Autox Critique Please
 

Fell behind in the slalom early on :uhh:
Anyway, feel free to dissect my run to the bone, since I knew I had a steep learning curve.

Car setup on that day:
Front OEM + Rear Koni SA shocks
225/45/18 Kumho ECSTA SPT (38/33psi)
Tanabe front swaybar

http://i2.zvhost.com/2/x/xm723ge9.jpg

WARNING: The free hosting site may contain mature-rated graphics.

My novice suggestions would be to try and maintain a more constant speed through the slaloms instead of being on/off/on/off.

Other than that, it seems like in some parts of the course you were looking ahead and planning out your turns well, but in some areas it seems you are not.

my .02

why would you have front OE shocks and rear Konis? :Eyecrazy:

See other thread. He was in the middle of installing the whole set when the event happened.

Still working on slaloms as you suggested. Used to feed too much steering inputs by yanking it left-and-right, loading up front wheels. That part is now cured, though still searching for the optimal entry speed where the on/off phenomenon can be lessened. I think you may detect on/off in its exaggerated state as I feathered the throttle, with microphone sitting right in the passenger foot well.

Yes, identification of critical cones and blocking out the rest in the course walk phase is still something I'm learning.

Your $.02 is appreciated!

Any other feedbacks or do I just suck bad?

Oh btw, you are still better than me... if that makes you feel any better.

If i had taped my last autocross you would have seen many u-turns, spin outs, and the microphone lady making jokes about my driving while i was on the course.

It was pretty sad.

LOL, yes, knowing what we should do is completely different from actually doing it out on the course. I can't count the number of times my well-rehersed plan goes down the tube when the nut steps into the car and straps behind the wheel.

The camcorder-on-top is great if I may say so. Having an instructor riding along is always better, but the camcorder is the next best thing to faithfully document the racing line.

It seemed that you took some turns wider than you needed to in the first half. And I agree that smoother on the throttle in the last half is definitely needed. But still, I think it's a pretty darned good run. (You don't suck.) Did it rain that day? Parts of the track look wet. THAT will sure slow down some corners!

That camera angle is interesting. I have mine mounted in the back seat, so I don't see the course as well. Hmm (ponder ponder...)

The course was wet like a soaking rug in Lake Michigan in the morning, along with fog that you couldn't see thru. Sure made the driving/navigating fun! The 1st three runs were a bit touchy-feely throttle-goes, and the wide-angle-converter would be covered with mist at the end of each run. 4th run was the driest and also the quickest.

I used to have in-car camcorder rig, sitting midway between my back and back seats. I then realized that the camcorder could see jack, due to height and point-of-view issues. So instead, I order Sticky Pod Original (4-suction-cup) design from www.stickypod.com. It was a bit nerve-wrecking having my miniDV sitting on top of the car on the outside. I made sure to obtain clearance from local Solo Chief beforehand. Two safety measures were used to attach camcorder to the car as explained by the Chief, suction cup and tether.

In retrospect, I could use more wide-angle, though 0.6X was already pushing it before perception becomes fisheyed. The Sticky Pod held onto the car fine in cold temperature, though periodic checking would be recommended. Chase Cam is another oft-mentioned solution, though I already owned the miniDV, hence, minimal investment.

I need to break down and buy a camcorder. I think it can really help.

Actually.. for me the biggest obstacle is not my driving, its my memory. By my last run of the day i finally get the course down, and die for just one more run. I think if i can start reading the courses faster... than that will help. I think what i need more than anything else is just more seat time. Which is always fun :)
Here locally i have 5 autocrosses over the course of 8 weeks. Hopefully my car survives.. LOL!

Based on what you were saying, i think your problem also isnt based in not knowing how to race... but just doing what you tell yourself you are going to do. I think more seat time will also be your best friend.

-hS

Video cameras and, with some practice, visualization will really help you get a course down quickly. The greats can visualize a lap within a 1/10sec or so of a real lap.

I need to update my codecs or something, that site always plays videos in rainbow colour for me.

The video is encoded in Windows Media Video v9. If you have trouble still, try visit
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/XP_Codec_Pack.htm and download the Codec Pack.

MiniDV is extremely affordable nowadays. I routinely see deals below $300 for home-video-grade camcorders. For all intended purposes, you could probably score an inexpensive VHS camcorder at local garage sale for chump change. MiniDV just makes the video editing/encoding process much easier with the help of Firewire (1394).

Surprisingly, I like the pressure of only having three/four runs with SCCA. It drives home the importance of planning the drive and driving the plan. Gotta work on verbalizing the look ahead cone, since hands follow where you eyes see and eyes do what your mind thinks. Talking to oneself maybe is not that crazy afterall.

Can't wait to have my clock cleaned at Devens Tour

:ylsuper:

I can never critique autocross runs from video alone. Too difficult to know where the car is relative to the limits. Your best critique will come from competing at the highest level against the best drivers and seeing how you do, or having one of them ride along in your car during one of your runs.

Sorry couldn't be of more help.

Looked pretty fast, no protest?? :hahano:


bad joke....

True, I was hoping to run into you at Ripken Stadium. Had no ideas you were running S2000 at the time. Thought you never made it until seeing the result later on.

