July 16-18: Learn car control... and feel your Ferrari at the edge...

Some cropped and zoomed selections from the big pics (by the way, I dig my new Nikon CoolPix 3200)

Notice how much flatter the 360 is than the 328, though corner speeds were similar.

 

If you must win to have fun then your point is taken. On the other hand you can have just as much fun learning and driving the car whether you are "winning" or not. I know exactly how it is as my car is too "good" for AS and not good enough for the Z06's in SS. I'm stuck in SS and that's how life is. Underdog can be fun too...

Do those of you who golf only play because you're at the PGA level or do you play because you enjoy the game of golf?

 

Yeah, but nobody would ever ask to play with you just because of your clubs. In contrast, people ask to ride with others EITHER because they want to ride with a superior driver OR because they want to ride in the really cool car. Guess where a Ferrari rates at an autocross?

If your goal is to have fun driving your car, an autocross is great fun... not just the runs, but the big car event that it is. If you don't like the thought of people thinking you're slow because you're not doing well in your class, put yourself in a class where nobody would expect you to compete... like E-Mod. If someone asks what you've done to it, just say "Some little things of no consequence... but it would make it illegal in stock." They'll respect you for that "honesty" and absolutely ignore your class placement.

OR you can class yourself in the PAX'd street tire class (if the group has one). There the times are all over the place... and the rankings are based on mathematical weightings... so, it occludes the whole thing.

Then there are the Porsche club and BMW club events... there your Ferrari is dumped in one or two non-Porsche or non-BMW classes... where the vast majority of cars are non-competitive... so nobody really pays too much attention to the rankings.

In the end, you'll be having more fun than most autoxers BECAUSE you are driving a Ferrari!! (JMNSHO!!! )
And, you'll be having more fun than most Ferrari owners BECAUSE you are driving your Ferrari!!

 

P.S. Where do you play golf for $50 a round any more?

 

But the mathematical weightings are still based on class and so if you're car is non-competitive in class your car is non-competitive in PAX indexes. Again ask me how I know...

 

There's a difference between P-E-O-P-L-E and C-O-M-P-E-T-I-T-O-R-S

...and you F car guys must really have a hard time fitting all that ego in the car if everyone who rides with you must think you're a "superior driver" or wishes to ride in a "cool car" You Ferrari guys really do care what everyone else thinks, huh?

When going to play golf will you only golf with those who you feel are not as good as you so that you don't have to worry about being beaten? It's all good as long as you win in your little group because if the guy with the second hand clubs from the dime store beat you it would be terrible?

...the guy with the cheap clubs didn't win because of the superiority of his clubs, he won because of his superior skill in using them. Driving is no different and some people just can't allow themselves to accept that because it means admitting the other guy drove better. So what. Have people forgotten how to have fun? The car doesn't matter if the guy behind the wheel doesn't know how to use it and that's the whole intention of something like the Evolution School.

 

Yeah, but that happens to the majority of the cars in the PAX'd classes. Why? Because certain courses favor big cars or skinny cars or RWD cars or momentum cars or whatever... more than other courses. Look at the PAX numbers... many classes have nearly identical PAX numbers... so, why don't they just throw those classes together? Because they'd create horrible mis-matches depending upon the course.

Thus, my point was NOT that you'll have a fair shake in the PAX class... rather just that everybody knows when looking at PAX'd times and the underlying raw times that its all fantasy land... so, where precisely you end up in the class is mostly a crap shoot... that relieves some of the anxiety of having to see yourself on the "results" board, IMO.

 

WTF? Let me try to be more clear....

Autocrosses are car events as well as driver events. Some people there aren't great drivers... they just enjoy the cars. Some are great drivers and couldn't care less about the cars (other than how they were set up). Some are great drivers AND love cars too.

As a Ferrari owner, you can still have lots of fun at an autocross even if you aren't a competitive driver... there will be general car guys and there will be Ferrari lovers that will all come to rap about the car. Its fun.

I never said that driving a Ferrari somehow makes you cool, makes you a great driver, or makes you better than anyone there. Just driving a Ferrari at an autocross can be *fun*.

