Jim, and others,
I hope you don't take this as a thread highjack; my comments are intended to illustrate how autocross driving can assist with road course driving. There are different concepts for autocross; from the arm wrenching driving through a tortured narrow course to the "MRC" (miniature road course) style. The biggest sanctioning body in the U.S. is the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) whose regions conduct over 1200 events each year. SCCA events are almost always MRC style with relatively flowing courses wide enough to require accurate car placement, linked corners, and requiring the driver to find the correct line. These are the elements that carry over to road racing, and some very successful professional drivers got their start in autocrossing.
Autocross courses at the Alfa Romeo Owners Club national conventions vary between the two design extremes, with the Detroit chapter being very active in promoting, and conducting, good autocross events for their conventions and others. The AROC autocross rules used to specify 10 ft. course width, and 35 ft. minimum between single file slalom cones. Some course designers assume this as a requirement and what results is a very tight course that isn't much fun to drive. At this year's national convention, I proposed a change to SCCA course rules: 15 ft. course width and 45 ft. slalom gate spacing, and was very pleased to have this accepted.
As my avatar indicates, I am an avid autocrosser. To me, a good course doesn't have narrow width that requires one to drive one specific line. A course should be 15, 20 ft (or more) wide, and allow the driver to find the best line through the cones. There should not be any extremely tight first gear turns turns and the acccursed "stop box" should only be used for safety reasons. Such a course will allow a novice driver to learn some basic elements of course driving at a speed that will not penalize for mistakes.
So Murray, find someone in your area that runs more open course design autocrosses and go get some more seat time...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mound Dawg
Not sure if I'm missing something here but how is a 30 second hurtle around some cones in a shopping mall carpark going to teach you anything about circuit driving?
I've done some autotests (as we call them here) and never got out of 1st/2nd gear. On racing circuits I use 1st and 2nd to get out of the pitlane then it's 3rd, 4th and 5th from then on until the session ends.
They're two completely different disciplines!
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