The guy I'm thinking of used to drive a blue STI. He was at the last event Bonnie had at RFR. He trailered his Miata from Idaho. He drove in our group............if you recall on one of the upper sections just before the downhill turn from hell, all three of us were just about side by side before the turn- my fault of course.

Never mind then... though Jim's been out to RFR a few times, came to the NORPAC convention a few years back to show his car, been out to Laguna Seca enough to turn his gold Brembo's brown... :lol: I figured it wouldn't be unusual for him to turn up again in Reno.

You guys are talking about the guy who brought two little Yorkie Terrier doggies with him, right? Nah, not Jim. That's Todd Hayden. He has both a WRX and a Miata. In either car, he's a great driver.

BTW, we now have 20+ drivers! See www.onemain.com/~bonster/driverlist.html We are getting an average of 2 new drivers a day at this rate. THANKS to all of you for recommending us to your pals. It would really be great to finally get to pay the track full price (they gave us a break the last couple of years because we didn't have enough drivers). I hope to see lots of you out there!

BW

Yes Todd was his name. Very nice guy. I first met him at an Audi track day at Laguna when he was driving his blue STI.

Cool. Todd signed up for both days the other day with his Miata. :)

I think I need to sign up for this one...

But would I be stuck in the Novice group with only two track days under my belt


*goes back into hiding*

K-man . . . we could work something out. You'd just have to change out run group i.d.'s (now an event bracelet). We'd want an instructor to sign you off to go into the Intermediate group first, though, which is no problem. Roseville, eh? I lived there for 5 years, worked there for 8. I now live in Natomas. I miss the old Roseville, when there weren't so many dang houses and people driving around. I still miss living there, though. From Roseville, the RFR track is about two and a half hours. Even closer than Laguna Seca! :D

BW

Is there something wrong with the Novice group? I'm sure the track will be big enough to let everyone have fun.

Besides unless you have run there before I'm sure most people would be a hindrance to the Advanced drivers, the course is way more technical then it used to be.

It's not like most people become robert kubica all the sudden and destroy their run group.

I'd plan on spending the night before hand up at the cabin to make the drive shorter. I still havent decided which day to sign up for yet, but ill email you when I have everything ready to go.

Right now I wish I was living up in Reno, my allergies are killing me :( Stupid trees...
I guess you havent been stuck behind a corvette driver who only goes faster than you in the straights and insanely slow in the corners... It seriously can ruin a lot of your track time :(

Assuming the Novice group has no passing in the corners of course...

If everyone in the Novice group is half decent, its probably not a problem. But who knows... I'd like the option of bumping up just in case.

I will also afraid the samething. First time I went out get stuck behind Prosche 930. On the straight turbo pull away really bad but in the turn I close up to the bumper til I have to back out. I was start in Novice Group in both times at RFR then in the afternoon I did bump my self to the intermediate. With the approved of instructor of course.

Can I sign up in intermediate class? (more than 10 years of racing both auto-x and gokart but only 2 track days) Or sign in as novice with an option to move up to intermediate class?

Because RFR is such a huge track, we'll have no problem bumping folks up a group if they get signed-off with an instructor. Please come find me so that I can set this up for you when you come up. I have a tip for you, though. RFR is a huge track, agree? Well, just show up early in the hot pits to make sure you are first out. It's not likely you'll pass anyone in the 20-25 minute session on such a large configuration (4.1 miles). Our first and last session is 20 minutes long, the four sessions in-between are 25 minutes. I think you'll be happy if you just start out up front. :)

BW

Hey . . . I've noticed a LOT of autocrossing posts here. You know, the racetrack event is just like a huge autocross. Why not try it out? :) I started out autocrossing, and now I'm a professional racer. Hmmm. Maybe you all might wanna try it out? I promise you won't be disappointed, and we have instructors for novices. Just thought I'd pop that one in there. Autocrossers typically make outstanding track day drivers. :D

Why thank You!:lol:

Well, Matt, I have had literally thousands of students . . . it's just doing the math. I am not saying they are perfect out of the box, but knowing the limits of the car, the terminology, etc., really makes my job as an instructor a LOT easier. Can you still get your helmet on that head of yours after this? ;)

Hahaha...No I do agree with you entirely, the car control learned at any level of autocross is very useful in moving to track applications. It's a great starting point.

What's funny however is that track folks tend to make crappy autocrossers... partly because they're not willing to toss the car hard enough, and partly because they're too nice and friendly. Autocrossers are a-holes. :P

Lol, Scott. I don't know about the a-hole part, but you are right about trackers not necessarily making good autocrossers. I was a track addict first, and decided to hang out and see what was going on at the autocrosses. There was a time when I couldn't afford to just go to the racetrack every weekend, so I started autocrossing. At first, I was the SLOWEST car in my class. Two years later, I was second place in the CSP class with a local club (there were about 15 or so regulars, a total of 29 overall entries for the season). I occasionally autox using someone else's car, as I no longer have a car that I would autox (Spec Miatas are difficult to autox). I just pay their fees and buy them lunch, and I get to autox. Surprisingly, as rusty as I am, I am still quite competitive. I get teased by my road racing pals about autocrossing, but I still think it is a blast. :) If I knew how to design a course, and if I had cones, and if I had a timing trailer, T.E.A.M. would likely host an autox series, as well.

