Does anyone mind giving me feedback on my Day 1 run? The other CS cars were ~5 seconds faster than me with similar tires. I noticed I could be closer to the cones during the three hairpins and I definitely lost a second or two right before the stop box.

This is your first year competing Kelvin, you were against some seasoned vets. SEAT TIME, SEAT TIME, SEAT TIME!!! You will get better eventually.

It's also very hard to tell from the camera angle in your video.

Judging by the throttle position, there were a lot of places you could have picked up full throttle instead of neutral or coasting. The little point and squirt areas at the top of the circuit in particular.

Cross post from Facebook

Results from the 2014 Canadian Autoslalom Championships / Slalom@Slemon are posted on the MMSC page:
http://www.cac2014.mmsc.ca/results/

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Brent O'Connor
ASCC Member
MHPDC Volunteer
2007 Mustang GT
Kentville

Your right, I only made that lame attempt at humour because you were doing so well. I apologize especially seeing that you beat me the first day

Speaking of comparisons ...it's quite interesting that side by side comparison with other videos doesn't show me gaining anything until the last part of the course. Does it take that long for radial slicks to heat up, do I need to be booking some dyno time, or am I also leaving something on the table?

Love to see videos from the Subey's that beat me (if anybody finds them online) to compare too?

Thanks
Stacy

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The fricton circle for my 911 Porsche resembles more of an oblong... I'm either trailbraking or accelerating while trying to get it to turn!

From the champ:

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'99 BMW M3 / "Elvic"

In my crude understanding of Pax I find it very hard to understand how that beast of a car is only .007 more than my BSP car. Even if I had a max prep SP car there is no way I could ever compete. Seems to me that SM should be in the low .90's at the very least, especially a fully built one. Am I off base or is that the general thought on SM as a class?

Kelvin, here's a little bit of insight I give to all new racers:

1) You aren't looking far enough ahead. I don't know how far ahead you are looking, but based on your steering inputs and throttle inputs, you aren't looking far enough ahead. Work on this every day, when you're driving on the streets. And when you think you're looking far enough ahead, you aren't looking far enough ahead.

2) This goes along with #1, but try to be on the throttle more. Your goal is to be on the gas as much as possible. Don't coast. Gas or brake (even if it's just a little bit of either).

3) "Novice drivers go too fast in slow corners, and too slow in fast corners"

4) Get someone else to drive your car. Someone experienced. You can learn a LOT from the passenger seat. And since you have a datalogger, you can learn so much more by sitting down with the data afterwards.

5) For comparison's sake, here are Bryan's videos: http://vimeo.com/102668979

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#77 BRZ (from Ontario) at the 2014 CAC.

Thanks for the tips and linking Bryan's videos. I can appreciate how I'm always "behind" with my all my inputs compared to him. He's also taking a way tighter line through all the cones.

Put a piece of tape on your window near your field of view where you want to be looking. Just a small piece will remind you to look ahead instead of staring at cones. You will drive where you look and if you are staring at close cones you won't be able to flow through the course and minimize steering inputs and momentum changes.

And what Ryan said, get people to drive your car. Fun runs, codrives, whatever. Log their drives, go home and splitscreen the runs and see what they did differently. Still something I haven't taken advantage of yet, other drivers are great for input.

But most importantly, what ben said - SEAT TIME. Don't expect to do good right away. I can't speak for other people, but it took a year and a half to get truly comfortable and up near the top for raw/PAX. And then I got humbled pretty hard at nationals.

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'99 BMW M3 / "Elvic"

It doesn't appear that the SM or SP PAX values are out of line -- at least from existing national results. Here is an interesting variation on PAX (http://www.sccaforums.com/forums/aft/444834), where the index values are derived strictly from the data, without any personal "tweaking". The Google spreadsheet doesn't show much relative change in index between SP and SM.

Locally, we have a pair of cars in SM and CSP duking it out, and the PAX winner isn't ever a foregone conclusion. The SM car does seem to have the advantage on tight "power courses", where there are a lot of slow, tight sections followed by acceleration zones. On the faster, flowing courses, the CSP car usually comes out on top.

