Lone Star BMW CCA Autocross #7 at Mineral Wells (9/9/07)

[apex2apex]

Great course jrj512!

Congrats on miatamoto and jrj512 for their 1st and 2nd finishes respectively.

[CosmosMpower]

Good event minus the timing issues, very good course design. Couldn't get a few elements together either but still had a fun day.

[cone-cerned]

+1 for a great course. Fast, fun and challenging. I enjoyed to day.

[jrj512]

Altiain asked me after the race if I had learned anything that day. I was at a loss because I had not yet thought about it. I do not know if he meant in regards to course design, driving, or either, but now that I've had my reflection time while running tonight, I can tell you what I learned.

Probably because the course was so fast, I found myself coming into turns a lot faster than I intended. In a one case, I mowed over a cone. In a few cases, I plowed fields, but missed cones. BUT, in several cases, I turned the wheel and the car turned right along with it! I thought I was going too fast and figured it was going to be ugly, but the car turned.

Miatamoto used to get on me for two things -- I was not carrying enough momentum into corners and not rolling back into the throttle early enough exiting the corner. I have been working on the latter most of the year and feel that I have improved, but I am still too cautious entering the turns. My experiences yesterday proved that and has hopefully given me more confidence to start carrying more speed into the turns.

To a lesser extent, I again reminded myself that I need to push harder earlier. At BMW and S2000, you get eight runs to slowly build up your speed through parts of the course where you went too slow. For example, I found that I could almost keep it floored on the backstretch, I could carry more speed entering the slalom after the Z, and I could keep is floored almost all the way through the last section before the finish. If this were an SCCA race where you only get three or four tries, I might never have realized it. I need to get braver sooner.

Thanks for asking, Altiain.

[Miatamoto]

Video!!!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...76767312441655

This is my actual fastest run. The 88.3 was actually a DNF (Mark has been notified). Like I was saying, I just couldn't piece it all together. There were lots of mistakes on this run but it ended up being my fastest.

[Prova7]

I need to get braver sooner.

It's easier to say than do when you don't have much experience but it's much easier to force yourself to slow down than it is to speed up. Don't be afraid to go out on your first run and try to set the world on fire. Often you'll be surprised that what you expected to be "scary" turns out to merely be a great run! Better yet when you do screw up and blow it you can write it off as being the first run

[Miatamoto]

It's easier to say than do when you don't have much experience but it's much easier to force yourself to slow down than it is to speed up. Don't be afraid to go out on your first run and try to set the world on fire. Often you'll be surprised that what you expected to be "scary" turns out to merely be a great run! Better yet when you do screw up and blow it you can write it off as being the first run

+1

When I went to Evo school a couple of years ago Andy Hollis said that you don't have a run to waste feeling it out at the high levels of compeition. I've been working on trusting the car and going full out on the first run since then.

I've had pretty good luck doing that in the Miata, but it's been a learning process in the RX8 since it's new to me.

[CosmosMpower]

it's much easier to force yourself to slow down than it is to speed up.

Not for me, I really have to force myself to back off on corner entry speed sometimes. Ask Miatamoto, I'm the king of overdriving