I went to my first event last weekend. I am hooked. I had some really fast times, unfortunately I thrashed my tires from over steering. So I upped my tire psi to 50. I still rolled my tires over too far. I tried to figure out a way of getting through the corners fast without over-steering the car. My big problem now is that I have no power coming out of the corner. So I tried feathering the clutch. The problem with this is that I'll burn out my clutch really fast. I am investing in a second set of wheels for auto x alone (Kosei X1 wheels, and Hoosier radial A3S03's). I feel this will help out with the over steering and will be a good idea anyway if I plan on getting serious about this.

Any way, Is there any driver performance advice about cornering in the TT 225 Quattro?

 

...after a run or shifting gears, your foot should be nowhere near the clutch!

 

You should not on MOST courses ever need to use the clutch after you shift out of 1st gear. The next time you should need the clutch is when you are parking the car after the run is complete.

If you are rolling over your tires with 50psi in them then you are turning the steering wheel too much. At any point are your arms crossing? If they are then you need to move your hands on the wheel itself. You should not be turning the wheel as fast as humanly possible, this is not a speed contest in fastest steering wheel wins. It is a precision driving contest.

Keep this in mind . . . the slower you move the faster you will go. If you slow your hands and feet down to 1/2 speed you will go much faster. The tires will not roll over either.

I set the novices pressures at the events to 36/33 or 38/35 depending on the course. They were not rolling over onto their sidewalls as you are describing. They used the entire tread, even the part that runs up the side of the tire about 1/2".

Good luck at the next event. The same thing will happen with race rubber if you oversteer the car. The stickier rubber will only do so much.

Where do you live? Anywhere near NY?

 

...the El Toro concrete is notorious for eating through Hoosiers in one day of ProSolo. For concrete, you've gotta increase the front pressures significantly to prevent rollover. I advised Brad to start at 48 PSI minimum as soon as I heard that they were doing his school at El Toro.....

 

...your street tires in one school, those Hoosiers won't make it through more than a handful of regular autox events on concrete! The joke among Hoosier drivers is that the company was named after "Hoosier Daddy?" when it's time to replace them every other weekend.

My suggestion is to get a set of full-tread Kumho V700's for your first autox tires. They'll out-last the Hoosiers at least twice over, and are only 2/3 the price. Once you get your learning done, then switch to Hoosiers when you're looking for those last few tenths of a second.

Of all the tires that I've tried on the submarine, the Kumhos are the fastest so far. The BFG G-Farce T/A R1's were not very forgiving of being over-driven, and *snapped* loose when you drove them at 100.001%. The Kumhos will give you plenty of notice before they let go, and can be pushed to 110% + before they completely let go. I did mount up a set of somebody's takeoff Hoosiers on the front of the submarine for ha-ha's once, and liked the feel of them. They just didn't seem to want to stick like Kumhos, which may be the reason why the guy threw them away.

Thanks for reminding me. I've got another pair of Kumhos coming in tomorrow, and need to make space for them.....

 

You may be in too high a gear and have serious lag. Stay in 2nd gear and be smooth on gas & steering

 

I don't have ESP installed in my car. I figured out by the end of the day that I was over steering. So I compensated by breaking harder before the corner, and moving slower through. The problem I was finding is I had no power coming out of the corner. It seems that I need to keep my RPM's up, but my speed down going through the corners. Coming out of the corner my RPM's are very low, and my turbo is not kicked in. Is this where left foot breaking would help me?

 

you have to give it pedal earlier through the turn so you rocket out as fast as you can. I have only been to one event thus far, but that is one of the things I have learned.

I will echo the sentiments of everyone else as far as "smoothness". Overdriving the car was my biggest mistake. I remember watching this guy in a BMW on the track (I was stationed at corner one as a track offical). I watched this guy go through the course and was thinking the entire time:

"Gee, this guy is not goin very fast. Maybe he is just learning the course"

When I heard the announcer come over the PA with his time my jaw dropped. I couldn't believe it until he repeated and dropped his score even lower. The guys who really seem to excel (and the ones I love to watch the most) are not the ones doing 4 wheel drifts through every gate but the guys that are so smooth it's like the whole course is second hand. It's pretty darn incredible to watch.

 

Is their anyone going to the event in El Toro on the 16th?

 

...you start learning the tricks.

slow in = fast out

There it is. Think about it. Do *all* of your braking in a straight line before the turn, release the brakes, let the suspension settle, turn the steering wheel, look across the turn through the apex to the exit, roll on the throttle, hit the apex, and steer for the exit. If you're going into a corner so hot that you are running the tires at a slip angle high enough to tear them off the rims at 50 PSI, then you're going in WAY TOO HOT to make the corner. Go in slow, mat the throttle as soon as you lift off the brakes if turbo lag is an issue, and you should be on full boost by the time you reach the apex and are steering for the exit.

The hardest part of driving for novices to learn is that you sometimes have to go slow to be fast. One of the things that I do with novices is point out that they don't hear their street tires squealing when I'm driving their car. Most of the time, they immediately break their misconception that the tires must be squealing if they're going fast. "Hey, I've *gotta* be going fast because the tires are squealing the whole time!" Nope.

At yesterday's event, there was a 180-degree turn into the finish. According to
GEEZ, I was on a 36.7 pace on my last run as I entered that turn. I went in just
2 MPH too hot, skidded around the thing with the Kumhos MOANING for relief, and finished with a 37.3. One turn, 0.6 seconds. Picture how much it adds up to on *every* turn, and how much worse it would have been if I was 5 MPH too hot.

slow in = fast out Can't say it enough.....