2015 Autocross Solo Guide
Chapter 3: Seat Time
Chapter 3: Seat Time
Chapter 3 Driving Techniques - Seat Time
Seat Time
I'm counting around 20 events this year in the St. Louis region alone. It's also a good chance to drive/experiment without being as worried about how you do. Sometimes when you race competitively you get too caught up in getting in a clean run (no cones) that you end up driving too conservatively. Finally you'll also want to visit http://ccsportscarclub.org/ & hit Online Registration and register on axware at least for that very first event ($5 discount for online preregistration).
So, there's really no way around seat time, but there are ways to speed it up. Obviously we have our Test 'n Tunes on 3/29 & 8/2 in STL. 20 runs each driver for $45-50. There are also novice schools that you can attend both in Champaign & in St. Louis. Champaign has it's annual driver's school on 4/11/15 for $75, which to me is extremely worth it - I'll probably bring my Evo to that one if the car is ready. You get 1 on 1 instruction & about 20 runs. St. Louis has 3 schools - Evo School (coincidental naming), Novice School, and Starting Line. The Novice School is about $100 for 20 runs, it's the only one worth the money.. The other schools are both a few hundred each.You can attend all or none of these. You may or may not get anything out of the instruction, but seat time always always helps, especially in a non-competitive environment once in a while.
I'd say 60-100 runs (10-15 events) is a great amount of racing for one season. Just as an FYI, my hypothesis is that it takes at least 1,000 runs to get to "nationals" level, about 10 years worth of autoxing. I'm cramming down 200+ runs/yr in hopes of getting nats-level good as quickly as possible, so I'm still in the early phases of my experiment. The first year you improve/correct the big stuff, and every year after that is just more and more marginal things, tenths at a time.
Anyway, the real key of seat time is that you get used to pushing the car. For me, I know my technique still isn't great and my lines are still meh, but the one big thing I gained in 2014 is that I'm now used to being on the edge. You learn to trust the car. You might hear me shout that if I ride along with you in the beginning. Trust the car, it can go faster. You start to understand how fast the car can go under what circumstances. At times, you'll spin out, have tank slappers - you'll be on the ragged edge, but you'll start to get it. Even on the last event of the year last year I spun out on my first run. After that, I had a friend ride along with me throughout that event and he told me there were multiple times he thought I was gonna lose it - but I never did, and I never ever felt like it was out of control. That's the goal as far as what kind of comfort level you want to reach driving the car.
When you're not comfortable, it makes a huge difference. I dropped about 20 places in index the one time I drove Doctor STS Miata. First time driving a Miata, or rwd, in anger. I just wasn't comfortable pushing the car. Didn't know how fast the car could go. In the slaloms I'd be worried about spinning out and losing it, etc. I'm 100% certain I would have actually gone faster in my Mini than I had in his car. Just goes to show how important getting used to one specific car is.
I was going to include Looking Ahead this chapter but it's fairly important & long, so I decided to make it it's own. Also, I probably should have included this in the last chapter - I'd strongly recommend getting your own helmet - borrowing helmets is nasty and we're going to be driving a lot this year. These are quite cheap & legal: http://www.amazon.com/gp/
Next chapter: Looking Ahead
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