Dixie National Tour 2012

Tomorrow I’m heading to Bowling Green to instruct at the Tennessee Region SCCA autocross school in the National Corvette Museum parking lot. I was thinking about what I would tell my students and decided I’d better write it down.

Now, some of this I was told when I started, but a lot of it I wasn’t. And I was told some stuff that turned out to be, shall we say, incomplete or possibly even misleading but certainly “problematic” which is a curious and pretentious word I learned when I was a Philosophy major a little while back. I’ve learned a lot from taking an EVO school or two and I really learned a lot from our Twickenham Automobile Club advanced autocross school that we put on each year with a curriculum developed by Steve Brolliar. (It’s coming up in a few weeks. Registration opens on 9/1 at teamtac.org)

So, below is what I wish I’d been told when I was a novice autocrosser, based on what I’ve learned over the last roughly 10 years.

Ed Fisher’s Teaching Points For Novice Autocrossers- 2019

Walking The Course

1. Plan your driving line and drive to your plan, but be prepared to make changes.
2. Plan the entry and exit for each corner. A cone is usually the apex, i.e. the point where you finish slowing and start accelerating. Plan the exit: stand at the apex cone and determine the correct angle (at your estimated minimum speed) to get the fastest possible exit that sets you up for the next feature. Then figure out how to get to that apex location and angle as quickly as possible, i.e. where to initiate braking, how much to brake and where to initiate the turn.
3. The entire course may, in fact, consist of one long set of connected corners. (This differs from track driving that features mostly stand-alone corners.) Plan a compromised line through connected sections to find the fastest average speed. Autocross often contain a series of connected corners. Fastest average speed wins.
4. As you walk practice where to be looking at each point, scanning far enough ahead to see where you want to go. This may mean looking through the side window.

Driving The Course

1. Drive in the moment and keep the car working as hard as possible. Forget about being smooth. You can do that when you’re old(er).
2. Keep visually scanning far ahead from the time you leave your grid spot until you return. Use peripheral vision to aim 2″ off the key cones.
3. Constantly test for the lateral limit when turning. There’s grip on the other side of slip. Get comfortable over there.  (Don’t do this on the street!)
4. Adjust your braking points earlier as each run gets faster or later if you’ve been too conservative in your planning.
5. Minimize the distance travelled, but for short corners (< ~120 degrees) go wide on entry to get a better angle. This decreases time to the apex and increases the minimum speed at the apex.
6. In long corners (~120 degrees) stay tight and limit how wide you go on entry. The minimum speed at the apex cannot be increased by going wide and the higher entry speed from going wide is negated by the longer path length. Remember that the shortest time around a circular path for all cars is on the minimum radius. Find the apex (where you add power and start opening the wheel) like any other corner.
7. Long corners (>180 degrees) may technically be double-apexes. There’s a special way to do those (see The Perfect Corner 2) but if you stay tight and keep the car working near the limit you’ll be close to optimum. Determine the exit apex like any other corner.
8. The lower your power the bigger the cornering arcs you must drive to keep your speed up. This is called maintaining momentum to maximize your average speed. It’s worth the extra distance travelled when you learn to optimize the balance between speed and distance. High power cars should run a smaller corner radius when given the choice, but the difference is not huge within Street classes.
9. Learn to trail-brake to save time through the corner. Initially brake hard and fast (OK to activate ABS) then release the brakes slow and smooth as you turn in. Perfectly done, braking ends at the apex.
10. Mentally review each completed run and find one or two places to improve. In the beginning it’s mostly about eliminating major mistakes.