signed up for a driving school this weekend
 

Local SCCA rookie school.

Lots of instruction and personal seat time.

:bigtu:

Out of curiousity what is the cost of the schools?

is this track or auto-x?

Autox or track?

Either way - should be a great learning event!

Isn't SCCA an open track org?

Autocross to wheel towheel racing and everything in between .

i would assume that Pitlab is talking about Autocross.

SCCA does drift events now :gay:

Are you serious, thats kind of cool...yet odd since drifting isn't racing, its the ice skating of driving.

Cool, takes talent, but isn't a true and clear cut form of racing. Not that I don't respect those guys for making it look good...

I believe they took over Formula D to make it legit? i dunno...

not the local chapter. We kind look at the "drifter" that set up in the lot next to us like this ==>:rly:

Yes its an autoX car control school.

Skidpad, brake theory (threshold, etc)

Its a school in the AM and a AutoX practice in the afternoon :bigtu: + breakfast and lunch.

tighten rear, drift around the skidpad....it's fun.

I'm much better at track stuff, flows more natural for me personally. Autox is alot of harsh inputs in a very rapid succession. It's impressive watching a fast autox driver work thru a course. Remember "go slow to be fast" and all the other little sayings!

- Mark

is there any more that can be learned at an auto-x, versus a road course?

I wish i had another miata up here. There is an old WWII airstrip 10 miles from my house. It's wideopen with 5 runways all tied into each other. You can get up some incredible speeds and the track isn't monitored or patroled.
It would be like free track time i suppose. If i had the cash flow I would buy a cheap NA and run it as long i had the gas money to do so.

I'd like to look into some sort of driving school in the fall, might have to wait till the spring. Any of you guys run any other schools?

It is said that a good autocrosser is a good road course racer. Autocross is a lot more flick and catch and instinct, whereas road racing is a lot more technique.

hey, have fun pitlab. I bet you will learn a lot. I want to do something of the sort down the road as well.g

car control. I've autoxed for over 5 years. Now that I've ventured to a few road courses, they only thing that really has helped me is understanding how to control my car (gas, brakes, streering, etc.). Other than attacking corners with more momentum, its a whole different ballgame.

"high speed" lane changes and aggressive accident avoidance? I know that I've used what I've learned at autoX to avoid dozens of situations I didn't want to be in.

I do more autocross than open track days, so my opinion may be biased. There are some subtle but important setup differences between the two if you are setting up to be as competitive as possible. Autocross cars tend to have alignments that include a little more camber (the tires don't have to last as many miles) and be set up to rotate a little easier.

Track speeds are naturally higher than autocross speeds, and you have the same layout weekend to weekend so you can practice different techniques on corner x until you get it just right. You may wait weeks to see the same feature in autocross and then it's in a different location relative to other features. A big part of autocross is figuring out the right line to be fast and then actually getting your car to follow that line in a limited number of runs.

Autocross does have many more inputs per second than track driving hence the appearance of "flick and catch" but trust me if you are "catching" something you have lost time.

Both are a blast and have some overlap, but are truely two different animals.

Learning the feel of your car at the edge on an autocross course has much less risk than being at the edge going track speeds.

wow. I learned a lot today. The skid pad exercise was one of the most fun. I also got a chance to drive a friends F-prepared BMW. It is pretty much a tin can with a motor. The 4 door sedan weighs about 2300lbs. It hauls!!