Practice makes perfect
Atty. Jerome G. Neri
The Scrutineer
THE LTO lifted Administrative Order No. RPC-2016-033 officially known as Registration/Recording of vintage motor vehicles. They must have realized the absurdity of the said order. For once, they listened to common sense.
Anyways, two weekends ago was the first leg of the Autocross Series held at the Kartzone race track. The usual names were the front runners, Jet Calderon, Jess Garcia and Jojo Lloren. However, big improvements have come from Bobby Panginlinan, Ban Carillo and Philip Lim of team NCR.
They are all now posting competitive times and competing in the top level of the sport. What made them quicker this time around is that they are driving a lot better than they did last year. I am expecting them to be at the top of their game this year and will be competing for overall wins in the top class.
So, what does it take to be competitive at the top class in autocross? I’ve been asked this many times. I have also been asked to build a competitive championship winning car.
In order to be successful in autocross, more important than the car is the driver. One must learn the skills needed to be able to properly drive a car on the limit all the time. That is not an easy task, it needs many hours of practice and a lot of tires to be used till worn.
Usually when a person is learning autocross skills, he starts by driving slow, way within the limit. Once the person gets confidence he ends up driving over the limit, when the secret to speed is driving on the limit. When one is driving over the limit, his times will be better than when he was driving below the limit, giving him a false impression that he is already a good driver. The problem here is that he starts blaming his lack of competitiveness on the car. When one is driving over the limit, the car either understeers of oversteers into the corner costing time. The mistake here is that the driver will falsely think it is the way the car is setup causing the understeer or oversteer, as the case may be. In this situation, the driver will be on a wild goose chase for that perfect car setup. No matter what parts he buys or what changes he does to his setup, he would still be way off a top driver’s time.
Therefore, if a person wants to be a competitive race car driver, he must practice and keep on practicing. Only with practice can a person become one with his car. Thus, start with a decent car with a good base setup and drive. Always feel the car and be conscious of everything. Be aware of the car’s behavior. Find the line and the speed through a corner where you are about to oversteer or understeer and learn to drive it on that edge. It is only when the driver reaches this point that he should start setting up his car. The goal in setting up the car is to bring that edge further out.
To set up a car to bring the edge or limit of adhesion further out can be done from fine adjustments to the suspension geometry or changing tires and other aftermarket suspension parts. Adjusting the geometry is basically fine tuning the car’s existing suspension to the track. Sticky tires and other suspension upgrades is another level. As I pointed out earlier, learn first to drive on the limit with a good base car, preferably stock or close to stock and as you learn, slowly upgrade. The biggest performance gain in autocross is found in the tires, going to sticky ones will drop your times more than any other single upgrade. The next upgrade would be a good set of polyurethane bushings, then coilover dampers. If you still need more tunabilty then sway-bars. Other people prefer to use sway-bars first over coilovers, but in my experience the sway-bar upgrade should be the last step.
Once a person learns how to do high-performance driving, every upgrade and setup change will be felt and appreciated. This is why learning drive competitively is the first step before upgrading and tuning the car for autocross. This way the driver will be more skillful and the upgrades would be better appreciated.
