Matt U

So because I was curious how I did, I added the PAX index to the sheet that Kim provided. So now you can sort by overall PAX time as well as see the overall PAX points. Results 04-10-21 with PAX.xlsx

I think Todd has a really good point with the crossover between AM/PM groups. We could setup something where registration and tech open while B group is running, so registration would close at like noon or so. Then everyone for the PM group could start a course walk almost as soon as the B group is done running, though there will need to be a little car human herding because I think there will be more cars and people in motion on site than we usually see. It might even be possible to have the PM drivers meeting before the course walk. That would probably ensure 5 runs.

There were some timing issues since the first group went out. We tried to add a fifth run column and a group of us couldn’t figure it out, so that would affect the live timing. The timing got a little more complicated by the afternoon runs. All in, Jason should be SUPER THRILLED when he gets back and starts sorting this out. The score board was a nice thing to have but it was a give and take. Anyone could look at how they were doing, but it tended to be the kitchen where everyone would congregate making timing and observers frustrated. I used to write down each runs time after I parked, but the new live system made me complacent as well.

Lance, good point about the concrete slab being flat and level. You can also use the tiles as shims on the floor, but you will need a long level or a laser to set the height. Regarding the weight being in the car to simulate the driver weight, it usually is a tiny change. This varies from car to car and how stiff the car is. On an STX built car, adding the driver weight really only mattered when I corner balanced the car. The car camber change I couldn't measure the change because the car only squats like 1/4", maybe less, when I get in the car. I'm also no light weight at like 235lbs.

John, One idea that I have seen is to use sheets of vinyl tile with a little bit of a lubricant between the tiles. Both Lowe's and Home Depot have them for like $1 a tile. That way they won't rip but will still allow rotation. For the front to back alignment, what you are referring to is called the thrust angle. Basically if the toe of the rear is set, where is it pointing in relation to the front of the car. There are a few way to measure this, but with a laser you want to set the laser so that it's shooting a line that is parallel to the pinch welds/frame. Then you can measure from the toe plates what the pointing angle for that wheel is. You should measure half of what your total toe is, because your only measuring only one wheel according to a parallel reference line. Keep one thing in mind, the more complex the suspension geometry the more of a pain it will be to adjust just one setting. On a strut based car, it's pretty straight forward to set camber then toe. On a multi-link, like the rear of the FRS and BRZ, all adjustments affect each other, so it can be a bit of a tail chaser. I would suggest to get a few 12' tape measures at a hardware store and compare them to one another. If you have 3 or 4 tape measures and none of them agree on a measurement should be, you will think that your cars alignment is always changing but in reality it was just the measuring device. I would also get a 12" ruler where 0" is actually at the edge of the ruler instead of offset. A lot of these are called either a "steel rule" or a "machinist rule." I personally have these https://tinyurl.com/nuw8ybwm, and https://tinyurl.com/3kun2279.

First off, the A052's can NOT be flipped on the wheels as they are an asymmetric tire. Outside has to stay outside. Regarding number of runs, on a STX car, so there is camber, we are probably going to get about 100 runs from a set of tires. I have been logging the tire wear across the tires since the January event. This appears to be very similar tire wear to the RE71R's for us anyway. We have never run on the rivals or the 660RT's, so I can't comment on those. The A052's are rumored to be the hot ticket for concrete surfaces, as well as wet conditions. I think the A052's are very similar to the RE71R's in most ways, but are a little more forgiving and are not quite as sharp. If you have a camber challenged car, they will eat the A052's quickly and they really shouldn't be flipped on the wheel.

Sid, you’re absolutely right that it’s not an apples to apples comparison. Speaking of tire wear, proper camber, little tow, and a light car it’s almost impossible to beat up the tires. We barely have to spray the tires when co-driving in the summer here. There is one big draw back to the A052’s on a camber challenged car that I just realized, they are asymmetric. So if you burn off the outside edge, which is common, you can’t flip them to get some more runs out of them.

I believe if everyone keeps patient and plays their part in protecting others by wearing a mask we might be back to a more normal by September. The issue is that a lot of the population is just tired of having to do something that they don’t want to do. So if we do our part, that is a small piece of the larger puzzle that isn’t causing a potential issue. Please keep in mind that the move to “back to normal” won’t be everything all at once. It will be more structured, like being allowed to bring guests, but only if they live with you and everyone still needs to wear a mask. This would be regardless if you have been vaccinated, because you can still transmit a virus. Every virus transmission also accelerates the chance of mutation of that virus. So, if there are enough mutations of the virus, then the vaccination is no longer effective, then everything starts over. The steering committee as well as everyone else wants things to get back to normal with guests and TO’s. But if we lifted the masks and went full steam ahead and we had a member die, I personally would not be okay with that. I’ve had family member’s hospitalized and my wife had two coworkers die from this virus, so please be patient and we will get through this together.

