Trackday Diaries: Preparing for DFL.

Paragraph “A” of Section 2.2 of the SCCA National Solo Rules clearly states, “Turns should not normally allow speeds in excess of 45 mph in un-prepared cars.” By contrast, it’s not unusual for club racers to enter Mid-Ohio’s Turn One at ninety miles per hour, often lifting an inside rear wheel and/or making vigorous contact with other drivers at the same time. WRC rallyists often see corner speeds in the 70-80mph zone, although those speeds are attained on corners which simply wouldn’t fit in an autocross course or within Mid-Ohio’s boundaries. Nor should we forget stock-car racers, who are completely comfortable exceeding 130mph on banked turns. In the world of motorsports, 45mph is slow.

Why, then, do some well-informed people consider SCCA’s National Tour autocrossers to be the best drivers in the world?

The answer is precision. Losing one mile per hour in Turn One won’t cost you a club race, and losing one mile per hour in any individual turn of a road rally is utterly irrelevant, since entire minutes can separate places on a particular stage. Do it on the National Tour, however, and you will have just fallen off the podium. Do it twice, and you’ve probably cost yourself even a chance at a trophy.

When I started road racing, I was told that I needed to hit my marks within six inches if I wanted to succeed. The very best autcrossers frequently drive over the bases of the cones which define critical portions of the course, perhaps one quarter of an inch away from knocking them away and suffering an unacceptable two-second penalty. To make decent time through the slaloms which are part of almost every event, the best drivers are frequently steering “one element ahead”, relying on their intimate knowledge of their car’s shock rate and tire elasticity to manage an oscillation which may exceed one g in two opposite directions within three seconds.

You get the idea. These guys, as the old PGA ad used to say, are good. I am not. I’ve competed in five SCCA National Tour events since 2006, never finishing in the top half of my class or the top quarter overall. I competed in the National Championships once, in 2007, and finished 661st in a field of approximately 1300, albeit in a car that I drove 600 miles to the event with used tires in the trunk. I did not autocross at all in 2009 or 2010, choosing to concentrate on road racing and driver training.

Still, when opportunity knocks it’s best to answer the door. Jadrice Toussaint and his team, Changed Mon Motorsports, may not be the Red Bull Racing of National Solo autocross, but they are at least the Mercedes GP and possibly the McLaren. In the past two years, Toussaint and his mercurial co-driver, Marc Pfannenschmidt, have taken multiple wins and podiums with his pair of Moton-equipped Honda S2000CRs. My brother, Mark, sold his B-Stock RX-8 two years ago and joined Changed Mon, touring the country with them and collecting a few trophies himself. This weekend, Mark and I will be “first drivers” for Marc and Jadrice. “First driver,” as opposed to “first violin,” is the lower-prestige seat, since first drivers are expected to warm tires for the “second driver” and permit them to run later in the session when there is more rubber on the course surface. Still, Jadrice’s meticulous approach to preparation and specification makes this my best- ever chance to win a National Solo event.

Don’t expect it to happen. I’ll be lucky not to finish last. When I was a competitive shooter, some twenty years ago, we used to say that rifle shooting was a durable skill but pistol shooting was a perishable one. The kinesthetics are different, you see, so while the top Camp Perry guys didn’t need to practice every days with their M-1As, solid IPSC pistol competitors needed to shoot a few times a week to stay sharp.

Road racing and autocross share a similar relationship, in that the faster hands and larger-scale steering motions required for autocross don’t stay in muscle memory as well as the fingertip corrections needed to balance down the final turn at Road Atlanta. More importantly, autocrossers don’t get much practice time. A road racer might get eight practice laps Friday morning before qualifying, for a total of fifteen minutes. In autocross, fifteen minutes could mean half a season. Seat time is critical.

At the very least, I’ll get five minutes of seat time in Atlanta this weekend. I’ll be reporting on the event over the weekend and discussing some of the subtleties involved. If you’re around the Atlanta Motor Speedway this weekend, stop by. I should be easy to spot: I’ll be the idiot wearing the same top-vent helmet as Kyle Busch, doing something a little less than 45mph in a turn.