For example, a dad came over and nicely asked if his Ferrari-loving kid could take a ride with me on one run. I said "sure". The kid enjoyed the ride and both thanked me and I enjoyed giving the ride. Did the kid think I was a superior driver? I doubt it, but it was not the topic of conversation.... hell the kid was driving karts... he was probably faster than me and may be a better driver than me.

Tons of people were taking pictures of me coming to the starting line and driving on course... not because I was MS gracing their presence... in fact, it didn't matter one bit who was driving... or how horribly I drove... they just were focused on the great car.

Clearer?

 

Actually, driving a Ferrari does make you cool...

 

I don't know where you're headed there Damon. All I said was that I would have less fun knowing going in to the event that the car I was driving would be inherently uncompetitive. It doesn't matter to me that the car is a Ferrari -- I would be unhappy regardless of the type of car. How can I know how well I (the driver) am doing if the car is badly classed? I'd feel exactly the same if I was hauling a Datsun 240Z out into B Stock.

In any case, I'm out of town this weekend so it's pretty much a moot point.

(BTW: yes, the Ferrari is cooler than your car. No ego, just fact )

 

Brian, I'm not accusing you personally of anything. I thought perhaps using two would help with the polite ribbing but I guess that didn't do it. I'm trying to understand the context of your statement above as well as Tillman's "Yeah, it was a blast. At the end of the day, though, I'd still be running B Stock against the S2000 and the Mazdaspeed Miata. WAHOO, dead last every time...I know that part of the thrill is becoming a better driver, etc., but still, one does hope to compete"


From those statements I formed my own perception that the Ferrari guy gets the attention because his car is a wonderful car and therefore he/she infers that he should beat all comers. That seems to say that if the Ferrari shows up the "people" expect it to do well and if it doesn't do so the owner is somehow shamed or his ego takes a hit because now everyone doesn't feel that his car is so wonderful. If that is what happens then it's nothing created by the "people" it's a perception the owner of the car his created himself. That doesn't add up to me. The people who are car nuts will of course be interested in a Ferrari being there just as you described with the ride you gave. The people who are competitors already understand for themselves why things shake out the way they do as far as lap times. New competitors take some time getting used to that (myself in my "really fast" RX-7TT got creamed by completely stock Honda Civics more often than I care to remember when I first started) and some people just can't handle being beaten by a "lesser" car. In most cases it's not the cars that are competing, it's the drivers.

I show up at national events a couple times a year and get absolutely killed by better drivers who also happen to drive better cars. I still go because if I'm going to lose I'd rather lose to the best ones out there I don't come home with a trophy often but that's not why the far majority of people are there anyway; they're car nuts who like to drive and hang out with other car nuts. You don't have to dominate your class to enjoy a day spent driving your car as it was meant to be driven and hanging out with a good group of people. The people who feel like they are in a fishbowl are generally the ones who imagine themselves in one before they got there...

If my opinions are somehow completely screwed up or if I have said or implied something that upset anyone anywhere who reads this I apologize.

 

Because the trophy doesn't tell you how well you drove that day. YOU were in the car on the track and if you finish the day knowing you made mistakes then you didn't do as well as you could have. If you didn't think you made any mistakes then you drove as well as you are capable of at that point in time and nobody can ask for more than that. Even if you win maybe everyone in the class sucks and so it was easy to beat them. Maybe in another class you were 7th out of 9 but had to drive better to get there because those drivers were so "good". Make sense? Don't put so much emphasis on class and finishing position. Fact is nobody but yourself will truly know how you did at the end of the day except you.

I know I'm an outsider here but people are viewing my remarks as accusatory. I'm not being accusatory of anyone.

 

Nobody's upset or viewing anything as accusatory. we're just debating and expounding on our viewpoints. Relax, it's all good.

 

I for one completely understand Tillmans viewpoint. No one wants to 'compete' in a game they know they can't win. And I could also understand how it could feel pretty crappy to show up in a Ferrari just to get the crap kicked out of you because you're poorly classed. If I were going to AC to try to improve my driving skills, I'd probably take another car. I think the equipment/user equation has a lot more impact in AC'ing that it does in golf.

