Taking the Lotus Elise for a "spin" :)

So a couple weeks ago i decided to take the car for a "spin"...well
lets jusy say I spinned out twice during my first two runs, the rest of my 8 runs where controlled madness :)

Although New England is known for its crappy weather, horrible roads, lack of good tracks (I mean come on Lime Rock Park is a glorified oval, with 5 right turns and 1 left turn, nothing compared to the crazy road courses in the west coast,, lets not forget they have nice weather too!)...anyways what was I saying..??,, yes,,, being a car freak, and living in New England is proabbly not the best matchup,, but we do have a very cool autocross site at a not so-used airport @ Devens...

While rest of you are doing 40-50 seconds runs, x5 during a autocross day
if lucky,, we usually get to do 100+ seconds runs. The first time i was lucky to do 14 runs (oh boy was i tired at the end of the day!), and last time i got 10 runs,, which is almost ~20 minute seat time,,, not bad for $55.

Also because its a airfield, you got a lot of open spaces, nice run-off space, very safe, and fast pace track setups... I was proabbly on the limiter a couple times on 2nd, and could have shifted to 3rd if i wanted.

So lets get back to the car & driver, a bone stock 2005 Elise... and not so
experience driver, who after watching his own videos has concluded that he has to be smoother next time :) Did i mention the car was "British racing green", it should help me go faster :)

Joking aside, i was actually pretty fast, but still have a lot of room for improvement. The lotus tends to first understeer, then oversteer...and if you ever lift during a turn, SNAP... you are spinning round and round. That snap oversteer is so quick/so fast/so brutal that you won't know what happened until the dust settles, and your hearbeat goes down to 160.

So being a mid engined car, and with the understeery stock setup, you have to commit to your turn, and keep your foot on the pedal until the car settles.

The common mistake with the Elise is:
1- You come into the turn too hot
2- Mid turn, car starts to understeer
3- You panic, lift off throttle to slow down to help with understeer
4- Back gets loose
5- Depending on your speed, you can proabbly catch it, or you are in for a nice spin :)

So, here is a video of one of my fast(but sloppy) runs where towards the
end, exactly what i listed above happens. I was fortunate enough to catch it on both @ 1:45, 1:55...

Thoughts & feedback welcome: