I just had a very interesting weekend with my car. Saturday I attended a SCCA Starting Line Autocross school taught by Jenny Williams, Heyward Wagner, John Hunter and Craig Wilcox...all very experienced autocrossers and instructors. The school was patterned after the Evolution Performance driving schools and featured an oval setup which converted into a figure 8, a slalom setup, and then the afternoon session was making runs on an autocross course.
The students were split up into 2 groups and 2 instructors were assigned to each group. The instructor would get in the passenger seat, tell us what to do with live instructions, then get in the driver's seat and SHOW us what to do in our cars, then get back in the passenger seat and instruct us some more. Lots of repetition over and over and over again to learn what they were teaching and put it into play.
It rained... My time on the oval was dry, but as our group moved to the slalom it started to rain. The class kept going because we autocross in the rain, why not learn in the rain. We then broke for lunch (I had to make a quick run to get some gas if that gives you any indication how much we ran during the morning). Then as we started the afternoon session on the autocross course, it REALLY started to rain. At one point the lightening got too close so they pulled the workers off of the course, one of the instructors got in his car and went to the back stretch watched for cones and would flash his lights at the start for the next car to go. Here is a picture I took while sitting in my car waiting for my turn at the course.
Yes, that is a car coming off the course in that weather!!!
If you want to learn how to make your car grip to it's maximum level, what better way to do it than in rain like that!!
It did let up some by the time I ran but it was still very wet. Here were my last two runs on the course after my instructor Heyward had gotten out of the car to go on to the next student.
I was taught Saturday exactly how to make transfer the weight where it needed to be to make the car stick. Period...
It was eye opening to say the least. I never touched a shock, tire pressure, worried about my line...nothing. All we worked on was transferring weight to make the car work.
The car performed great. 3 of the 4 instructors all got time in the car, 2 of them drove it in different conditions...and they all were very impressed with how well it worked. Heyward said to me "This car just works". Big thanks to Ron Sutton for that...
At Sunday's race, it was time to put all that learning into motion. My first two runs were off a bit, on my second run John Hunter got in the passenger seat with for the first time (the instructors came back on Sunday to the event on their own time, had a little race competition between themselves and also rode with a bunch of racers to help them as well, how cool is that?). After the run he told 1 or 2 things I could do to tighten things up. My next run I shaved over 2 seconds off my time...from a 51.70 to a 49.6! Again, never touched the car once. All driver...
What I learned this weekend was more important though...if the driver transfers the weight properly, this car just flat out works, rain or shine.
Big shout out to Ron Sutton for the help with the setup and to the SCCA Starting Line School Program, they put on a fantastic school in the very worst conditions possible...and taught 24 of us SO MUCH about getting the most out of our cars on the course.
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Lance
1985 Monte Carlo SS Street Car
It is money well spent if you want to do this well. Being able to do something over and over and over again until you get it right, with someone standing on your shoulder telling you exactly what to do the whole time...is the best way to learn.
I'm watching my videos of all 6 runs now and am identifying exactly what I did wrong on every run that cost me time. There was even more in the car that I didn't get out of it. At least I know now what to watch for and hopefully eventually it'll start to sink in while I'm making the runs, not afterward.
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Lance
1985 Monte Carlo SS Street Car
Brian Hobaugh SCCA National Tour June 2014
First Hemi 'Cuda Convertible Ever Built
Short clips: Goodguys Pleasanton autocross and pit videos
SCCA Starting Line School Report
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