I have always liked the idea of an option slalom, but the small tweaks are that are done during setup usually seem to favor one option. Hopefully it gets setup more with a 50/50 choice.

I can say that I feel that the RE71r’s had fantastic grip and could go a whole year on a STX car with a co-driver. Granted the grip started to fall off in the last two months. There is no way that the A052’s will go that long, but I am still waiting to see how long they will last. The A052’s do seem to be more car setup and tire pressure sensitive in the wear department than the RE71r’s. Driver impressions from my point of view. The RE71r’s take combined loads better, say trail braking, than the A052’s. But, and this is a big but in autocross, the RE71r’s are more unforgiving if you aren’t smooth or if you overdrive the tire. You can somewhat overdrive the A052’s and not loose a lot of time, where the RE71r’s you would be in the marbles.

For tires, especially in a mostly non competitive car, the 200 tread wear tires may not be the most practical option. One of the go to wet/cold weather tires is the ExtremeContact Sport from Continental. It’s a 340 tread wear but you will get a lot more useful life out of them around here and they won’t be that much slower, if any. They have huge shoulder blocks, so a camber challenged car will take longer to eat up the outer shoulder. Keep in mind that the Federal and Nitto tires you are referring to need some serious temperature to work well. So my guess is that the Continental’s would actually be a faster tire for most of the year except for those hot summer days. https://m.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Continental&tireModel=ExtremeContact+Sport&sidewall=Blackwall&partnum=05WR5ECS&tab=Sizes

Falkens definitely seem to be much more competitive with the 660’s over the previous generation. Some people still prefer the Rivals and they seem to still be fast enough to be at the front.

Mark, or very own Scott (smeyers) does his best on this forum to keep an event calendar updated with a lot of the autocross events across Arizona. Some of the events, such as the Tucson group haven’t switched over to motorsports reg yet, but Scott does a great job tracking all the dates down.

So here is my fastest clean run of 45.566. There is a lot of little things that I see when I review this video, still pretty good though. Just for fun, here is my fourth run. 80% of it I thought was quite good, 20% not so much. I went through the data that I have on the run, and if I blended what I did on run 1 through turn 4, with the rest of run 4, there is a 44.6 to 44.8 second run. I gave up a lot of speed coming into 4, killing cones in the process, because I pinched the right hander coming in. I really started attacking the course again at the end of the long right when the cone gets kicked out from under the car.

Boy you guys are quick with the editing and posting... Anyways here is my best clean run of a 44.403. After watching the video, there are definitely some place that I'm either pinching off a corner, or hesitating too much. The pinching off a corner, or 3 in my case, was the obvious time loss.

Tom, I’ll be the one doing worker check in tomorrow for the afternoon group. I’m assuming your running in spot D25, and I can completely empathize with your concern. We can definitely accommodate your concern.

Okay boys I’m back! Just kidding but I’ll throw my opinion into the stock pot. The 2021 Mazda 3 Turbo will probably be a DS car, though it appears that it will be a little bit of an underdog. Yes it has more torque than the WRX, but it’s also on 1” narrower wheels (7” vs 8”). It is also only an automatic with an even heavier front weight bias than the WRX. It is possible that because of these 3 factors (tire width, automatic, really front heavy) that it really might be a GS car. Think back to the pre-STH class, with what was allowed in STX. The 2wd cars could run 265 width tires while the AWD/4wd cars were capped at 245’s. So in those days, a 2015 or newer WRX in street touring would have been up against the 86 twins. Unfortunately the only way we can really know locally would be to have someone from DS and GS co-drive for a little while once the car is setup, then petition for a classification change or sell the car (slight joke).

If anyone has any questions about specific things that I have posted above, quote this post and I can get into them a little more. At least until I run out of information....

