Gentlemen and Gentlewomen, Start Your Engines for June 1!

The next ADSI autocross event at Quonset Point is this Sunday!!! The addicts, Attilio and I, are all in doing the full day once again. Attilio is being modest, but he's quite likely to be the Fastest Time of the Day this go-round with a few new go-fast and stop-fast goodies bolted onto his "humble economy car" (as if!!)

Who else is going to join in the fun this time around?? Its looking to be 70 degrees F and sunny for us! Perfect weather.

For those who will be jumping into the fray, I've pulled together a track map for your perusal. It discloses a few secrets about the more optimal "line" through the course that we've learned from the instructors. As some of you may have heard, the cones and painted lines are occasionally arranged to "obfuscate" the fastest way through the course. Click on the small version of the image below to get to the big monster version that will give you all the detail your screen may be able to handle...

Hopefully this will help you plan out your attack on the course. My recent race driving reading has suggested that one should prioritize the corners and start working on the top priority corners first. The most important corner would be the fastest corner going into the longest straight. Any corner right before a straight is important since you spend more time accelerating than braking. The faster you get on the throttle, the higher top speed you can achieve on the straight. 

I'm starting to figure out that karting has a special variation of these rules due to the limited top speed of the karts. But at ADSI, we won't get near top speed. So the quicker you can take corners and minimize the need to accelerate, the quicker your times will be. I think I've got a couple corners where I can improve a bit. And hopefully I won't regress on the corners that I was decent at last time out. The fun is in trying to improve so it will certainly be fun no matter how things go. 

If you are coming down, let us know so we can coordinate our plans. The gates open briefly at 8am to let in the full day folks. Then they open again at noon to admit the afternoon crowd. Any other times require a phone call to someone there to come let you in. 

Keep sliding sideways!

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I am so excited! It's going to be interesting to see how the STi compares to the Porsche this time around. This is automotive pornography at its finest, and we haven't even begun talking about (half) naked girls. I have to say, for a car so opulent, I have the utmost respect for the Porsche as a lush, silky smooth vehicle that rides and behaves with opulence, complementing, perhaps enhancing its wild side. Using low stance, excellent build quality, very large and grippy tires as well as rear weight distribution it is almost the ideal platform to take this sort of course thanks to the electronic wizardry of its differentials allowing the driver to take turns at high speed, rotate the rear on demand while remaining poised. Such a car would make anyone feel like a hero and look like a good driver, all the more in the hands of someone like Sterling I am curious to see how the STi will fare in a head to head battle with Sterling's steed. Now the secret is out; I have close to a full race suspension but with just softer springs and swaybars to keep the tires planted on bumpy roads. While I selected components that as a whole cost less than many old beaters by choosing my vendors wisely and asking for pricematches, the car hauls ass in a very different way. While the Porsche oozes refinement and opulence with its pleasurable, downright arousing responses to all sorts of control inputs, gentle or not, this STi is a more nervous, eager monster altogether. You feel and hear everything unlike any road car, this thingfeels like a finely honed razor blade wielded by a highly trained martial arts champion. The Porsche caresses you saying "Ooo baby", the STi demands "YOU, OUT NOW!" Remember that in any curve, the most important thing is to set yourself up to accelerate the soonest before any straightaway. The first human instinct is to immediately turn and stay all the way in the inner edge of the curb which will lead to excessive entry speed, and ploughing off the course or at the least making you accelerate too late out the other end. What you have to do is position yourself on the oustide and then make your line through a turn or sets of turns so that the last corner exit into the straightaway gives you the longest distance. This means stay on the oustide, brake later, and turn a bit later than you think. Then use a stab on the brakes to rotate your rear end quickly, and aim for the inner edge of the corner somewhat after the 1/2 way. Start all the way to the oustide, brake, wait until it is slightly too late to turn, then turn tight to a late inside more than halfway around the corner, and let it go out again after that as you thread the steering wheel back a-striaght. This formula (and Sterling's lines on the course) can be modified to suit your car. If you had to choose, choose a tactic that will give you the highest speed at the end of a straight, and again, this will vary on the vehicle you drive. Low power cars of either FWD or RWD that rotate well might actually have faster entry speeds and conserve more momentum by turning a little sooner and using same said rotation ability. The power your motor has, the more straight you need the wheel to be before applying that full power. Remember that a tire only has 100% of grip, so if you are accelerating or braking, that leaves less traction for you to brake or accelerate. A high power car simply cannot apply full throttle with the wheel turned more as those angles will take up most of your traction for cornering. Accelerating then will break traction and lose control. Therefore higher power cars don't need to conserve momentum (as much) and will gain higher speeds at the end of the straight the later and harder you have to turn. As said above, this will aim you farther/later to the inside so that while you bleed off a bit more speed, you can get in the straightaway sooner which helps you get to a higher speed by the end of the corner.  But regardless, the most stable and safe line is the "late apex" approach I described, so when in doubt stay on the oustide, slow down a little longer and more, then wait to turn in as much until you see straightaway. Soo excited! Attilio
— Alberto Savoretti
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