Kelvin, here are Serge's videos for another perspective:

Day 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmNhujdCPYM
Day 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5IFz_7HQ0g

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#77 BRZ (from Ontario) at the 2014 CAC.

Haha, Stacy I was just kidding. Your comment was funny, I can take it just as much as I can give it out.... your racecar was how much faster than a street driven 240sx?

If you look at last year's reults from nationals in Lincoln, where cars are simillary prepped, the street prepared cars (especially dsp) were not far off the sm times. In fact the top time in dsp beat a lot of sm cars.

Also a bsp s2000 pax'd 3rd

yeah a fully prepped S2k would put a beating on an E36 M3 lol. Maybe that is the problem I am seeing. The limitations of the E36 vs a better suited car for the class. The SCCA bsp champ beat the closest M3 by 2 seconds per day. I don't know if that is swayed by prep or driver but I would think at an SCCA nat those should be a relatively small factor.

Basically the e36 M3 is not the ideal autocross car on a national level and the faster cars are responsible for the PAX values. In STU you can't get the advantage of 285s without a LOT of compromises. You simply won't be competitive in BSP without cutting + flares. I know of one BSP M3 running 315s and I doubt anyone is running less than 285 if they want to trophy at the scca nationals. SM could be do-able but it's probably going to have to be an e46 M3 motor and you still won't get near class min weight (2440 with the 3.2 motor) legally.

I will say Val did a really good job in CS with his M3! It takes some skill to drive them stock.

This is why I'm trying to find a 93-95 325is. It's competitive in at least 2 classes (STX, DSP), all my M3 parts bolt on and I won't feel bad hacking it up for wide tires and a motor swap down the line.

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'99 BMW M3 / "Elvic"

Had a great time racing. The track layout was very interesting and much more fluid than I initially thought during my track walk. Plenty of places that rewarded forethought and proper technique.

The above two videos show my attempts at maintaining wider turning arcs for corner exit setup, but after analyzing my runs I think it would have been better if I took a more slow-in fast out approach and cut some of my exits and entrances into straighter lines.

The FRS in stock form isn’t really a momentum car.

I really enjoyed the vibe. The event was a great mix of being laid back yet professional. I also greatly appreciated the grid effort, and dedicated staging, something our local events don’t really have (often due to space limitations).

Probably won’t make such a long drive out in a long time, but hoping to make the supposed QC event in 2016!

Cheers,

Serge (91 c-stock)

also, not sure if it was up for discussion, but we've had great success in Ontario with the idea of "family grouping"

given our generally low numbers and many empty classes and the fact that everyone is scored on pax, this works out great at promoting competition by shifting the perspective of the overall results.

Certainly makes getting trophies a bit more worthwhile.

I've put this weekend's results into excel and viola...

We're actually trying that this year, it's split into 6 groups:

Street/Street-R
Street Touring
Street Prepared
Street Modified
Prepared
Modified

http://www.armsinc.ca/solosport/autosla ... standings/

SP, Prep and Mod still have attendance problems though.

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'99 BMW M3 / "Elvic"

Updated championship standings.

First of all, I would like to thank all the organizers of this event. I don't really know if I can put in to words how much fun I had the entire weekend from meeting all the competitors and catching up with friends I don't see that often. To add to that, Slemon Park is a beautiful place perfect for this event, and it was definitely worth the drive in and back home. The vibe was perfect as I expected and I really hope that I can make it back one day.



Hey Kelvin, it was nice to meet you this weekend. Hopefully your car is ok.

As far as my inputs go, don't look to much in to what I'm doing. As I explained before, I still drove the car like my ITR, so the inputs are somewhat erratic. I also kind of straight line stuff, based on my data from the weekends before (didn't take anything this weekend though). The other thing too, after watching the videos, is that I was actually looking a bit too far ahead at times. You can see how I look back and forth as well as adjust my inputs at the same time. I think due to the size of the course, it was hard for me to remember what sections were tighter than others, so I constantly looked too far ahead. But as Ryan said before, one of the keys is seat time, and as you improve as a driver you become more aware of your surroundings and how to read the course as it comes to you. I'm generally good at reading courses but because the courses had very similar sections throughout it was hard for me to remember what was going on.

