Hi again

Hi all,

I met some of you guys last labor day at the "Go North for labor day". I was the young asian guy with the white R package. I bought a RX-8 half a year ago and sold the miata to Gray from trackdogracing. They were impulsive purchase and sell, and I have been looking at Miatae for the past few months. I really missed the manual steering, the feedbacks, and the droptop. :cry: So hopefully I can rejoin the miata club again in the future.


I am planning to take Phase one of Evolution Performance Driving School end of May. I am relatively new to stick shift and rwd, I still can't get rev-matching, double clutching quite right yet. :banghead: How much tire wear I'm looking at for one day of class? And should I jump right into autocross and do the school later?

Hello all again!

Alan

Have you ever competed in an AX? Might not hurt to get one under your belt before the school! Let us know how we can help!

We strongly recommend running autocrosses before going to Evolution... You'll learn a lot more if you have something - anything - to build on. On the other hand, it might be nice to build good habits from the start.

If you want personal instruction on downshifting/rev-matching, I'll be happy to test-drive your RX-8 and give you my "How to become a smooth down-shifter and overcome boredom on your daily commute" spiel. I thought that white R package at Gary's looked familiar.

Most AX courses you put it in second and that's it! Plus you can turn a few more RPM's than we can with your RX8 before ya shift!

mmmmmmm rotary!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by apex2apex

How much tire wear I'm looking at for one day of class? And should I jump right into autocross and do the school later?

---

I did schools on street tires and didn't notice that they were much worse for the wear (in both cases....different cars....Yoko AVS ES-100s)...not much shortening of the life of the tires.

Welcome back! :cheers:

Decent street tires should survive an Evo school pretty well. However, as tailchaser suggested, running an autocross or two before the school would be a good idea.

As for downshifting - the RX-8 will redline 2nd gear at about 65mph, so for most courses around here, once you upshift to 2nd, you probably won't have to worry about shifting again on course. You'd be better served concentrating on driving the line and looking ahead than worrying about downshifting at this point.

If your RX-8 is still wearing the OEM Bridgstones, they have probably turned rock hard and won't wear much, if at all. I ran a 2 day Evolution school on mine after 14k miles and 100+ autocross runs... They were so hard, you could lock all 4 wheels at 60, skid to a stop, and not find the flat spots. But... they didn't wear, and they provided predictable grip.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tailchaser

... they didn't wear, and they provided predictable grip.

---

Yup, street tires are perfect for learning on. They'll give lots of warning before letting go. You will certainly not be the fastest (guess how I know), but you'll have lots of fun. Enjoy! :chug:

Thanks for the replies! What are some upcoming autocrosses that a newbie like me can join? The SCCA Solo2 on 5/15? I'm still running OEM dunlop 8090s with 5600 miles on them, I am hoping they will last me at least another 5k miles. Thanks!

If you've never autocrossed before, the 5/15 SCCA event may not be the best choice... I say that only because unlike most events, there are things to hit besides cones. The course is/will be designed to minimize the chances, and I don't want to scare you off, but there are better options.

The ER event the following weekend at Pennington is probably your best bet.

Have you enrolled in the Evolution School yet? Last I heard, there weren't many signing up and Gerry was begging people to get signed up before he had to start pulling the plug on some of the instructors who fly in.

Beyond that, what has already been said is correct to the best of my knowledge :-)

Like TC said, the infield road course is not the best place for a beginning autocrosser. As a rule, the speeds are typically higher, and the distance from hard objects are typically shorter...

Thanks guys! I will try to make the ER Autocross at 5/22! Maybe some of you guys can give me a ride in your miata? :mrgreen:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by OzCop

Like TC said, the infield road course is not the best place for a beginning autocrosser. As a rule, the speeds are typically higher, and the distance from hard objects are typically shorter...

---

...and we'd really like to be invited back, which isn't likely if we scratch their Armco... :-)

I'm almost always willing to take passengers... It's a good excuse.

Didn't someone scratch the aarmco last time? I noticed that same idividual is registered for this event too... :?

Naaah... the Armco survived that one in pristine condition. :-)

Yeah, he just hit the tire wall...no damage to armco... ;-)