Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Anatomy of an Autocross




Let's just take a look at our last autocross results from May 10th at Darlington. Here's the run times from all six runs in the E Street, F Street, and G Street categories.  All drivers get the same number of runs, but only the fastest one counts.  Kind of like how I golf: it takes me over 100 strokes to play a round, but as long as ONE of them is good, then I'm a happy camper and want to go back and do it all again!

ES – ‘E Street’
Entries: 7 Trophies: 3
Times
1
2
3
4
5
6
Total
Diff.
1T
Tyson Bevirt
1995 Mazda Miata
38.185
+1
38.517
37.311
39.532
+dnf
38.771
+2
38.860
37.311
-0.389
2T
Kyle Ray-Smith
2001 Mazda Miata
38.465
37.841
38.218
+2
37.093
+1
37.273
+dnf
37.700
37.700
+0.389
3T
Brian Nixon
2004 Mazda MS Miata
46.034
+dnf
39.694
39.108
+2
38.901
+1
39.735
39.408
39.408
+1.708
4
Kyle DeGennaro
2002 Mazda Miata LS
41.025
+1
41.267
41.417
+2
52.410
+2
40.046
+1
40.438
40.438
+1.030
5
Andrea Harris
95 miata
43.604
+dnf
42.279
44.187
42.919
+1
41.017
40.840
+1
41.017
+0.579
6
Zachary Smith
1988 Mazda RX7
48.739
43.329
43.388
42.455
42.118
42.115
42.115
+1.098
7
Josh Cooper
1997 Mazda Miata
51.213
47.520
44.479
43.725
44.113
43.573
43.573
+1.458
FS – ‘F Street’ – Total Entries: 1
Times
1
2
3
4
5
6
Total
Diff.
1
13
Derrike Black
2007 Ford Mustang GT
39.529+dnf
42.799
54.084+dnf
41.487
42.445
41.087+1
41.487
-
GS – ‘G Street’ – Total Entries: 4 Trophies: 2
Times
1
2
3
4
5
6
Total
Diff.
1T
Michael Arnold
2014 Ford Focus ST
40.546
+1
40.032
+1
39.698
+1
40.287
38.698
38.621
38.621
-2.122
2T
Robert Nixon
2013 Fiat  Abarth
40.575
+dnf
41.689
+2
42.513
42.363
40.809
40.743
40.743
+2.122
3
Jonathan Clark
1999 Lexus GS300
45.733
+dnf
44.221
+1
42.868
43.446
+2
43.117
+2
43.903
42.868
+2.125
4
Robbie Solesbee
2004 Ford Mustang
43.138
+3
45.087
+dnf
42.957
+1
45.103
+2
43.966
44.259
+1
43.966
+1.098




Brian started with a DNF (did not finish), then on run 2 posted a 39.694, and by the final drive on run 6 nailed his fastest time of the day at 39.408.  He ended up 1.7 out of 2nd place, and over a second ahead of 4th place.

Getting faster thru progressive drives always makes my day, since besides the times getting faster it shows that the driver is maintaining or increasing the concentration needed to keep going fast. In other words, I think if I learn from each run on where I can pick up speed, and pay attention, then I'm way more likely to keep going faster the more I drive the same course. 

One other note on Brian's 3rd place is that since his class had 7 drivers, then the top three take a trophy, so it's always good to be up there near the top, whether it's in Victory Lane at the Indy500 or on the podium at Monaco in Formula 1.  Or in this case, in the top three!

I included the one driver in F Street, just so you could see his best time compared to the faster ES cars and the slower GS cars.  

OK, down in G Street, Robert ends up in 2nd place, and without complaining I will point out that I was the very first driver on the course in the morning, so if I WAS going to use any excuses for a DNF right off the bat, I'd point out that the course was still a little slippery from sand and debris that would later get pushed out of the way by hundreds of runs.  Anyway...first two runs not so good with a DNF and hitting two cones (+2) on run two, so run three was clean at 42.513.  Well off of Brian's pace in the Miata, and about a second behind the Focus in my class. After that I kept dropping time and ended with a best time of 40.743, so depending on what you compare that with it's either slow, OK, or not bad!  For GS on this day it was good for 2nd out of 4 drivers, but two full seconds out of first, so not so good. On the other hand, two full seconds ahead of 3rd place, but also about 1.3 behind Brian, so he's beaten me again!  My time was faster than the one FS car, and a few of the ES cars also, so maybe overall not too bad. For me, mostly I felt good to improve even in the last run!

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