Autocross #10 November 21, 2005
Yesterday was the Gold Coast Porsche Club of America event at the Bank Atlantic Center. This was my second event with that club and at the site. One thing that I really love about this club is that they do a parade lap at the start of each run group’s first session. Becoming familiar with the course is a key part of autocrossing. The normal procedure is to walk the course once or twice in the morning and try not to forget everything before your run group comes up — which could be some time later if your group isn’t first. I usually try to keep my memory fresh by doing some spectating from the sidelines right before my group is called or paying close attention to certain cars during my work assignment.
This unfortunately does not work very well at the Bank Atlantic Center — elevation changes, medians, trees, and lightposts obscure portions of the course from every safe vantage point. Without the parade lap it would be nearly impossible for me to keep the course memorized. Knowing this time that we would have the parade lap I didn’t even bother walking the course — being in the last run group guaranteed I wouldn’t remember anything and I don’t enjoy walking around a massive asphalt lot in the hot South Florida sun.
What I don’t like about the GC PCA events is that it’s so hard to judge my performance. I like using Jorge as my benchmark because he is a good driver and his WRX is basically modified to the Street Touring X limits, but he was a no-show at this event. So I was left comparing my performance against another guy that I’d met my first time autocrossing, Drew in a WRX STi running in E Street Prepared. His STi has extensive suspension and handling upgrades but the powertrain is still stock. My best raw time for the day was less than 2 seconds behind him. The last time we were at the same event was in August with Drew over 7 seconds ahead of me, but keep in mind that was my second time autocrossing and the Saabaru was still unmodified at the time.
That does make it seem like I did pretty well yesterday but I can’t say that I was feeling it. The Bank Atlantic Center site itself is part of that. The constant elevation changes are an interesting feature, exciting even, but they put the car “off balance” coming into many of the turns and slaloms. That’s an added challenge that I’m just not used to and it takes away confidence in my performance.
I also know that I wasn’t getting some things right. Not keeping my eyes focused far enough ahead was probably my worst sin. Keeping your eyes locked on where you want to go, not where you’re going, is probably the most important thing in autocrossing after keeping your hands on the wheel and not hitting any courseworkers. It’s very easy for me to forget that when I feel challenged by a course. On my final run I kept silently repeating to myself “Look further ahead” and picked up about half a second, too bad I hadn’t thought of that earlier in the day.
My new Kumho MXs in the rear are still a bit slippery so I’m going to keep them on the car for the next week or two to break them in a bit. Need to give the fronts a good examination this week, they may only have a few events left in them. When it’s time for replacements I must remember to order them shaved.
The next event is in two weeks with Equipe Rapide at the same site. I’m hoping that time of year and the shift from Miami-Dade to Broward county will significantly reduce the turn-out. ER’s events tend not to be the best organized, too many cars and not enough staff to keep things running smoothly, and this site’s layout will pose some additional staging challenges if we have the typical 100+ entrants.
Hopefully with the upcoming four-day weekend I can find some time to edit the video from this event and the previous one and get them online.
