12 minute read
Autocross Update: August 2023
Chesapeake Region
Autocross Update
By:GregHartke;Photos:JimMcKee
The autocross season is rolling along with AX#4 completed on July 8th at Prince George’s Stadium in Bowie. I was keeping a watchful eye on the weather forecast early in the week before the race because it looked a bit ominous with PM thunderstorms forecast for Saturday. Fortunately, the forecast improved as the week wore on and my experienced weather eye was telling me were going to be just fine. The weather situation in the summer is always dicey because of the unstable summer atmosphere, though, so you never know just when storms might pop-up. I checked the forecast and future radar at 3:30 AM before I loaded my car to head off for PGS and it was looking like no precip at all, so I was optimistic for our race day.
Set up went smoothly (as usual) with John Cho, Phong Nguyen, Doug Slocum, and Jeff Dwyer helping out. (A great crew who did magnificently, but I still missed The Amazing Pinto Soin, who had a conflict and couldn’t attend this one.) After completing the course build, Co-chair Mark Hubley and I were quickly ready to do the tests runs to check the course for drivability and safety. The good news was that we didn’t need to do too much to the build, with only minor tweaks and a few additions made to aid navigation needed to have the course ready to go. With a quick build and only minor changes from the test runs, we were able to send the drivers out early to walk the course. That’s kind of been the pattern this year and it’s a good one – nothing better than being able to start early!
Mark’s course design for this one was deceptively simple. The cross-over came fairly early, which meant we could get a second car onto the course quickly. That’s great if you can do it, but the design doesn’t always work out that way. Why? Well, that’s complicated. The designer is tasked with coming up with a new design for every event. Every event You know how hard that is? These course designs don’t come from a book. They come straight out of the imagination of the course designer. Obviously, you don’t want to repeat designs (we never have) and there’s only so much you can do within the constraints of a facility like PGS, so that means you won’t always have a course design with an early cross
-over. Course design is hard. I’ve designed courses occasionally when it looked as if it were going to be necessary, but never used any of them because it turned out to not be needed. What I can tell you from that work is that it takes a lot longer than you think it might.
At the previous race, the cone spacing of the main slalom increased, which made for an easy slalom because the car speed could increase as the driver progressed through the slalom. At this race, Mark was diabolical and had the slalom cone spacing decreasing as you drove it. That’s actually not that hard to handle for the experienced AXer (especially since the slalom was driven uphill, which made it easier to properly modulate the speed through the slalom), but tough for the inexperienced, who would tend to go too fast and get behind. It turned out to be quite an interesting design element, well placed for this course design.
It was also interesting that there were a fair number of “off course” calls for the early runs in each Heat. These seemed to be taking place primarily down at the far end of the course around the cross-over. When Mark and I did the test runs, I immediately noticed that if you were tight around the skidpad throughout, it was very hard to pick out the following gates because you were looking at such a busy area. It was very difficult to process it with just a glance even when you were looking ahead properly. Mark emphasized this when he did his guided course walk, of course, but hearing it and executing it are two different things and I suspect a lot of drivers had trouble with this nonetheless.
It was a fun course. The little jog at the start meant that you had to pick your line properly, but if you did, you could be wide open on the throttle (at least on my 981 CS) right out of the gate and down to the braking point past the channel. Very fast! It was surprising how fast you could take that next corner, too, kicking the rear end out in oversteer as you got started on the skidpad. The skidpad itself presented an interesting challenge. I drove it very tight until just before the top, where I started to open the line up a bit. Because the exit was a surprisingly sharp corner (the skidpad was a circle flattened on one side), I used the throttle to drift the car out wider and really rolled on the power with the rear end wanting to step out with throttle oversteer, then full throttle (catch the rear!) as quickly as possible down to the hard corner to turn back up to the channel. I don’t know if that wide, fast exit line from the skidpad was best or not, but that’s how I drove it. My results were quite good, though, so maybe I shouldn’t worry too much.
There were three spots on this course where I fought understeer. The first was at the bottom left of the course map where you turn back up towards the channel. I was exiting the skidpad kicking the tail out as I rolled into full throttle, and that downhill section at full throttle made it easy to miss the braking point and carry too much speed into a corner that was actually sharper than depicted on the map. The second spot was at the end of the slalom at the sharp corner that turns to the right into the closing portion of the course on the right side of the map. The third spot was the jog into the stop box. All of these really made me wish I had torque vector steering or 4-wheel steering. Absent either of those, you just have to find a good way to rotate the car. I was happy with how I managed all of these except maybe that corner in the lower left, turning back up to the channel. Could have been better there.
The course had some really fast sections with subtle joining sections that required some thought to optimize. Plenty of opportunities to toss the car around and tax your tires, too, and the course was a pleasure to drive for both the experienced and inexperienced driver. As has been the norm lately, we had quite a few Taste of Autocross participants who had a blast taking hot laps with our corps of dedicated Instructors. Many thanks to our Instructors for agreeing to take out the ToA participants to show them what it’s like!