Don't be shy with critique once we do meet at Devens :fingersx:

ps. TeamWTF was my inspiration for doing the video!

Funny you should ask. Had a lot of attention due to Sticky Pod setup. Well, I must be not driving fast enough then if you say it looked fast. Remember smooth is fast, what looks slow is fast.

i've found that the rx8 can carry alot of speed through sloloms, alot more than my m coupe could.

If that run is typical of your driving, I'm going to guess that you don't hit many cones. One of the two observations I can offer is that it looks like you keep a healthy distance away from the cones. If you got on top of them, and did nothing else, your times would probably drop a good bit. The other observation is that it sounded like you spent a lot of time coasting. It kind of touches on what John was saying about not knowing where the car was in relation to its limits, but if you're moving in straight (or nearly straight) line, you generally want to be hard on the gas or the brake, not with your foot in the air. I remember reading or hearing once that every flicker of indecision on course is worth at least 0.1 seconds.

just some comments from a midpack hack

My typical driving would be overdriving the car and hitting a sea of cones... Being close to the cone is definitely the holy gril of being a successful autoxer. As for coasting, I'm finding that I rarely mesh the throttle all the way down. You could say that I was driving 9/10th with wet surface and brand spanking new street tire (less than 200mi).

Keep the comments coming! Midpack in WDCR is probably trophy in most of other regions, knowing how competitive it is in your neck of woods. I want to get a list of personal mental check-points so I can hammer them into my head each time I drive. Thus far:

1. Unwind the wheel but don't loose grip when coming out of turns
2. Attack slalom with less amount of steering input
3. Use threshold braking and put-your-right-foot-thru-firewall when accelerating

About the video host, right beneath "Get Links For This Video >>", you can select various quality of streaming and even the original to better the clarity of the video, FYI.

Clyde and I always PAX around the top 15 or better at the WDCR events. All that says to me is that we have a pretty well prepped car with reasonably fresh, sticky tires. Neither of us have had a lot of national success.

When you're at Devens, be sure to watch KC drive. He will be by far the best driver in the class and is someone to use as a benchmark.

:fingersx: We had an event last weekend with a pro class runoff where we all run on indexed times against each other. Fastest top 8 in PAX go on to eliminations using your best of the 1st three runs.

I coned my 2 fastest. That seems to be a problem of mine. :mad:

--kC

Well, not always. We each have a mental health day now and again.

Do you get Kudos for not hitting the cones and drifting? If so then I wanna go autocross next chance I GET!!! :ylsuper:

On my last outing with old tires and wet pavement on a tight course I learned a lot about being smooth. :) I hit a few cones during the day, on the right in right-hand turns. Actually I take that as a good thing, since my habit is to give them too wide a berth. This is my first attempt at making an Autocross Video.

Hitting a cone costs your time (1 second?) but drifting doesn't do your time any good either, since it scrubs off speed. But autocross if fun however you do it. :)

ever play PGR?

PGR? No - what is it?

PGR = Project Gotham Racing (power of Google)

A cone is 2sec penalty, universal I believe. So in a sport where win and loss is decided by thousands of a second, it's huge.

Great 1st attempt! Though was the IS/VR (Image Stabilization/Vibration Reducer)
turned on? My head got dizzy after watching =)

Project Gotham Racing, it's a racing game for Xbox. In part of the game you have to do laps around tracks with cones setup, it's setup just like autocross. You get points (Kudos) for not hitting cones, drifting, and driving fast. It's a game that's gotten a lot of hype becuase of its graphics and gameplay.

Thanks. Yes, Image Stabilization was on, but in my first go-around at making a camera mount, the bar was thin aluminum and flexed too much. I've got a heftier bar now that should (knock on wood) minimize that bouncing you see in the clip.

I used the setup similar to the one in this thread: https://www.rx8club.com/showpost.php...6&postcount=86

That's what I had too. It still hurts thinking about the extra mounting bolt hole I had to drill thru the rear upper sub-frame. My miniDV is fairly light, the stand-up kind, not big brick style, though the aluminum bar would vibrate still. I'm sure having two bungee cords to form a triangle between bar and front seatbelt floor slider rails would stabilize the movement.

Gonna try shooting from the rear wheel fender like TeamWTF for kick next time :mdrmed:

Depending on the course lay out... knowing how to drift can be very useful

Worst racing game ever. Every version in the series... horrible. I think the only thing worse would be the ridge racer series.

I think TeamWTF also may do that because it allows him to see how far from the cones he was.

My plan was to use an RC helicptoer and videotape my runs from a birds eye view. It was that or RC blimp.... but i dont think any league will ever let me do that.

-hS

If you ever do, there is a line of people wanting to layover cone locations with racing line drawn from GPS using DAQ. It will be coolest thing, seeing how far/close one is from the cone.

I have already said too much.
The birds eye view thing was my key plan to take over the world of autocrossing. Well, that and strippers... awww, once again i'm giving away too many secrets.

SILENCE!!!

Seriously tho... all you would have to is have a sensor in the center of the cone, and sensors on each of your fenders... now a days this technology is getting cheaper, and not so hard to work with.

-hS

With a sensor in each cone, you'll need a lot of spares as they get crushed. :D: