[HyperMike]

Last Sunday I did my 1st Auto Cross in my new to me 2SS 1LE, and wow. I have so much to learn about this car, and myself as a driver. This is the most powerful car I have ever owned. I was in Novice class and car was classified in FS, I had 6 runs that day (actually 7 due to a re-run). 1st run (full of excitement and nerves) was 56 seconds and each run after that I consistently dropped my times to a final run of 47.281 secs. Through out the day I played with the tire pressures (Michelin PS4S) ended up the best run at 27 psi front, 28 psi rear. And played with the track settings as well. best run was in track, sport 1.

Ended up 45/50 overall for the day not great but my 1st time. And in my class i was 12/16. Lots of room for fun improvement.

Any tips and tricks appreciated.

[Msquared]

It's always good to see another person join the autocross fray! You accomplished the important goals for your first event: getting your feet wet, improving your own time through the event, having fun, and (hopefully) starting to meet other competitors. That last bit becomes useful for my biggest advice to you: try to start getting right-seat rides with fast drivers to get a sense for how this should feel. This is often a challenge for newbies: what kind of forces should they be feeling and how do they know where the limits are? Seat time behind the wheel is obviously key, but IME you can really accelerate your own learning by seeing/feeling what others are doing. Watching others' runs from outside is not the same.

[Tim M]

Congrats!

I wouldn't worry about the car - just use the same settings/pressure for each event and concentrate on driving! Great point on getting rides...having instructors/hotshoes ride with you as well.

Autocross is addicting...incredibly fun...especially for the dollar!

[DaveC113]

I hope you had a good time! IME, the most important thing for new autox'ers is simply concentrating on vision. It takes some time for the brain to interpret the course in the same way it currently interprets a normal road... the cones can be confusing, some elements more than others... part of course design is making it make sense. Regardless of the course or how well you are able to look ahead, it just takes some time for the brain to make the connections needed, but it will come faster if you prioritize vision. Don't overuse your mental bandwidth on driving technique or trying to go as fast as possible before your brain adapts, of course you need some processing power for that but leave it as a low priority. The reason for this is you can't do any of that properly until your brain is able to interpret the course and you are able to look ahead and plan out your line. Once you know where you're going, then start to attempt to optimize driving that line. Autox is MUCH more fun after your brain adapts to reading the cones. It takes different amounts of time for different people and it's not something you can control outside of prioritizing vision, but I'd say after 3-4 autox events you should be well on your way. Good luck!

I also agree with Msquared that ride-alongs are key, especially if you're a kinesthetic learner. For me, ride-alongs were a major key to understanding how to drive fast. It's ALL about butt-feel.

[apexit53]

Very nice improvement overall in one day! The best thing you can do is seat time. Speed doesnt happen overnight.

Next thing, ride with some of the fast people if they let you. It might be shocking at first but it really gives you a sense of the speeds the car can take, but dont just go out there and try to emulate what they did. New people have tried that after riding with me and you can tell they just over drive.

Also see if some of those fast people can ride with you, give you pointers post run! Preferably someone that has a similar or the same car.

Last, keep it fun!! Seems like yo have the right mindset and keep that up! It will only help in making you faster and keep you racing

[clyde]

I'll also suggest finding an autocross school. Many, but not all clubs have them and some are better than others, but what they all do is take some of the immediate competitive pressure away and offer instruction. Most schools will have an instructor ride with you and also take you for rides as they demonstrate, explain, and instruct.

It's absolutely helpful to ride with other people, but I think having others ride with you adds more value more quickly IF they can give you more feedback.

Also record video, preferably mounted to the rear quarter glass behind driver left should or an interior mount between the seats. The object is to see what your hands and head are doing in the video. If your car has PDR, that's great and is super easy to use with minimum effort between runs, but it shows what the car is doing more than what the driver is doing.

Then, post-event, review your video and compare with others. If you can't find video from your events on youtube or facebook or whatever, ask people at the events if you can put your camera on their car.

