THSCC Forums

Hey you gotta be good at something. At least I beat that noob Dan at %DNF/RUN... That takes a lot of nerve edging me out on total DNFs

And Eric did win the cone mowing contest at that event you gave me the award at Kevin. Eric was just smart enough to leave early and avoid his award

Since I swapped cars this year and wanted to learn how the new car reacted on the edge I drove it that way. Plus that stupid 3rd pedal meant no more LFB like I did in the C4. The body is about the same length but wider. The wheel base is longer and wider. So I clipped a lot of cones with one of the rear wheels often.

So following that theory. I decided to use the brakes as little as possible. My 1st run I would go 110% of what I thought I could do. Then on my 2nd run dial it back 10% where I made a mess and add another 10% where I hadn't. In theory make a full out 3rd run and do it clean. 4th run was just flat out fun run, yee haw!!! It served its purpose for what I wanted to learn about the car, but not how to autocross better. I know where the edge of the car is now from almost all angles and have the DNF's to prove it...

Respectfully,
- Yet Another RWD Hack

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http://www.greywinds.com

That *was* an excellent post by Eric. I had the same problem as you Ryan my first year with Tarheel in the turbo Miata. It wasn't until last year co-driving with Jim Pastorius that I learned to really go for it on the first run. I think the racing I did before I started auto-x'ing 3 years ago conditioned me to take it at 9/10's the first few laps and that really doesn't translate into auto-x'ing.

I have to thank Jim P. for noticing this and drilling it into my head for most of last year. It really helped me come out of the gate strong and while I still may pick up a 1 or 2 seconds from the first run to the last, it's usually a result of making driving errors in the early runs instead of taking it easy. When I have one of those rare days where I only pick up 1/2 second or so, I know I've really nailed the first run. Or I sucked the whole day...

Jim

Hey Stephen -

How about an analysis of: Average delta between first-run (raw) and best time (raw)?

That should show us who in the club is indeed good at "fast out of the gate".

(PS - my hat's off to you for doing this data analysis -- good stuff!)

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Mike Whitney
whit32@gmail.com, 919-454-5445
V10, V8, V8t, I6, I6, V6, F4t, I4, I4, I4, I4, I2, 1, 1

I would also love to see teh delta between first and best time as well.

Richard

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Richard Casto
1972 Porsche 914
2013 Honda Fit Sport
2015 Honda Fit EX
http://motorsport.zyyz.com
Money can't buy happiness, but somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a Porsche than a Kia.

That's exactly what Kathy said when i show that to her.

Patrice

Steven could you tell me how much wood would a Woodchuck chuck, if a Woodchuck could chuck wood?

Look forward to seeing your response!

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02 Focus SVT
STF 9

Hmmmm.....maybe? There was no clean way to cut and paste the info from the results lists that I could find into excel, so all the data I used was hand keyed into a spreadsheet (over a period of 5 or 6 hours). That hand keying included no times, just number of runs and cone counts. If someone can get me the times in a spreadsheet...sure.

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Stephen Westerfield
2009 Infiniti M35 | 2007 Honda Fit Sport | 2005 Ford Mustang GT |2000 GMC Sierra |1992 Acura Integra LS | Super Westerfield Bros Acura Integra

how about PV=nRT?

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traded the ultimate driving machine for a hatchback.....

Now you are getting off-base... what does the Ideal Gas Law have to do with this thread (unless you want to relate it to all the hot air here )?

- dow

I calculate the Average improvement from 1st run to best run in %. The lower the # the less difference there is between the 1st run and the best run.
Since it's a manual process I did it only for 5 persons. If the first run had a cone I took the time without it. If 1st was DNF I took the 2nd.

James Feinberg 2.3%
Mike Whitney 2.3%
Carl Fisher 3%
Patrice Bousquet 3%
Scott Johnson 4.2%
Scott had 1 event where is 1st run really suck. Discarding that event he is at 2.6%.

Patrice

Grasshopper you still have a little to learn...rough calculations had me around 1.8% difference I did toss a couple of events, but it did include 3 different typoes of cars on three different rubber compounds

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Jim Pastorius
2008 Silverado VortecMax
1992 Camaro CMC#92
2002 BMW R1150R

2009 3rd Place CMC Mid-Atlantic Championship
2009 CMC Hyperfest Winner

Damn you guys, now I have another stat to start tracking.

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02 Focus SVT
STF 9

Hey, somebody had to do it.

Well hell, if you're going to start tossing events you might as well throw out my first couple and last couple as well. The first event was the 2nd time I ever drove the car and I made huge changes from the first time I drove it (which happened to be the day before). I also made huge changes again for the 2nd event and it may as well not have been the same car. Same goes for the last points event and the non-points event since nationals was over and I discovered the rear sway bar wasn't connected. Not to mention the passengers in the last 2 events which in a 1900lb car, makes a *huge* difference. One of which who was self-admittedly well over 200lbs. That puts me at 1.4%.

Statistics are funny that way, so there!

Jim

I am putting all of the data into a database so I can generate some stats. Should be done tomorrow afternoon sometime. Stay tuned.

PS: Once in the DB I should be able to provide files (CSV, Excel, etc.) of the raw data to anyone that wants to do their own stats.

_________________
Richard Casto
1972 Porsche 914
2013 Honda Fit Sport
2015 Honda Fit EX
http://motorsport.zyyz.com
Money can't buy happiness, but somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a Porsche than a Kia.