THSCC Forums

ohhhh yeah

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

PJ one of the novices signed up is my roommate. He has run a couple of events with us in the past. I will keep him in line. That will be one less novice for you guys to worry about if you are still in a number crunch come Sunday.

I have some questions and a silly request. From an instructor stand point, is there any relevance if the car we are assigned is FWD or RWD? I've only driven rear drives. I'm assuming at this stage, no, since we are just going over the basics. I also know that my driving style on a RWD car is to typically turn early on slaloms. Does this generally hold true for FWD cars? I ask because I want to give the students the correct advice for the car they are driving.

As for my request, and I know there are a few folks that have the same problem I have, would you so kind as to assign me to a driver/car that has some head room please? Hard to teach when you have the seat laid back so far for head room that you can't see over the dash.


thanks...

_________________
Rodney

'08 Bullitt mustang, CAM 7
Autox VP '09-'10, President '11-'12, interim President 2nd half of ‘14
proud recipient of the Bowie Grey service award '12
Now just a guy driving a mustang....

I find if I'm turning too early then it means I need to go fastar!!!

Ha ha ha.

Simon

In a front wheel drive car that is in stock class I have found very good advice in aim for the cone and if you are going fast enough you will slide right around the cone. The problem is that this took a whole event to master and a few killed cones. So if you aim for the cone and hit it that means you need to go faster.

_________________
2010 Honda Fit Sport
Couple of bicycles

You tell a newb to aim at a cone, and he'll focus on that instead of looking ahead, and will be going slow enough to make course workers want to slap you for hitting that cone every run.

_________________
Has no responsibility whatsoever.

I wasn't saying to tell a noob to aim for a cone. Rodney asked about where to turn in a FWD compared to a RWD so I answered his question and just went a little more indepth. I totally agree not to tell a novice to aim for the cones. Cutting the cones closer becomes more important after you know to look ahead and stay on course.

_________________
2010 Honda Fit Sport
Couple of bicycles

Which Keith Vail offered the advice a couple of posts up then, your evil twin?

_________________
Has no responsibility whatsoever.

I'd say that is poor advice for a novice *and* experienced driver if I'm understanding you correctly. In my experience, once you break traction with both front wheels of a FWD car, you are going to lose time no matter what happens next. I think that would be worse for a stock-class car since they are generally slower to recover from stuff like that.

I think a more reasonable goal would be to try and run over cones with the rear of the car. That should put you right on top of them and if you are getting a little rear rotation, it will only help minimize the chance of hitting them.

Jim

Let me just clarify, I was saying in my experience and it is advice I received when I was a Novice several years ago from a guy who drove an EP Sirocco. It has worked really well for me when I drove a front drive car whether it was my HS Civic or my STS Integra. It is obviously not for everyone as most here seem to think it is bad advice. For me it worked as after a run or two I was going fast enough to get around the corners and just touch the cone but not enough to move it.

_________________
2010 Honda Fit Sport
Couple of bicycles

Wow, you turn early on slaloms? In my experience the turn in point is based on traction, not which wheels are driving the car forward. Oh, and turning early is almost always a good thing no matter what car you are driving.

_________________
Vincent Keene
'06 Ford Mustang GT (track rat)
'15 Dodge Charger R/T (yeah, it's got a HEMI!)
'07 Ford Fusion SE (205,000 miles and counting)
'98 Chevy Z-24 (retired)
'93 Acura Integra (Team SWB 24HOL Car)

It probably did make you faster since you were getting closer to the cones than you were before. It just sounds to me like you were over-driving the car and losing the front end. I would have given different advice in the same situation, that's all.



I was focusing on this part of your statement with regard to a FWD car. Like I said, that was just how I interpreted your statement.

If you are sliding both front wheels past a cone, it generally means you can't get back on the power as early as somebody who isn't. Well, to be accurate, you probably can get back on the power as soon but it isn't going to result in nearly the same forward acceleration. It will feel fast as heck but the clock won't lie.

Ultimately, I think it would have been even faster to slow down a hair to keep the front wheels rolling.

On the other hand, if you're driving a hack-mobile, have at it!

Jim

Jim, I always found that the fastest way around the cones in my Integra was driving it like that. I wouldn't say I was overdriving it much, there have been times I knew right away I was overdriving. I had the car very stiff and the rear would actually hop around because my spring rates were too stiff but I sold the car because I gave up on developing it further against the Civics in STS. The stiff springs made me a very smooth and patient driver. The slide I am talking about is not much considering I was on the RT-215 Azenis they would allow a small amount of slide that was just enough for what I wanted. I don't want it to be thought that I was drifting around the cones because I wasn't sliding much. Hopefully this clarifies my earlier statement some.

_________________
2010 Honda Fit Sport
Couple of bicycles

Rodney, if your question refers to the reaction of FWD cars to driver input vs the reaction of RWD cars to driver input, I believe the definitive answer to your question would be "it depends".

As regular autoX rides, I've been from Miata to Neon to MINI. As anyone who has ever driven one will attest, a Miata will just about "turn on a dime". When I switched to Carl's Neon, it was a love-hate relationship as, I spun it a lot less, but it reacted to every input a lot slower. Not being one to jump from car to car very often, for quite a few years I considered that slower reaction just to be a function of FWD. It wasn't until I took a fun-run in the Frank's Celica a couple of years ago that I discovered it was a Neon trait, not a FWD trait! Driving the MINI has only reaffirmed that assessment!

In addition to simply the variable reaction times of the various FWD cars, in FWD just as in RWD, car setup (shocks, tires, & tire pressures are mostly what I'm familiar with) makes a difference.

So, having said all of that, my opinion would be that "turn early" is always good general advice regardless of vehicle type. The main reason being, no matter what they're driving, "normal" drivers can't react nearly as quickly as they can think; meaning, by the time I can react to thinking "I should turn here", "here" is now behind me. How early just takes some (much/never-ending ) practice.

_________________
The person with too many names...
Mary E./ME/Emmie Fisher/Daniel/Daniel-Fisher
(& some others not suitable for posting!).
Help support our habits; BUY http://virginiabreeze.us !

I hate to bring this up but... regardless of how you tell them to get around cones. Make sure you tell them that if they get completely out of shape or start going off course. Two feet in and wheels pointed straight...

_________________
http://www.greywinds.com