 

Don't worry Damon. I am not reading what you wrote as accusatory at all. You are just stating what you think, and others are doing the same. We don't always agree on things (if you read other threads, you'll notice!). To me, it is refreshing to read many thoughts so I can acquire different angles.

There're always 2 sides on most of things, and sometimes not talking face to face makes the situation differently that what you intended.

Looking forward to the event like this!!!

 

I agree with you there. There's still a lobby hoping to get the RX-7 moved out of SS and into AS but the SCCA won't do it because SS was created in the first place to get the RX-7 out of AS where it was dominating the C4 Corvtettes at the time. From what I'm told the SCCA doesn't want to move the RX-7 back down and therefore make a rare 10 year old car the one to have (rare for stock ones anyway). They're afraid this will force everyone in AS to go buy RX-7s in order to be competitive. If that's the problem I always point out to them that is exactly what is happening in SS right now with the Z06. You purchase a Z06 or you get beat; period (equal drivers of course). SS for the past few years has practically been a spec Z06 class. They should have put the Z06 on the stock exclusion list in the beginning and made it an ASP car. They weren't about to do that with such a popular model though so we got what we have now. I'm interested to see what happens when C6 comes along and people start making tires for it...

Fact us both the 328 and third gen RX-7 are older cars and the classing can't keep them competitive forever. They had their time I guess. I only mention all this because I feel the pain of the 328 driver. That doesn't mean I don't have fun every other weekend chasing these guys though...

 

Yep, but given they did that, they should have taken the 355 and 360 off the stock exclusion list as they can't beat the Z06. But no, they don't want any chance that an expensive Ferrari is even remotely competitive.

It'll be interesting in 2006 when the Lotus Elise is mopping up SS... will they exclude it or allow it to obsolete the Z06? (Of course, its still unclear how strong the Elise will be... it'll be interesting.)

 

No, no... I was talking about the two ways to have fun with others... sharing driving skills or sharing cool cars. Tillman was talking about another way to have fun... to challenge yourself and compete... and lamenting that its really hard to do that in a Ferrari.

Worse, some Ferrari owners will shy away from autocrosses for exactly the reasons at the end of your quote above... people assume Ferraris are wicked fast and are inherently competitive... thus, if you post a non-competitive time, it appears you are a weak driver, when in fact you may have laid down as awesome a time as possible in that car. My following suggestions were to mitigate that... for example, running in a large PAX'd class like "street tire" results in tons of cars that are non-competitive on a particular day... and "times" that are computed and thus "virtual".

Well, it was your statement asserting that Ferrari owners were just there to show off that set me off. Many of us Ferrari owners want to go to compete and to learn to drive the car better... and are a bit disappointed that their beloved Ferraris are so horribly classed by SCCA... it sucks a bit of fun out. I was just trying to point out other things that keep the fun level up... the fun things about showing up with a Ferrari.

All clear now?

 

This Sunday will be gloriously hot and the SCCA has an event at Pennington Field. All racecar driving nuts should attend and I'll take anyone for a ride even if they don't think my car is cool If you really want to get scared, you can ride with my gf She's proof herself of how much you can improve in a short amount of time...

 

After reading more on these posts, I just realized I enjoyed Evolution so much because I was driving 355. If I were driving my other cars, it would be like a driving school. I feel I am more familiar to my 355 than before I participated Evolution.

I never spun or lost control of my f-car before, and scared to do so over 150 miles (or even 60 miles). If I could go 150 miles w/out worrying about totaling a car nor injury to myself, I would love to try that!!!

I was a first timer to Autocross, and seeing other cars going fast didn't made me wish to drive them. I just wanted to drive more my 355, and drive better w/ 355.

I enjoyed trying to go fast & making sharp turns smoothly w/ my 355, and making it "corn-free". 2nd phase didn't even time each wrap, so I really don't know who was fast in reality. I still enjoyed 2nd phase after taking 1st phase though.

 

As free as the wind blows
As free as the grass grows
Cornholeo.....

Wait a minute....wtf????

Ahhh, Is anyone going to attend the Pennington Field event this Sunday?