absoluteis

Now I am by no means a superb driver, but I found an empty parking lot to screw around on yesterday. I was doing relatively low speed figure 8's on different ESP settings to better understand the car and I found that (no surprise) the car seems to handle much better with stability control on and traction off.

So my question for the autocross guys is how do you handle the car with ESP off completely? I read that at least one of you disables it for track use. During the figure 8's I just couldnt bring the rear around by jabbing the throttle (like RWD) even though I have seen it done and even tho there is a rear bias in our car. Maybe those moves require higher speeds?

In either case, I am sure its also a function of tire, since I am running A/S advan S4's (I plan on putting them out of their misery this summer on autocross)

Thoughts on what setting the experienced autocross drivers use for ESP and how you handle the resultant understeer?

bhvrdr

don't try and come into the corner too hot...feel free to come out of it as hot as all hell, but dont come in too hot. You'll do nothing but push out the front end on these piggies. Grab some RS4 hsports for the cheap price they are.

larryV

I do turn the TC control off though (1st stage of ESP) because I found that having TC on definitely affects the lap times.

ELEVENS

Every time the tail gets a little bit out, the ESC will intervene and tuck it back in. This is why I turn ESC off at autocrosses - I want the back end to come around especially in the tight corners. Like Larry, my track times also were improved with stability control OFF. High speed tracking (haven't done it with this car), I'd probably leave ESC on for the added insurance.