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

Yes, M95 or SA95 helmets are fine... plus, I'm pretty sure Gerry will have a number of loaner helmets, if you don't want to invest in one... but let me know if you'll need one and I'll check with him.

 

Yes, TR can shave and/or heat cycle tires for you.

DT and NTW never seem to have the tires I want.
Even Firestone never has the Bridgestone S-O3's in...
they can order them, but they don't match TR pricing.
So, I have TR deliver them to Firestone for installation.
After paying Firestone for install, I'm still $100's less
than buying the tires through Firestone directly.
Makes me laugh.

 

The beauty of the event is that nobody really needs any safety equipment. The helmet is primarily to keep the insurance rates down (the host has to pay insurance to cover the group and the site). The only ones in danger are the soft orange cones... they get the **** beat out of them!

 

Lack of tires? Sounds like a must-solve solvable problem.

 

Brian, it may be a factor of the type of tire you're buying, or the Firestone store you use, but I recently re-tired my Yukon XL with OEM Firestones and the Firestone dealer near my house was VERY aggressive in matching the prices I found online from Tirerack.com. He wouldn't let me off the phone until I told him the price I wanted to pay, and he did it for that price. You might try another store next time.

 

I might be up for a Saturday class. Is it worth it if you have no inerest in auto-x but want to build track skills? I'd probably bring my 911 instead of the 355 as it is my full time track car.

 

Absolutely. In fact, that's why I am doing it. Its dangerous and often very dirty to spin a car on the track... especially if the track isn't empty. So, you usually don't spend a lot of time at or beyond the limit at the track.

At an autocross, you can safely "lose it"... but if you only get 4 or 5 runs, you can't really refine things like you can on the track.

With the Evolution course, you're going to run the same "track" many, many times... so you can get to the point that you're refining it like on-track. But then you can try things like rotating the car around a tight corner (intentionally causing the rear end to slide for a bit so that you can more quickly get straightened up and back on power).

At MSR, for example, I've been trying to work on rotating the car around the first left into Rattlesnake. Making progress, but I have to be very careful because I don't want to slide across into the next curbing... or rotate too soon into the curbing right there. (Going over the curbing could rip the hell out of my car and its underbody panels.)

There's a couple similarly tight corners in the Evolution courses... I plan to work on rotating the car there... where if I spin it, I may have some "cone" to clean off the car... no big deal.

Also, at DEs I am often complimented on my car control (car gets a bit out of shape and I easily pull it back into shape). I learned that more so at Evolution schools than actually on-track. Why? Because I drive the car so much more on and just over the edge at Evolution, and thus get a lot of concentrated experience managing the car there.

Right now, at the track, I am feeling rather uncomfortable when the car gets loose... I am out of practice. After the Evolution schools, I will feel so much more in control at the edge back at MSR.

 

Well, make sure you don't wait too long to sign up... he tends to get zero-response for a while such that he's worried about filling them (and sometimes cancels)... and then gets boatload of sign-ups right at the end and they fill-up. (The only allow 12 in the Phase 1's; so, everybody gets their full attention.)

Yeah, the 360 doesn't rotate on a lift. But power-on rotation works... the trick is to lift and re-apply to catch the spin and then get under power again as smoothly as possible.

The other alternative is to take it deeper than I have been, turn-in and stab the brakes to rotate it, and then get on the power. I'm not sure which really works better there... partially because I'm still refining my line on the big right hander right before that... so my line coming in is changing all the time.

Speaking of which... I think I should head out there about now...

 

I'd encourage you for NOT getting your tires heat cycled at TR or any other vendor. I know with tirerack, their machine is only so wide. So, anything over, IIRC, 7" will not be cycled, only the center portion of the tire. For the same amount of dollars spent on gas & milage, you can do it yourself with minimal wear by doing figure 8's in a parking lot for 20 minutes.

 

Interesting... I know a lot of autocrossers that have TR heat cycle their 10-13" tires.

 

If they do, the tire isn't being cycled completely.

 

FYI... I just checked with Gerry... the Friday Phase 1 and the Saturday Phase 2 are the "popular" time slots... the spots are going fast... so, send in your apps soon. And you might email either me or Gerry to tell him you sent your app in.

