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Needless to say I had an absolute blast yesterday. I thought the course was awesome in that it had a little something for everyone. It also had some very deceptively fast elements which I liked. The corner Karl mentioned above was one of the biggest ones. I actually glanced at the speedo once entering that and I was going nearly 40, and that was on one of my slower runs. Of course it doesn't hurt having utterly massive fresh sticky tires. The other big one was the "vertical" gate near the start line before the diagonal slalom. Getting way right and using a large arc through it I did it with just a little lift and near the top of 2nd gear. I think the "wiggle room" element was another of those spots, didn't even lift for that, quite literally just a little "wiggle" of the steering wheel and I was hitting the rev limiter in second right after exit. What a freakin hoot!

As for the wheel debate, I did it CCW all day. I think it would be car dependent, and if I were in the Miata I would have taken it CW to give myself some straight braking and hopefully avoid brake lockup. But with ABS my reasoning was that CCW allowed for much better acceleration out of the element and put the cones on the left door making it easier to be close to them.

An older gentlemen I didn't recognize walked past my idling car in the morning after Jason's morning runs and made the statement. "You've sufficiently nasty'd this car up to make it interesting." I found that quite amusing as I have referred to the car as "The Nasty B@stard". I think I'll make that its official nickname. A C4 is not so bad I guess....

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'07, '08, '11 Autocross VP
'06, '10 Mike Dishman Cup
'21 MX5, '13 Corvette GS, '92 Corvette 383 c.i. 413whp/390wtq, '03 Expedition

In an amazing turn of events, the race stewards have added 25 seconds to every run that Colin O'Connell drove during yesterday's event for illegally cutting the chicane!

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Has no responsibility whatsoever.

You should lock this thread before it gets out of control.

Chicane??!! what chicane? I don't remember any chicane......

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Colin O'Connell

'94 BMW NASA SPEC 3
'02 F350 tow vehicle (not bad for a tow vehicle)
'97 Miata STO (autoX and sunny day spoils vehicle)
'97 BMW 328i (loaner to the kids when their cars don't work vehicle)
'05 Toyota Highlander

One of my favorite courses of the year. It's between this one and the course on the saturday before the Jimmy V event. Kudoz to the event chairs.

I am looking forward to getting some new tires for next year. My two year old Victoracers were not giving too much grip in the cool temps yesterday. Every time I went through those two elements before and after the "wheel" I was scaring myself silly the car was sliding so much.

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Silver Honda
Green Ford
Blue/White Suzuki
Red Triumph
Grey BMW

"Never let life be shaped by fear of its end"

No, you're a towel!

Great course! Fun, long and fast... and at Sanford!

The course was a lot of fun. I only regret coning away a 1st place in SM.

A BIG Thanks to the event chairs!

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"Ruttin' is racing"

Chris Suich
Apex, NC
AutoX 2012 Nissan Leaf (Quietly changing the world)
AutoX 2003 Mini Cooper S (on sabbatical)
RallyX 1993 Nissan Sentra - "Le Tigre"
FunX 1970 Camaro LT1 ('95)

Wow, what a great course. It has been far too long since I've done this.
I must not have been holding my mouth right in the right hander coming onto the taxiway; no way could I keep it flat. I was brushing the brakes lightly to force rotation so I would be pointed in the right general direction for the approach to the slalom. We were running the BMW325 on 3 year old Azenis because I didn't get the chance to wear them out at the track, but the thrill factor was still there.

To get a perspective on the tire grip, were any other moderate HP cars having to feather the throttle between the start and the exit to the first 3-gate sweeper?

I had to leave early to see a gentleman in Sanford about a truck, so I missed seeing the results. Any chance that the results will be posted?
Charlie Guthrie
DSP 5

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1998 BMW Z3
1987 BMW 325is
2000 BMW
1996 F250 Turbo Diesel

Echoing what everybody else already said, it was a very fun course. I honestly can't remember a better course at Sanford.

Regarding the direction around the "wheel", I've datalogged enough of those types of elements that it was an easy choice for me. I never considered going CCW and I don't think it was car dependent-- at least in terms of the cars that were present at the event.

In order go CCW, you had to move your braking point back far enough that you would never gain that time back covering the same distance under acceleration on the exit regardless of how fast your car is. If the gate preceding the wheel was further back, it may have been a different story but that I don't think that was the case here.

Even if we assume it was slightly faster going CCW, the chances of executing the perfect entry to the wheel in 4 runs was somewhere between slim and none. I'd rather take a 90% chance of getting all the time going CW versus a 10% chance of getting it all going CCW. You'd have to be an alien or something to take a gamble on that 10% chance...

Jim

hmmm...i took ccw for every run except my first. i guess it felt a little more comfortable being slower and more stable entering the turn. if i went cw, i would overspeed and brake too far into the turn probably every time...just me and my careless driving. going cw and accelerating in first gear while turning is not really something i like to do in my car either. shows how much i know how to go fast...

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'08 Fit: tried hard, still not a race car. now retired

Charlie, one word comes to mind.

"Duh."



--Karl, who had 30-run-old, 275mm-wide Hoosiers...

That's a great point Jim. On my first run I didn't even hit the wheel due to a dnf sliding though the grass at station #2 (where I worked- salt in the wound ), run two went CCW and went waaaay to far off line pushing out, runs three and four CW and dropped 1.5 seconds.

I'm still learning where to brake in the M, so going CW made it easier with a straight shot entry into the element. Plus, the amount of steering inputs wasn't as great as a thought it would be on the exit coming into the 'mountain' (that's the way it looked on the course map) offsets.

I wasn't particularly fast on Sunday but was on significantly better tires (fairly well used V710s) than yours, albeit with a little more HP also, and there was no way I could hold it flat from the start through the first 3-gate sweeper, I had to hit brakes fairly hard entering that first feature or stand no chance of making the second 3-gate sweeper. I also couldn't hold it anywhere near flat off the start due to having an open rear diff - on my first run (holding it flat), the inside rear spun all the way until I lifted at entry to that first feature.

I also wasn't able to hold it flat through the crossover, as Karl described, had to brake tap just before the hard right onto the taxiway to rotate the car and keep it from pushing off the left side of the taxiway. The only way I could've held it flat there was if my car had significantly more grip up front.

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Keith Q.
2008 Top Gun
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmX8XuZ_DCo&NR=1

I chose CCW on all four runs. I made that decision during the course walk and never really second guessed it. I was able to handle the small steering inputs while braking on the entry to the right and the extra line for accelerating out felt like the best combination. I was happy with my times, but Jim's post makes me wonder if I should have tried it CW.

I will say that I liked the wheel setup that was used a lot more than a pivot cone. I never drive a pivot cone the way it should be driven.

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Colin O'Connell

'94 BMW NASA SPEC 3
'02 F350 tow vehicle (not bad for a tow vehicle)
'97 Miata STO (autoX and sunny day spoils vehicle)
'97 BMW 328i (loaner to the kids when their cars don't work vehicle)
'05 Toyota Highlander

I'm certainly not going to argue your logic as it applies to Jim Feinberg, but keep in mind you operate on a different plane than most of the rest of us, so much so that even your human origins have been questioned. I imagine that you can precisely place a car anywhere, anytime you like on an autocross course, but that is not a skill the rest of us possess my friend. Us humans have limitations. Just like my approach to a particular golf hole with a water hazard might be somewhat different than say Tiger Woods, my best practical approach to a particular autocross element might be different than yours. I know I can much more easily and precisely navigate a tight turn around when I'm turning left. Now since I've never even seen a datalogger, I don't really know if an extra ten feet deeper braking overcomes the advantage of a one foot tighter line on a slow turn around, but intuitively to me it seems that it would not. Of course you are probably right, heck you went just as fast as me in a stock Japanese econobox when I'm in America's finest sports car, maybe I should get me one of those dataloggers, they are getting pretty cheap these days right?

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'07, '08, '11 Autocross VP
'06, '10 Mike Dishman Cup
'21 MX5, '13 Corvette GS, '92 Corvette 383 c.i. 413whp/390wtq, '03 Expedition

On my course walk, I figured I would be fastest around the wheel going CW. My car doesn't have ABS, so I figured I could brake later and avoid locking the wheels since I wouldn't have to turn under braking. I went CW in the morning, but I found I was having to stay off the gas longer in the exit (curse open differentials). I tried going CCW in the afternoon, with no braking issues whatsoever. I also found it was easier to place the car on a tight line while turning left because of the visibility. Was CCW faster? Maybe not, but it was much more entertaining to drive.

As for my flamboyant driving in the morning, I chalk that up to a combination of cold tire and surface temperatures, too much pressure in the rear tires, and way too much standing on the brakes right after turn in. Absent those issues in the afternoon, my times improved by around 4 seconds.

Kudos to everyone involved for putting on an amazing event!