So I got a little busy and couldn't get back around to this topic, and now there are even more people chiming in. It is a good thing that more people are chiming in, but I fear that some of my intent may get a little lost, so bear with me here. As Sid was the only one that posted 2 thing that he would want to work on after reviewing his own video/memory, I'm going to expand from that quote as well as drag a few others in. Lance and Mat, you will be referenced here well... Okay, here we go........ So the fundamental reason why I had said to pick two things that you noticed about your own driving has the side effect of being a faster driver, but that is not the primary reason. While looking at something like SoloStorm or Harry's Lap Timer is a great tool, it has it's limitations, especially between autocross runs (thinking of Mat and Lance). The primary reason that I said to pick 2 things that you can go back and see within yourself is to develop/hone the skill of detailed recollection. I cannot stress this skill enough. If you can only remember that you over-drove into a section 3 out of 4 runs on Tuesday, it doesn't help you. When you look at data analysis or videos, but still have a hard time remembering that portion of that run, it doesn't help you. If someone tells you that your line choice is off, but can only see it on video and can't recall it, it doesn't help you. See a pattern here. The best advice is worthless if you can recall it and repeat it in a meaningful way. Videos and data can help you recall certain aspects of your runs. I use video to do things like double check that I was looking where I wanted to and not getting behind. More recently I have stopped using data analysis for the most part, as I would spend way too much time seeing what the data could tell me, but for some reason it never told me that I wasn't looking ahead enough. Such is the way of analysis paralysis. Data analysis in the grid can be a wicked crutch if your not careful. My opinion on the matter is that it should be predominantly a double check for yourself. Now one thing that you may have noticed is that I haven't said anything about line choice, car control, or even where someone like Sid or Lance was looking in the videos that they posted. Fun fact, I won't while on this topic. This topic is all about the idea of practice with purpose, that is where the detailed recollection comes in. SOOO, lets get into the post that Sid is quoted in as an example. His 2 items were carrying too much speed and getting on the throttle too early. Now I am not going to say he is right or wrong in his analysis, because it doesn't matter if he can't recall what he did and where it was on course. This is where practicing with purpose comes in to play. Since there is another AMP event coming up, it's time to get a game plan. At Sid's next event, he should do his course walks with the intent on finding a section or two that can facilitate that practice with purpose. For the first issue, carrying too much speed into a section, he will need to look for a section or two that have maybe a 180deg corner after a reasonably fast section. Now once a piece of the course has been picked, it is his job to run the course as normal(ish), but immediately recall just that section once he comes back to grid. Things like car angle coming in, where was he looking on the way in, how did the tire grip feel, was the car starting to drift or plow, etc. Now if you come up with something like "I was looking straight ahead when I entered and the car plowed out wide," you can move forward from there. A correction might be as simple as reminding yourself to look where you want to go, not where you are going. I would advise not doing something like actively trying to think about what you are going to change while your driving, do it before your run, when you are reviewing the course in your head before your run. This is how the fastest drivers out here shave a little time off run after run. As this recollection becomes easier, you can slowly add more sections of the course. Take it easy at first if you have never tried this as it can be overwhelming, and we want to form helpful habits. Keep one thing in mind, people like Brian, Doug, or Jeff (he's new here) are not coming out to these events to just throw down a fast time and leave. They have things that they want to practice, specifically, every event. Sometimes they need to practice the same thing for 3 events in a row. Practicing with purpose is sort of like building with lego's. Everything is build one brick at a time and each brick needs the previous brick to base its self on. But every once in a while you'll find that hidden piece, in the carpet, in the dark, at like 3am, that leads to a sore wrist and a skinned knee. Otherwise known as a bad habit...

This is a question more focused to Sid and Scott, just because they are the FWD boys here so far. We can come back to the RWD gang soon, but a lot will apply to everyone. Just because this is a fun and never ending story, plus it's a good thread for others to look at and learn from. For both Sid and Scott, as well as other that want to jump in a little, when you review your videos (all of them) can you see where there was time that you lost? Now, after seeing your own video, can you recall more about those particular sections on those particular runs? Now for the participation points section. From the videos that you posted, just because we can all see them, pick two things that you think could have improved your times for the day. Things that you can bring to the next event to practice. Now these two things don't have to be a corner or a particular section, they can be over arching things like line choice or even being hungry (seriously). The goal here is to focus down a lot of things to gain practice with purpose.

Michael, so my opinion is that you should register for ‘Open’ rather than ‘Novice.’ Now a little as to why I say that. There are a lot of novices that have never even been down a canyon road with even a little bit of speed, so it’s a catch-all blanket. Normally with a novice driver we aren’t coaching per say, we are just making sure that they don’t get lost or turned around for the most part. After it’s obvious they know where they are going, that’s usually when your back on your own. With COVID, the no passengers/instructors jumping from car to car would be my guess as to the no novice enforcement for right now. Regarding prior motorsports experience, that helps a lot. The biggest difference for autocross vs most motorsports is that the cadence of turns is much higher than any other form of racing I have done. That includes karts and road racing motorcycles. That being said it easy to get behind in where you are on course, but if you ease into it you should be fine.

