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Originally Posted by AtomicLabMonkey
And as I was saying, changing the geometry of the suspension is not necessary to keep the tires on the ground, especially in a car like the E36 that has decent geometry to begin with. Lifting a tire is usually a roll stiffness distribution and/or damper issue (either insufficient travel or too much valving stiffness). Both of which can be dealt with inside the confines of most autocross class rules (even in SP you can change springs, shocks & swaybars as I recall). It is a correctable problem.
I know autocross presents a different dynamic load picture than track events, and I also know chassis setup is frequently a hurried compromise during any given race weekend. The simple fact remains that lifting wheels means you just haven't figured out how to dynamically balance the car correctly, and you're leaving something on the table. 3 tires cannot produce as much grip as 4. "Autocross forces are too extreme" is not a good excuse in my opinion.
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But do you agree that setup is about compromise? If so, I submit that lifting a tire is an acceptable compromise to minimize lap times. Keeping a tire on the ground in a specific turn type is not the objective. Best performance in the parts of the course that make the biggest difference is. Keeping all 4 tires planted in a fast slalom may be more important than doing so in a tight constant radius corner. Tuning for both may be impossible. So the compromise is sacrifice performance in the later to maximize performance in the former.
Also in autocross, the car has to be as consistent as possible. You only get 3 runs, and the car has to be predictable on run 1, not after 4 practice sessions and many sessions of tweaking on a given weekend.
I have even seen AM, now XM "cars" lift inside fronts in tight corners. These are the fastest autocross vehicles made. Do you honestly believe these people wouldn't eliminate that if it was beneficial? Doing so would likely require them to compromise something else that would cost them time over a greater portion of the course.