November 5, 2016 Lakeland Autocross
Rough day at the track!
The importance of walking the track can't be stated strongly enough. It gives you plenty of time to slowly go over the layout and plan your attack for each set of cones. You can stand stationary and contemplate different lines for each corner. You can get a feel for the surface conditions. Taking your time at this phase helps you not get "lost" once you're in the driver's seat.
However, there's no substitution for running through the course the first time at speed. Here, I underestimated the amount of turning I needed to do in one section and the result was plowing 2 cones. Notice that I didn't even try to save the lap. Once I realized that despite fully turning the wheel hard right nothing was happening, I just let it happen. WHACK. I dragged one cone for half of the remainder of the course and used the rest of the lap to just get a feel for the upcoming turns so I hopefully wouldn't encounter more issues later. After a 10 minute delay to reset my carnage, other driver's were clear to run the course.
My second run was cleaner...much cleaner. Including a sparkling windshield. In the last slalom, somehow, I not only activated the wipers, but also hit the washer button so hard it popped out of the stalk, resulting in continuous washing and wiping until the tank was empty. Luck would have it that the button also flew out of my open window, never to be seen again. The only fix was to pull the fuse. (Its #22 in the passenger footwell, for all you C5 owners) My future solution is to cover the stalk with the bag for my Ion camera and pull the fuse before racing so the wipers can't come on and the button will never be lost again.
The importance of walking the track can't be stated strongly enough. It gives you plenty of time to slowly go over the layout and plan your attack for each set of cones. You can stand stationary and contemplate different lines for each corner. You can get a feel for the surface conditions. Taking your time at this phase helps you not get "lost" once you're in the driver's seat.
However, there's no substitution for running through the course the first time at speed. Here, I underestimated the amount of turning I needed to do in one section and the result was plowing 2 cones. Notice that I didn't even try to save the lap. Once I realized that despite fully turning the wheel hard right nothing was happening, I just let it happen. WHACK. I dragged one cone for half of the remainder of the course and used the rest of the lap to just get a feel for the upcoming turns so I hopefully wouldn't encounter more issues later. After a 10 minute delay to reset my carnage, other driver's were clear to run the course.
My second run was cleaner...much cleaner. Including a sparkling windshield. In the last slalom, somehow, I not only activated the wipers, but also hit the washer button so hard it popped out of the stalk, resulting in continuous washing and wiping until the tank was empty. Luck would have it that the button also flew out of my open window, never to be seen again. The only fix was to pull the fuse. (Its #22 in the passenger footwell, for all you C5 owners) My future solution is to cover the stalk with the bag for my Ion camera and pull the fuse before racing so the wipers can't come on and the button will never be lost again.