[HyperMike]

Thanks folks. This is all great advice, and very much appreciated. I will take some time over the winter and study up etc.. And get a full season in next year

[TransamGTA350]

Congrats on getting out there. That's the first step. Sounds like you did good. Lot's of good advice here. I agree with the advice to ride with faster drivers and have them ride with you. That helped me a lot. Also, if there is a fast driver you trust, have them drive your car while you ride right seat. That's a blast and you'll learn a ton that way too.

As other have said, keep getting out there and getting more seat time. But, not just doing seat time for the sake of seat time. Every time you go out, identify a couple of things to work on and then do that.

[JamesNoBrakes]

Awesome, this car does very well for it's weight and is generally a surprise under-dog that no one else expects to do well. It still prefers larger courses, but it surprises in how well it dosen't suck at turning and tighter stuff.

Drive it with all the nannys off by holding down the traction control button for 5s and seeing both the traction and stability control icons illuminated. Learn to drive it like this, it is the hands down fastest way around a course and you can also gradually "turn up" the speed, go slow the first time around the course and get it right. Other modes all pull power and while they don't seem slow, they are pulling power and costing seconds around a course, and a second or two is a giant amount of difference. Don't slam the throttle mid turn or coming out of a turn, FEATHER it and be careful, but that's your number one thing to really learn in this car and again, you won't be able to do it with nannys on.

Get the autoX GM eDiff flash. It opens the eDiff up more for AutoX ONLY in the mode described above.

The PS4S or 5S tire are great for initial autoX. They don't wear too fast where AutoX just ruins them, I ran them for a few seasons. Our local autoX started making semi-nat and nat class for people using less than 300 tread wear tires and less than 200, so using something like a PS4S was a great way to not get bumped into these more aggressive classes.

Roll those windows down and make sure you are looking hard left and right to see what is coming up. As Dave was saying, you gotta learn how to read the courses right and doing stuff at speed can seem so much more different than when you walked it. Stuff doesn't seem like it's in the same place and if you get a little out of sequence or wide, something will be a LOT further left or right than you anticipate and you gotta keep looking left and right to see and plan. Most of us roll down the windows for this fact, it encourages looking left and right with nothing in the way (tint, etc.).

A big big part of driving is not going "as fast as possible", but trying to balance out braking, acceleration, cornering, etc. If you try to go max acceleration, that means you gotta brake earlier, carrying more speed may exceed the grip available in the turn, put you wide, etc. There's the adage that "slow is fast" and there's a lot of truth to that. You want to be at the limit, but to be at the limit means being at the limit at the right times and being well below that at the other times to set yourself up for that.

In any case, the car is very well sorted and fun stock. Making a bunch of mods will kick you into far more competitive classes very fast. The car can still be fast with those mods, but it gets a lot more expensive quickly.

You'll see at AutoX there are plenty of cars that "talk the talk" but don't walk the walk for doing even just lap after lap of AutoX (let along a bigger track). This car though is well sorted for it and fun. The chassis is outstanding.

[joelster]

Glad you had fun! That's what it's all about. There's lots of guys in here that will give you excellent advice. For now, leave the car alone. Turn all of the nannies off and forget about playing with the settings. Those modes are developed around a race track, not an autocross track. You'll be turning tighter, and there will be times when you want/need the rear end to rotate around. If you have it in a sport mode and you try to spin the ass around, the computer will think something has gone terribly wrong and will cut power big time. Get an instructor, go for rides, and watch all of the fast guys.

[dpevans]

Just finished my first AutoX season and used it to learn. Plenty of seat time at HPDE events but AutoX is different. I ran SC3 and never really got the tires up to grip temps. I did learn getting the car out of PTM mode is the fastest way around the track. All the modes in PTM even race mode don't turn everything off. Put the car in track mode then hold the traction control button for 10 seconds and you have complete control with no nannies. Took 2 seconds off my best time over PTM modes. Still haven't decided if I want to invest in 19" 200 treadwear autoX tires, maybe use the 3 sets of SC3 I have and get more seat time next year.