Holy slalom, batman! A lot of familiar parts to the course, but instead of the straightaways they typically have or high-speed sweepers, they just put in more slalom! Now I know why the times were so high. How did you like that 180 1/3 of the way in? That takes a lot for people to master. One one the trickiest things in an autocross is to realize the cones are not necessarily at the apex of the turns, you almost have to ignore them.
I also started out in 2nd gear (hence the guffaws at the end). I thought he was going to do it more as a sighting lap kind of thing which is why I took it easy. That and I barely knew where the first timing light was. Did you like that little spin entry at the end of the last slalom?
The slaloms were fun. There was a *ton* of debate over which side to enter on. That's another difference from my past experience with the Hoosier club, *every* standalone cone (ie. one that wasn't part of a grouping of two or more) had another lying down telling you which side to pass it on. Here, the slalom entrances were left up to driver discretion, and you had to count back from the exit cone to figure out which side to enter on. Much more mental. The 3rd slalom basically turned into a one-cone dodge, since one marked the entrance and the other the exit.
It's a ton of fun, Ben, and cheap!
Thanks for the encoding tips, Josh. You're using H.264, too?
I was surprised to realize that I was in fact looking ahead on my later runs. Guess the track experience paid off! The first couple not so much, though, and I'm sure you heard me cursing in that first one. "Oh, I've gotta get over there?! Crap!" After seeing one guy mow down every cone on the first slalom, I wanted to avoid turning in *too* early. I'll try that next time, though. Thanks!
Sissies! Yes, they definitely capitalize on making you use your brain and find out the hard way which side of the slalom to take. I've even had instructors give me advice one way, only to find halfway through the day the other way is faster. The secret is to pay good attention to what others are doing while you're working. You'll notice many others change throughout the day too. Bring a walkman so you can tune in and hear their times improve.
Oh, there was a *huge* discussion on which side of the slalom to enter. Steve (? Recognized him from the black fleece vest and white long-sleeve t-shirt from the MoP event) *swore* the 4 slaloms should be right-right-left-left, but everyone seemed to settle on RLLL. I wonder what he ended up doing?
Hey Brain, those videos are cool! Almost made me feel I was in your car!
I've done a bit of autocrossing and my best was, like over 80 sec on a SCCA set up course. But I was very slow compared to the others. Jess did it under 65 secs! Audra and Sheena at about 75 secs.
You'll go faster the more experience you have. When my son drove Minis in 2004 autocrossing events, he came in 3rd nationally. Now he drives a '89 Honda CRX in SCCA events.
The first autocross of the season happened today at Sugarbush ski resort. We finally got to have an event in an almost reasonably sized lot. A 50-60 second, second gear course!
I bumped myself up a class for this season, and took third in class.
I'll have some video to edit / post soon, because in the afternoon runs I got the MINI the loosest it's been yet. I took out a bunch of cones in a corner with the back end of the car, a first for me in the MINI.
Tomorrow is a team challenge, three drivers / two cars per team. So two other people will be driving my MINI, and I'll be driving a Miata for a few runs.
And for the first time, out club will be using PAX times, so I'll be able to compare my cars time to everyone else's.
I got to drive a few other cars on the autocross course yesterday. As part of the team challenge, I put 5 runs in in a Miata with 710s (super sticky tires). That car was so easy to drive it was silly. I was faster in that than in my own car.
The local spec-miata brothers decided to autocross the new daily driver - a 2-door Toyota Yaris hatch. They threw some almost dead Toyo RA1s on it from the Miatas, and chucked the Yaris around the course all day. Everybody was cracking up watching it run. Tons of body roll, so much that it would be lifiting front wheels off the ground and getting wheelspin. But, with a really good driver behind the wheel, it was pretty quick - almost as quick as my Cooper on street tires. The Yaris also had tons of oversteer under braking. Looks like a Yaris might actually have potential as a cheap / fun car. I took one run in the Yaris, and couldn't stop laughing. It might actually even pull a little harder than my Cooper.
I also took one run in a Toyota MR-Spyder (the last version of the MR2). Now I need a mid engine car. That was my favorite car of the ones I drove. So easy to get the back end to step out and then just balance the car however you want to. And my rear wheel drive experience is a total of maybe 10 minutes. I highly recommend that if you get a chance to drive an MR-Spyder, you take that opportunity.
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Did you like that little spin entry at the end of the last slalom? 
