Quote:
Originally Posted by sperry
I'd be faster if I was willing to let the back end slide around more... I'm just chicken about it. I need to get some seat time in a Miata or S2000... something that can handle a ton of slip angle w/o spinning... and get some practice. I know my WRX gets about .5 deg of slip and then it's spinning.  |
You missed out on that Mazda zoom zoom event awhile ago... It was interesting auto-x'ing the miatas and experiencing that slip angle you mention. Its pretty fun, however, driving that way gives you less room to make a mistake, because once you commit to getting the back end sliding out like that on that kind of car you cant correct that much, you just have to stick with it...
Anyway, about the Auto-X vs. Track driver thing, I think it has more to do with reaction time, memory, and "space" than anything else. In auto-x, you have very little room to work with (but its safe) and a very short amount of time to react between corners, along with having to memorize a track design quickly. These translate over to road course driving very well.
I still remember the first lap I took at Thunderhill and was like "OMG, I have sooo much room here!" IE being able to go from one side of the track to the other. It took just a lap or two in order to figure out where the racing line was and memorize the basics of the track, but it took much MUCH more time/laps to figure out what speeds to use since tracks are at such higher speeds...
For a track driver trying to go to an auto-x, its more difficult. Quick reactions like during an auto-x are not required driving on a track as you have TONS of time to think about what to do for each corner, so I presume a track driver might take quite awhile to get used to reacting so quickly and having to sacrifice accuracy in each corner for just actually turning quick enough to make the corner
As for the space difference between the two, it must make a track driver feel claustraphobic at an autox event having so little room to work with. Also, for memory, a track driver could technically get away with having a poor memory, as you really only need to look one or two corners ahead and never remember that much other than where to enter/exit the track, and you have several laps of course to memorize everything, while an auto-x'er needs to memorize the layout a bit before hand and at most during the first run in order to be as quick as possible...
Now, i'm not saying one or the other is better, none of us are, but there is definatly a different learning curve for each kind of driver learning either event.
Oh, and I'm just going to sign up for the Novice group... The field looks more interesting in that group. I plan on signing up in a week or so after I order my brakes