So there are a few tips that I have heard that seem to help me the most. Slow in, fast out. This is from a podcast from http://autocrosstalk.com/ with Brian, mostly. You can loose a lot more time overdriving into a corner than you can ever gain back. You want to be able to play with the gas by the "apex" of the corner. This will also help establish the line that you wanted to take for the course as well rather than saying oh crap and essentially leaving a section un-tested. Distance is usually your enemy. Patience can be a useful ally. This goes with cutting distance. If your on the gas too hard too soon, you get pushed out wide and off line for the next element. Patience does not mean coast!! If you are using data logging, the G dot should never hang out in the middle. Every corner should feel just a little sketchy (for now). I don't know if this is true for Brian, maybe he will chime in, but I think there should always be just a little bit of balancing the car with every corner. Your not really catching the car, its just before that. So in Brian's video around 22 seconds in and in my video around 18 seconds in are good examples, a little bit of counter steering but that's it. In my video around 22 seconds in that was a little too much power, so there was a lift. Mentally review early and often. Run the course in your head while heading over to do another course walk. Run the course in your head before each run. Run/review the course in your head right after your run. Take notes if you need to. Where were you looking? Did you get behind instead of looking ahead? Were you ever coasting, or did it ever feel like just canyon driving? Did you almost spin anywhere? Where were the tires just starting to talk a little? This takes time to learn!! Good practice will lead to this becoming easier. For example, immediately after the run posted, I knew that I added too much distance just before the finish.

Here is my 4th run. For both Lance and Sid, I think you where a little late through the slalom, as in not back siding the cones enough. This in the first event where it clicked regarding back siding the slalom cones. I think that I back sided them a little too much to be fast, but that was my intention to break a bad habit. As for some time deltas for this run vs Brian. Now these are rough times through video editing, but are useful enough. Start to first cone into left sweeper, 0:09 in video, I am 0.5sec behind so far. Power is my best guess here. Through the sweeper up to the left cone towards the end, 0:13 in video, I am 0.27sec faster. Now I am only 0.22sec behind. Down the short straight up to the gate before the turn in into station 2, 0:16 in video, I loose 0.02sec. Now I am 0.24sec behind. Some is power related some is distance added by not being on the cone. Through the braking and right into station 2 up to the gate in front of station 2, 0:18 in video, I gain back 0.19sec. Now I am 0.05sec behind. Through the right and into the slalom at the first left cone in the slalom, 0:23 in video, I loose 0.08sec. Now I'm running 0.12sec back. Probably being hesitant into the right that leads into the slalom. Through the slalom and up to the last of the triple cone, 0:28 in video, I loose 0.25sec. Now I am out to 0.37sec back. Car is a little loose and was practicing back siding each cone in the slalom. Probably a little too much back siding. Through the right sweeper and left up to the gate coming into station 5, 0:36 in video, I loose 0.42sec. Running 0.79sec behind. Mostly braking a little early into this section Down the back kink past station 5 into the left into station 6, 0:41 in video, I gain 0.06sec. Now I am 0.73sec back. Through the long right sweeper up to the left cone at the end of station 7, 0:49 in video, I gain back 0.05sec. Now I am 0.68sec back. Through the right and left by station 7, 0:51 in video, I loose another 0.13sec. Now I am 0.81sec back. This is line choice and adding distance. Finally up to the finish, 0:54 in video, I loose a massive 1.07sec. Now I am out to 1.88sec behind. This is also adding distance because of the exit angle on the previous section. Power and running into the top of 2nd gear is also added time. Sid

Lance, this is more for you than anyone else that has posted yet. It's great that this topic of "how can I get better" has come up and it seems that some people are willing to take advise. My quest of getting better has been through most of this year and it's actually a tricky thing to learn where time is being lost. I am no means a Brian or a Doug, but fell that I am a decent driver, so that's my disclaimer. Now here is the big question. How serious do you really want to take the art of cone kung fu? I would stew on it for a little while because it's not an easy thing to just know where you stand. Me personally, at least one course walk I keep away from as many people as I can, especially talky groups. During the runs I am running through the course in my head at least twice before each run. Right after a run I take a slow mental rewind of that run to review in as much detail as I can looking for time to gain as well as time lost. I'm not great at it but I'm getting better. Basically for the course walk and during my runs, I am trying to take this quite seriously. I don't have a YouTube channel yet but I will get one up and post with a link for my best run, which was a 50.302. I have some rough time deltas as well when I did a side by side of Brian's best run that I can post as well. We are still tweaking the car a little after the changes made, so the car is a little loose for me right now. I have also been working on line choice as well as slalom techniques, so I was giving up some time coming into the slalom so that I could practice back siding each cone.

Well my $0.02 is basically you want to keep the sun off of them for sure. The other thing that I found when I was road racing motorcycles was to have the tire gain temperature or loose temperature slowly. So after a race or practice session was done, we would put our tire warmers back on, but unplugged. This helped keep the tires flexible over their usable life. So I would get some cheap moving blankets, think Harbor Freight, and wrap/secure them around the wheels and tires snuggly.