Autox school 12/4/99



Date: Lap #1 Lap #2 Lap #3 Lap #4 Lap #5 Lap #6 Lap #7
12/4/99 47.0 58 46.6 46.2 46.1 45.7 45.1 44.8

This school was a really good idea for me to do. I figured it would be mostly a practice day for me but I ended up learning a lot. The classroom session was what I expected and I didn't learn anything new. However when I watched Neil Kuhns drive my car I finally know what it takes to get fast times. It only took me a couple tries to beat Neil's time too. Before I was being TOO smooth with the controls, especially with the gas. I've found that Honda's just don't have the power to get wheel spin of any concern so pretty much when you can tell you're going to clear the turn go ahead and nail the gas vs rolling on it. Also it's okay to make big steering corrections if you make a big mistake. I'd like to eventually get to where I can be totally smooth in everything I do but for now I've found that I go faster being somewhat voilently smooth, if that makes sense. I believe Victor did about 3 or 4 laps but in only 7 tries I was able to get within .1 second of his time (44.8 vs 44.7). Neil I believe evened up getting a 43.7 which ended up being the TTOD in Victor's car though). Still I think I beat most of the instructors times and all of the students. I'm pretty sure that next year I'm going to be an instructor myself.

On the first lap I took it real easy and showed Neil (my instructor) that I had decent car control and I could keep the car on "the line" while at speed. My 2nd lap I took it a bit too hot and ended up spinning it in the slalom. The 3rd lap I did a little improvement. The 4th lap is with Neil driving my car. 5th is me driving again and I beat Neil's time! 6th is me giving Rob (fellow autocrosser - Miata guy) a ride. He couldn't stop ranting about how well my car handles after the ride. Hee hee! Then finally the last two runs are me solo and I even improved with each run! The next to last run would have been a 44.x second run as well but I missed 2nd gear THREE times at the start and just coasted to the first turn. Oh well.

The one other thing that made this school a huge learning experience was Neil helped me out with car setup. We found that I was running tire pressures WAY too high. I also had the shocks in the rear set too stiff. After the adjustments my car was handling the best it has ever!