The other thing, that I also learned this weekend, is that you need to be patient at times. Those tight right-left-rights (or left-right-lefts depending on the day) were sections where you needed to be patient. You have to let the car sort of do its thing before you can get back on the gas. I think my day 2 lines were better because I was looking at them as a late apex so I could stay wide at entry of the next. At the same time, if I came in with too much speed, I let the car settle down a bit before getting back to pushing it around. Again, this is something that comes with the seat time as you become more accustom to your car and your development.

Anyway, I think I'm rambling here, but yeah, seat time is key. And at the minimum, you have benchmark to work with and aim for.

Hey Kelvin

after watching your video, assuming the data overlay is accurate, you are coasting quite a bit, and when you do get on the gas it's not always with authority.

although it is actually difficult to always be on the gas OR on the brake, it should be the end goal of every run.

day 1 of the competion I felt very comfortable, and my data reflects that, see below. (blue is throttle, red is brake, throttle is a 0-100% while brake is in pressure, I simply down sampled it so it matches)

here is an overlay of my throttle and brake application, I've made little dots along the bottom that shows the places where I'm coasting. As you can see, they make up a very small portion of my entire run.

This, in general, comes from experience (reading the course, memorizing the course, looking ahead) but also from FAITH in your car.

Your little spin was an unfortunate event but a necessary one for your future progress. Continued practice with the stability control off will train your reflexes and the relationship between your inputs (brake, throttle, clutch, steering)

I can agree with this statement.
Like everyone has been saying, seat time is key for progression. From experience, you will gain a more comfortable relationship with your cars control which helps to better predict its outputs. This is something that I am still working on myself (and im sure it never stops). Though I would not say it was a "necessary" event, it is certainly one that will help give your progression a leap forward. I can say that after putting my car off the track in October (and recieving a "Spinner of the Year" plaque ), I have spent this year tayloring my driving style to be more controlled. Though it was an unfortunate event, I believe it greatly helped to improve my driving and I am sure it will benefit you in the same way.

Just my $0.02

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- 1989 Honda Crx Si
"F***'n seat broke!"

In reviewing photos from Saturday, I see that Leon sheds brake sparks too:



_ Harold

Haha, makes sense. I got the pads from Carl Wener. Also, new rotors and caliper on that side on Friday night.
Thanks for the picture Harold!

Hi guys!

It was a realy great week end. Thanks to all people involved in putting this event together. At first the course was looking a bit boring but it was totaly different from what we are used to in Quebec and at the end of the week end, it was a challenge and I liked that!

Congratulation to Mike for his great driving and car preparation. Sorry I was not able to give you a good opposition.

I am not realy good in english and I am at work so I will keep my post realy short but I had to say thanks.

Question for thgear:
I dont have dataloging, but from my experience, I would have imagined that we should see some blue and red line crosses at some point? To do that we would have to use Left Foot Braking but do you think it would be faster?

Hmmm...could this be qualified as "real time" weight reduction !!

doubt it.. since all dust ends up clinging to the car right after

maybe more along the lines of active weight distribution...

Thank you for everyone's feedback. I 100% agree on all the points made - especially about coasting and being too delicate with the throttle. I spend easily 75% of the time coasting according to Harry's and when I do gas I am rarely at 100% for a sustained period of time. It's been a struggle all season to "not drive like a little bitch" and to have "big balls"

I replaced a few plastic rivets and the bumper is looking pretty decent after 20 coats of wax. The car felt so much more alive and dynamic with stability off. It felt like I was balancing a marble on a glass slab! I'm still debating on turning everything off for smaller events with more obstacles/curbs/lamp poles.

I think I spun the car because I kept on the throttle through the slalom and used up too much rear grip. I tried countersteering but I probably lifted during the panic. At least it wasn't at AMP

I was clearly trying to take the "Spin of the Year" award for 2014, Kelvin, and would appreciate it if you left such spins to me.