The Phase 1 on Saturday and Phase 2 on Sunday are the two classes still low on sign-ups... so you have more time on those. But I wouldn't wait too long.

 

I have done this school and it is excellent. The instructors are generally National Solo II winning drivers and you can absolutely hammer the car with a worst case scenario being cone marks. Many skill translate over to street and track driving, but some do not (e/g shuffle-steering is no good, especially in a formula car).

You won't regret this opportunity and I highly recommend it at any expereince level. If I did not have MSR at my disposal, I would do this for the seat time alone.

Hopefully it will rain, some, too, and the chance to try skills in the wet adds a whole new dimension.

Your tires will do pretty well, actually, probably equivalent to 2000 miles or so of street wear on true street tires.

 

Frances,
I PMed you, too, but you want do just 1 right? I don't mind phase 1 Friday, phase 2 Saturday, but only applied for Phase 1 Saturday. Phase take 1 day, so I didn't know you could take off for Friday.

JimE,
are you convinced yet?? Tillman is going for Friday w/ his 328, too!

If we changed it to Friday, F-chatters can have all phase 1 class!

I wonder what Nick is up to. He might be interested, too.

 

IF I decide to go, I can't do Sat class, it's my sons birthday.

 

That would be a bit of a problem... my daughter was good enough to be born the next week.

You could do Phase 1 Friday and optionally Phase 2 Sunday... the latter should be easy to get into for a while... but the Friday Phase 1 is near full... especially if Frances and Yoshi have signed up for that. Given its likely to fill up and have a waiting list, cancelling likely won't be costly.

 

I'm filling out the application form, but I'm confused about 'class' and 'number'. If we've never autocrossed before, what are we supposed to do about these fields?

 

Don't worry about it too much... its pretty irrelevant. I think they just use it to pair up instructors with students... so, if you're running your car in BS, they may pair you with a former BS national champion (for example). Primarily what they learn is whether your car is "stock", street prepared, or heavily prepared.

As Rob indicated, a near-stock 308 or 328 is in BS.
With intake, exhaust, or suspension mods you might be in BSP.
A near-stock OR minorly upgraded 355 or 360 is in ASP (no stock class).
A Ferrari with more than intake, exhaust, and suspension mods is in SM2.

For a number, again no big worry... pick a single digit number, makes it easier to write it in shoe polish or tape on your window... again, no big worry... they just need some way to remember who you are as they record the times. With only 12-14 cars in a group, its not too hard.

 

Yep, I use them, too. Remember, if you have aluminum body panels, then magnetics won't stick... you'll have to get reusable vinyl.

On that note, I have some gray, some black, and some yellow-on-red magnetics that I'd be happy to sell at a discount. I'll keep one set of magnetics... but I certainly don't need three sets!

 

I wish I'd known about this place, I paid last week $70 for my magnetic numbers.

 

$70 isn't bad depending upon how many numbers/letters and what sizes... given you autocross more regularly, I suspect you were getting a few different digits in full 8" sizes and your class letters in 5" sizes... someone just starting out need not get more than 2-4 digits.

 

FWIW, the instructors will be:

Andy Hollis
GH Sharp
Mike Johnson
Gerry Terranova

All four are former National Champions in SCCA Solo2 (autocross). Both GH and Mike won nationals in the "bigger higher horsepower" class of FS... so will translate well to us. In addition, Andy won three ProSolo National Championships (a cross between autocross and drag racing); and I think Mike won one. (Andy's wife Ann has won several National Championships in the Ladies' divisions.) Gerry won back-to-back National Championships a couple years ago! All have been doing there thing in Stock classes, where its more about driving and less about modifying the car.

GH was my first Evolution instructor, back when it was still McKamey School... and I was still in an M3. I learned a lot from him. He's been one of the top leaders of the SCCA's Solo2 program for many years... in addition to being consistently in contention in events all over the country. Great guy.

Andy Hollis was my instructor for Phase 3 course I took a few years back. He put down amazing runs in his little Miata. Again great resume and great instructor.

I haven't had the pleasure of being paired with Mike or Gerry, yet... though I've certainly interacted with Gerry a lot, as he's been organizing these events in our area for as long as I can remember.

Just FWIW.