end."

The trick to rotating the rear end in my car (and perhaps other FWDs of similar ilk) is braking, just in the right spot and just enough, to put/manage the weight and move it up front to increase front wheel grip/turn in and simultaneously take weight off the rear end so it can slip out... plus throttle. How much slide from the rear depends, as you have said, on distance between cones and offsets. My goal is to make it as subtle as possible because that means the shortest distance of travel and the less upset of the car's weight and balance and that may mean a light brake tap or decelerating to get weight off the rear tires.