We were able to get started a little early, with first car off at 0918. The first run is always a little slow and, in this case, we had some minor timing problems to resolve, but we soon got in the groove with nice, quick runs. I was on the verge of declaring 7 runs for the day when Marilyn told me that the forecast had changed and there were thunderstorms (possibly severe) expected sometime in the 1:00 to 3:00 PM range. Arrgh! For that reason, I opted for 6 runs because I hoped everyone would then be able to get all their runs in dry conditions. The first heat completed at 1107 and we had the second Heat started at 1122 (which is a pretty quick turnaround). The second heat went pretty smoothly and we completed a great day of racing at 1305 with no rain.
Actually, by the time we were into the 2nd Heat, the forecast had changed yet again and thunderstorms were no longer expected. Oh, well. Nothing I could do at that point – we were already committed to 6 runs. That was OK, though. 6 runs is good and we finished a great day of racing with time in the afternoon for participants to take care of other things in their lives. Actually, it did rain for a while, but not until around 3:00 PM or so, only affecting us on the drive home after our usual après race lunch.
We had a full registration at 65 drivers and only one no-show, so 64 drivers in all for the day. The top 10 placing Porsches were:
1st overall, 1st in Class S5, 43.762 sec: Michael Tavenner, 2017 718 Cayman S
2nd overall, 2nd in Class S5, 44.505 sec: David Critcher, 2016 GT3
4th overall, 3rd in Class S5, 45.377 sec: Howard Leikin, 2021 718 GTS
6th overall, 1st in Class I, 45.702 sec: Damon Lowney, 2007 Cayman
7th overall, 4th in Class S5, 45.730 dec: Scott Borden, 2018 GT3 Touring
8th overall, 1st in Class S4, 45.984 sec: Dan Ruddick, 2015 Cayman GTS
10th overall, 2nd in Class S4, 46.262 sec: Mark Hubley, 2015 Cayman GTS
11th overall, 5th in Class S5, 46.406 sec: Ken Wojcik, 2011 Turbo
13th overall, 3rd in Class S4, 46.901 sec: Greg Hartke, 2014 Cayman S
14th overall, 2nd in Class I, 46.961 sec: John Cho, 2002 996 C4S
In addition, Michael Press was 1st in Class S3, Darrell Pope was 1st in Class P1, Phong Nguyen was 1st in Class P3, and Doug Slocum was 1st in Class P5.
AX#4 was another highly successful event with lots of smiling people who seemed to have a really fun time. We also dodged a bullet yet again with the weather. So far, the only serious rain we’ve had all year was (rather unfortunately) at the AX School in April, wiping out the 2nd heat with severe thunderstorms. I’ve been saying it’s my sacrifices to the weather gods that have made the difference (I guess I better keep that up!), because Potomac has had a far different experience with the weather at their autocrosses.
Speaking of Potomac, a number of us from CHS were racing with POT this past weekend (Saturday 7/29) at the Porsche Fest Autocross at Summit Point. It was a hot, but breezy day and at the beginning of the second heat, their timing went out. We’re not talking about a minor glitch that was quickly fixed, it went out and stayed out. POT has an RF link between their start and stop sensors and the timing console in the trailer (we use CAT 5 cable) and apparently they lost the RF link to one of them and couldn’t get it back. They think a battery went out in the hot conditions, but I don’t believe that for one minute. We use the same batteries in our sensors (we both use Race America equipment) and we have no trouble running them for an entire event. (Yes, I have a spare, but I don’t know if POT does.)
I was instructing in the 2nd heat and sat there with my student in the grid for quite a while in the hot sun while they worked on the problem. Whatever the cause, timing never came back and they had to organize manual timing with phones being used as stop watches. Do you think that was hectic for those working timing in the trailer? Betcha dupa it was! I was some kind of glad that I had worked timing in the 1st heat, thereby missing all the fun. ;) As expected, POT did a great job recovering under difficult circumstances. As always, you have to find a way because the show must go on.
I had an interesting time instructing at this one because my student had a 2021 Turbo Cabriolet. 575 bhp, AWD, and 4-wheel steering. That car was a monster! Phew! Unbelievable acceleration, amazing cornering ability, and astonishing brakes. Certainly opened my eyes to other possibilities for AX, that’s for sure.
Anyway, AX#5 is coming up shortly and it’s amazing (and a little sad) to think that we’re on the downhill side of the season. Sad because we all go into withdrawal when the racing season is over. Still plenty of racing to go, of course, but the end of the season is coming nigh.
BTW, I learned something important (though, thankfully, not firsthand) at this last AX. When you use the port-apot, be sure to secure your phone. ‘Nough said about that. ;)
Even if you’re not racing, stop by and say hello at AX#5 or at any of the remaining races. AXers tend to be gregarious and will happily answer your questions. As I’ve said before, you can even do Taste of Autocross to see what it’s like and maybe get a little taste of adrenaline. ;)
Looking forward to seeing everyone again soon at the races!
