Daily drive your autocross car?

Todd Breakey · **Posted:** Wed Aug 03, 2005 10:13 pm

I swap back and forth between my Miata (current autox car) and my Mustang (retired autox car) With a little Minivan time thrown in for good measure. Also, all of my previous autox cars were daily drivers.

MarcusMcRae · **Posted:** Wed Aug 03, 2005 10:50 pm

It's a car, you should drive it, is my motto. I never change tires and just change the front camber for events. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling every morning when I start it up for the morning commute

Graham Jagger · **Joined:** Fri Aug 29, 2003 12:53 am **Posts:** 1718

steve remchak wrote:

Graham, you should lobby for novice exemption. :lol:

I've been doing my darndest to make you Novices not come back this year. But you guys/gals keep on showing up anyway. I won't get exemption from Novice Coordinator at this rate...

Oh wait, that wasn't the exemption you meant was it :wink:

robharvey · **Posted:** Thu Aug 04, 2005 7:43 am

The M3 is my daily driver. It took a while to find the car because I wanted a 4-door (97-98 only) in order to easily take my 2 kids from place to place. I find myself telecommuting less since I bought the car simply because it's so stinking FUN to drive. As a matter of fact, I drive about 5 extra miles (23 miles one way) going to work just so I can take back roads with lots of curves!

I did my first autox after having the car for only 1.5 weeks. My 2nd autox was 5 months later (Mar 2005) and it was a night and day difference after having that time to learn how the car handles during daily driving. Since I live in a more rural area with lots of back country roads, I will admit that I have pushed the car pretty hard (which is probably only about 8/10 to an experienced driver) just trying to learn how the car handles.

While I'm new to autox (6 events) and to track (1 event), I find myself struggling to find the level of prep I'm willing to do on the car to make it more competitive, yet keep it soft enough that it's still fun to drive as my daily car.

It's all about balance, but for someone who knows very little about the mechanics of a car, I'm talking to lots of people within the club to learn from their experience before I start sinking any money into making changes.

jimpastorius · **Posted:** Thu Aug 04, 2005 8:54 am

MarcusMcRae wrote:

It's a car, you should drive it, is my motto. I never change tires and just change the front camber for events. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling every morning when I start it up for the morning commute

Unless there were only 709 of them built...then you are a little more discriminating

But the Camaro is in downtowm Durham today...95 degree day and no AC.

The MR2 has only 3000 miles on it since I bought it 5 years ago. Up until this year, it saw action 3 out of 4 weekends a month. I was just too darn lazy to be changing to street tires that often. Sometiems the car never made it off the trailer

MarcusMcRae · **Posted:** Thu Aug 04, 2005 10:59 am

jimpastorius wrote:

MarcusMcRae wrote:

It's a car, you should drive it, is my motto. I never change tires and just change the front camber for events. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling every morning when I start it up for the morning commute

Unless there were only 709 of them built...then you are a little more discriminating

But the Camaro is in downtowm Durham today...95 degree day and no AC.

The MR2 has only 3000 miles on it since I bought it 5 years ago. Up until this year, it saw action 3 out of 4 weekends a month. I was just too darn lazy to be changing to street tires that often. Sometiems the car never made it off the trailer

Yeah, rarity would make me think twice about driving it "every" day. The subaru is nice because it has 4 doors, a trunk, and goes like stink. I will probably drive it till the doors fall off.

Ryan Holton · **Posted:** Thu Aug 04, 2005 11:33 am

MarcusMcRae wrote:

It's a car, you should drive it, is my motto. I never change tires and just change the front camber for events. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling every morning when I start it up for the morning commute

Take this from a voice of experience. WATCH YOUR TOE!!!! I ruined a set of tires playing with camber between events.

TOE kills tires, camber does not.

MarcusMcRae · **Posted:** Thu Aug 04, 2005 11:50 am

Ryan Holton wrote:

MarcusMcRae wrote:

It's a car, you should drive it, is my motto. I never change tires and just change the front camber for events. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling every morning when I start it up for the morning commute

Take this from a voice of experience. WATCH YOUR TOE!!!! I ruined a set of tires playing with camber between events.

TOE kills tires, camber does not.

I have my camber plates marked for my street setting at zero toe and push plates in for events. I check it with the measuring tape and it has been zero each time(I know, not the most accurate). So far the tires are wearing fine.