It's been my experience that autocrossers tend to have the biggest egos of any competitors in motorsports... probably because a mistake at an autocross doesn't mean death or bodily harm like it does at the track... so it's easier to be cocky. However I've also found Reno Region to be the exception. We have very few big egos at our races, lots of n00b friendly programs including a Novice program and yearly autocross school, and plenty of members that bend over backwards to help out new folks. But if you go to National Tour events, or larger regional events, you run into a ton of cocky, secretive, overly-competitive people. Watch that Forza Challenge show, the autocrosser guy is by far the most abrasive person on the show... he's kinda par for the course. :lol:

Track folks just don't seem to be quite like that. Usually the fastest people on track end up being the nicest and most willing to share/teach off track. It's probably a chick/egg situation... the nice modest folks are able to learn more because they're willing to listen and learn, which in turn makes them faster and later more willing to teach. At least that's what I've noticed at TEAM, TM and UL events. The a-holes at the track seem to be the people with ridiculously fast cars and tons of track time that are still driving slowly in the novice group because they refuse to learn anything.

As far as track drivers being bad at autocross... I don't really mean they just not good at it, I just mean that when making the transition, track experience doesn't count as much towards autocross speed as autocross experience counts towards track speed. Basically, it's easier to go from the parking lot to the track, than the other way around. On the track being violent with the car is a good way to find yourself spinning in the dirt... at autocross being violent is sometimes the fast way around, since you have so much more available traction at 30 mph than you do at 90. However, the one thing I've noticed about being one of those autocrossers turned trackers is that I have an unnatural fear of being loose on track... I'm really scared of spinning at speed. I'm not sure if that's because of my autocross experiences or just because my car just tends to spin instantly with little warning. :lol:

Yah Scott, you are always so slow at the track...........what gives?

I'd be faster if I was willing to let the back end slide around more... I'm just chicken about it. I need to get some seat time in a Miata or S2000... something that can handle a ton of slip angle w/o spinning... and get some practice. I know my WRX gets about .5 deg of slip and then it's spinning. :eek:

It's been my experience that opportunities to make or lose money tends to bring out the a-hole trait in alot of people. :lol: So is it bad to be overly-competitive? I would say yes, if it makes you cry, or makes you throw your helmet on the ground.

I share your unnatural fear of being loose on the track -- and it wouldn't be so bad if the spinning action were kept horizontal to the ground, it's the idea of getting vertical that makes me lift. :lol:

You missed out on that Mazda zoom zoom event awhile ago... It was interesting auto-x'ing the miatas and experiencing that slip angle you mention. Its pretty fun, however, driving that way gives you less room to make a mistake, because once you commit to getting the back end sliding out like that on that kind of car you cant correct that much, you just have to stick with it...

Anyway, about the Auto-X vs. Track driver thing, I think it has more to do with reaction time, memory, and "space" than anything else. In auto-x, you have very little room to work with (but its safe) and a very short amount of time to react between corners, along with having to memorize a track design quickly. These translate over to road course driving very well.

I still remember the first lap I took at Thunderhill and was like "OMG, I have sooo much room here!" IE being able to go from one side of the track to the other. It took just a lap or two in order to figure out where the racing line was and memorize the basics of the track, but it took much MUCH more time/laps to figure out what speeds to use since tracks are at such higher speeds...

For a track driver trying to go to an auto-x, its more difficult. Quick reactions like during an auto-x are not required driving on a track as you have TONS of time to think about what to do for each corner, so I presume a track driver might take quite awhile to get used to reacting so quickly and having to sacrifice accuracy in each corner for just actually turning quick enough to make the corner :p As for the space difference between the two, it must make a track driver feel claustraphobic at an autox event having so little room to work with. Also, for memory, a track driver could technically get away with having a poor memory, as you really only need to look one or two corners ahead and never remember that much other than where to enter/exit the track, and you have several laps of course to memorize everything, while an auto-x'er needs to memorize the layout a bit before hand and at most during the first run in order to be as quick as possible...

Now, i'm not saying one or the other is better, none of us are, but there is definatly a different learning curve for each kind of driver learning either event.

Oh, and I'm just going to sign up for the Novice group... The field looks more interesting in that group. I plan on signing up in a week or so after I order my brakes :)

I think I can summarize the difference between autox and track driving in one simple sentence. At an autocross, hitting cones means X amount of seconds added to your run time; at the track, hitting cones means (oh crap!) you just went off the track and might be headed for trouble. ;) I actually started autocrossing because I thought it would make me more brave at the track. Oh well, the brain just got in the way. There's nothing wrong with self-preservance and not wanting to spin -- having fun is where it's all at. :D

I'm equally bad at track and autocross.

From a time trials perspective, I can tell you that memorizing the entire track is critical. With the exception of corners that exit onto extremely long straight, every corner exit directly determines the next corner's entry, which effects that corner's exit, and so on.

So you find the corner before the longest straight, and figure out what entry maximizes speed down that straight. Then take the corner before that corner and figure out what line maximizes your entry into the most important corner, and so on all the way around the track.

Then you memorize the line to the point where as you make that 1st turn at the end of the longest straight, you're actually driving to maximize speed off the turn 15 corners from now. If you forget where you are, it can snowball putting you more and more off-line as you go around the track... especially on very technical tracks that lack long straights.

RFR's B configuration is quite like this. Starting at the esses there is only one short straight at the back of the track where you can collect yourself and get back on-line. The rest of the track's corners are all closely linked, and with all the blind apexes at the top of the hill, you better remember where you're going or your throwing away tenths at each corner.