The Left Foot

So yesterday after a long stall I had the oppurtunity to hit Devens airfiled again for a autocross. This time i got invited by fellow iracer Ian Cook to join him with another fellow iracer Ryan Field at a Renegade Miata club event...

It was definetly packed, compared to the other clubs i go with usually (Track Club USA, Bay State Corvette Club, etc..) and ofcourse the # of runs got a hit at 7. Maybe I am spoiled with 10+ runs from the other clubs :) However they did lay down a very nice track, with a lot of technical and high-speed sections... so that was a nice change from the slalom heavy configurations i have got custom to over the years...

Ian had brought his project 90's miata, and he would co-drive it with Ryan. Keep in mind this was Ryan's first time autocrossing, however do not be fooled as Ryan is proabbly up in the top %1 drivers on Iracing.. some of you might say "so whats, thats just a sim" however...he is known for his extremely smooth style...After his 4th run, he was able to lay down solid times with a completely stock 90's project car, his smooth style from iracing had resignated well here.. i look forward to watch him in the future...

Ian's style was very similar to mine, especially my style from last year when i first started, fast and good car controll or controlled madness, and crowd cheering stunt driver abilities.. Since this is Ian's first year autocrossing, he will soon come to the same realization that i have come to and try to adapt and evolve his style to be right between the old aggresive and fun Ian and the smooth and boring Ian... it is a though balance to get to, and i've been working for a while for my self as-well, and i look forward to watch Ian unleash his true potential next year...

So watching these guys on the track, complete opposite styles gave me the clear picture, "the happy place", the style to adapt was actually a bit of both...or meet them right in the middle. Ian and i had a lot already in common, and i know i had to smooth out my transitions.. keep in mind my car, bone stock, with front skinny tires understeer's alot,, it is specifically designed to come out of the factory with understeer in mind (to decrease the # of clueless driver wrecks).

I had been left foot braking on Iracing for almost more then a year now, and finally had the courage to try it in real on my last race on Summit @ 24 hours of lemons with medicore success ( locked a couple times).

So what i decided was the first half of the day drive normal, and the last couple runs i would try left foot braking to ease the transitions and settle the car...

Here is a simple graph of my laptimes, comparing the diffrence in both methods (Blue : right foot, Orange : left foot)

You can ignore the first 2 runs, as thats when i try to learn the track, but after that, the amount of progress starts do decrease in each run, and i almost hit a wall (4th, 5th)... but once i switch to left foot braking, i get a great reduction on my lap times...

I can say as advertised left foot braking did not only help with the transitions, cut down the amount of time lost between changing from brake + gas, but it actually improved (in my car) the amount of understeer i used to get...which was exactly what i needed.

I still think the car has more potential with smoother hands(looking at the graph you can see if we had run #8 or even #9 there was room for improvement), but this was proabbly one of the fastest runs on street tires on the event, here is my last run where i finally break the 113 second mark:

Phil-1800 a.k.a "Stockholm Saint"

Yes kids it official, there is a high possibility that next year the team might have a 2nd car as a contender...

This one is a true "piece of shit", but comes with a history and class... I have a feeling once Phil gets done with this, it will be one of the better looking cars on the northeast lemons tracks

Early reports indicate that the car will be named "Stockholm Saint" and will include a swedish theme,, lets hope nothing to do with ABBA :)

Saying that, Phil...(who's apperently dad still owns a restored version of this car ) has some scary plans for this baby. One thing about Phil is he is a true jack of all trades, a perfect engineering genius..once done with this car, it will be pumping a good hp/weight ratio i am sure!! :)

Nothing Phil does is "under-whelming", and i truelly cannot wait to get more updates of the car through out the winter as it morphs into a race car by spring...and shit in my pants on the track while drivin it!

The other cool aspect would be running a 2 car team, although logistically speaking towing 2 cars to each race will definetly become a costly nightmare... However running the fox and the saint side-by-side drafting on the straights, while taking in team orders on intercom will definetly add a nice twist to the equation... a equation that keeps getting bigger and larger each year, just like the team :)