Bernie Baake · **Posted:** Sat Aug 06, 2005 9:06 am

Miles wrote:

Now it is just possible, though very rare it should be, that autocrossing might help you in your street car. Once your reflexes and all those involuntary car control responses are hard wired in your brain from a season or ten of autocrossing the same car, if you ever have a car pull out in front of you or have to make some type of emergency maneuver, you are probably going to react in a manner that is more appropriate to the car you are used to driving that way....... i.e. your autox car.

Make the lane change maneuver in your SUV with the same inputs your used to making in your Miata and you'll be looking at the clouds against the bottom side of the dashboard.

The above is a little bit of a far fetched example. I've had to swerve to miss other cars, objects in the road, etc. in a big four door sedan after being used to driving a sports car, and I haven't exactly rolled the car yet. The less sensitive controls on a big sedan or SUV probably damped those rapid inputs you'd make with your little Miata steering wheel anyway.

A funny thing happened to me about two weeks ago while driving down NC 55 from Kinston to Newton Grove. At the intersection of NC55 and NC 903 while heading north, a south bound vehicle abruptly made a left hand turn seventy feet or so in front of me. There were cars waiting to cross 55 on both sides and more oncoming traffic heading south. I was doing sixty-five mph. I swerved to the left without braking and avoided the turning SUV then tried to swerve to the right to avoid the truck waiting to cross 55. This resulted in a skid that slid me off the road to the right and into a drainage ditch. I then proceeded to take down a NC 55 marker mounted on a four by four post. at this time I thought it might be prudent to get back on the road because two more sign posts were looming in the near distance.... Big Mistake!!! I was braking at this point and when the front wheels hit the road surface they grabbed, spinning my truck 180 degrees. I slid that way to the left side of the road and went down into a soybean field, when the tires hit the soft sand the tire broke the bead seal and they deflated causing the truck to roll over.... There I sat looking at the clouds it was raining....
The point is, it can happen and when it happens to you it;s not a rare occurrence.
Ten minutes prior to this I had become tired and cramped so I decided to change my driving position. I move closer to the wheel and held it in the three and nine o'clock positions!! When they pulled me out of the overturned truck the driver of the vehicle waiting to cross NC 55 said " I saw her pull in front of you and said to myself this is going to get ugly fast and I'm going to get hit also, I don't know how you made it past without hitting either of us". (I made believe they were cones, but I didn't tell them that.
I am sure a head on at that speed would have killed us both!!!!
Not so far fetched Miles!!!

steve remchak · **Posted:** Sat Aug 06, 2005 9:47 am

sorry to hear that Bernie, hope you are alright. steve

Bernie Baake · **Posted:** Sat Aug 06, 2005 12:32 pm

Thanks Steve,
Remarkably I walked out without so much as a scratch, no one that saw the wreck could believe it.
Seat belts work!!!

Graham Jagger · **Joined:** Fri Aug 29, 2003 12:53 am **Posts:** 1718

Bernie Baake wrote:

Thanks Steve,
Remarkably I walked out without so much as a scratch, no one that saw the wreck could believe it.
Seat belts work!!!

Good for you Bernie. Glad you're ok. Now try selling that to people. Tell them learning to dodge so those silly little cones not only improves their skill at turning the wheel. But most importantly improves their reaction time and ability to see things in a moment. Things most drivers won't react to.

Carl Fisher · **Posted:** Sun Aug 07, 2005 6:09 pm

MarcusMcRae wrote:

I will probably drive it till the doors fall off.

Ryan Holton wrote:

Take this from a voice of experience. WATCH YOUR TOE!!!!

How's that toe healing, Ryan? :wink:

joedobner · **Joined:** Thu Apr 01, 2004 3:15 pm **Posts:** 85

I daily drive my Reliant. Those groceries ain't gonna get themselves, now are they?

Chuck Frank · **Posted:** Tue Aug 09, 2005 1:22 pm

We have put ~100K street miles on both the Celi and the Miata (just got back from Toledo Pro last night) mostly to and from national events. Do I think it helps my AX driving? My answer would be NO!, I think it hurts, hard to change mental gears and butt-o-meter from driving on the street at 4/10 for 12 hrs with a tire trailer on the back to driving the same car at 10/10 a couple hrs and a tire change later.

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Daily drive your autocross car?

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