Paul R.

Hello everyone, I am fairly new to this forum and Corvettes in general. I bought my 2004 Z06 this past March. I bought this car after riding in my friend's at a local autocross. I was driving a CP '94 mustang at the time and that ride in his car was a revelation. I knew at that instant that I wanted a Z06. Long story short I bought the car in March and this weekend was really the first time I had the car completely setup with an alignment and race tires... basically my excuses were all gone and if I did poorly I had no one to blame other than myself. It was a 2 day event, and I spent day 1 trying to get adjusted to the car, and I tried to break my bad habit of over-driving the car. I am an aggressive driver and I quickly discovered that throttle modulation and smooth driving are the key to turning better times in this car, this is something I have always struggled with since switching from drag racing to autocross.

Here are two runs from day 2. I finished 6th overall in raw time and 13th in PAX out of 66 cars on Saturday and 7th overall in raw and 9th in PAX out of 68 cars on Sunday. I was very happy and surprised by that result. I absolutely love this car and I can't wait to get it back out on course to continue working on getting better and breaking old bad driving habits.

Here is the course layout. We ran it in one direction Saturday and the opposite on Sunday. Sunday flowed a lot better than Saturday and everyone's times proved it.


Here's a video of my fastest run, and most most entertaining one as well.

http://youtu.be/IFPV6BamPzQ?hd=1

The car felt great with the new alignment and tires and if anything it is a bit loose, but I'd rather have a loose car than one that pushes as that suits me better. I feel the car is good enough now that I can just focus on my driving and not worry too much about car setup, at least for the foreseeable future. I'm always open to input and criticism, so if anyone has any I welcome it.

JiminVirginia

That second run looked great.

The car can be a handful, that's for sure.

CHJ In Virginia

Welcome to the Z06 addiction !! Just wait till the track day - HPDE bug bites ---- Second run looked great, you were much smoother in your inputs to the throttle and steering wheel. Seat time is the most important thing right now. Learn how to effectively use your car before making any additional mods.

Jason

Sound like you are on the right path. : thumbs:

AverageVetteNut

Paul, its Brian from the previous CPR event... welcome to CF and glad you are getting a better grip on the car. I was working the PVGP this past weekend and couldn't make it but it looks like it was a blast.

Good luck and maybe I'll be up in the fall.

torque*is*cheap

Nice saves in the video!! It's addicting, isn't it? I can't wait until this Sunday for the next autocross in SoCal.

I'm in a similar situation about learning to smoothly put the power down. Last year, I was driving a MR2 Spyder with about 115 rwhp; this year, a Vette with almost triple that!! It's so rewarding when you get it right

By the way, that is the nicest, most detailed auto-x track map I've ever seen! Looks like a great venue, with lots of room.

Paul R.

Thanks everyone, it is hard for me to be smooth and slow as I'm usually an over-driving nut behind the wheel.

CHJ- I don't plan to add anything else to the car anytime soon. Luckily the intention of the car is to stay in SS, so other than a front bar, end links, and shocks there isn't much else to do. I made the mistake on my last car of adding a ton of part at once which forced me to learn to drive the car the way it was setup. I want to learn this car and what it likes and then tailor whatever mods I do to making the car work better and fit my driving style versus the other way around if that makes sense. I'm a fast learner but I know it will take a lot more seat time for me to get on to this car.

Hey Brian, good to hear from you. I couldn't remember your user name on here, but I wanted to message you and let you know how I did with new tires and an alignment. I wanted to make it to the PVGP but I couldn't pass up the cone killer for it. I see what you mean about possibly needing the front bar since putting the 295's on. I am going to hold off for now on putting it on as I actually like the feel of the car presently. That may change as I adapt and get more experience driving it but for now it is working for me. I had high hopes for that weekend but I didn't expect to do as well as I did. I never thought that I would beat Don in his Z06, but I somehow managed to get him by just over .9 of a second. We video'd each other’s runs and it is interesting to see the slightly different lines we took. I need to find a way to edit the video so that they are side by side in the same screen shot so we can tell where each of us were faster. I hope to see you out again at either an AH or CPR event.

torque*is*cheap- Thanks! LOL! I put that run in there just for kicks and giggles. I was a bit nervous in the car as that section of runway has a very abrasive surface that can sometimes grip, or act like marbles. The problem is there are a lot of close proximity runway lights there too which are never fun to be sliding in the vicinity of! My wife has an Mr2 Spyder as well. That car is fun, but like you said lacking in power. If the engine ever goes in it I plan to swap a 2ZZ engine into. I figure that ~50hp bump in power and ~2K of more useable rpm range should make for a lot more fun. As for the course map, our designer puts them all up after each event. He comes up with some crazy designs at times, and it is nice to see the layout after in order to compare video and lines to. It is a great learning tool. Good luck Sunday!

Greywolfe

Yes working his way up the pyrimid.

Greywolfe

Congrats and welcome to the club!

Autocross is a blast. Biggist tip I could give you is to look far ahead and plan a gate or 2 ahead. Visualize the line and smooth out that line as much as possible.

Try going less aggresive but running the perfect line. Then add more aggresion later.

Some times when you go 'slower' you get better times!!!!

Paul R.

Funny thing that quote never worked for my old car. The calmer and "slower" it was driven, the slower the times were. It needed beaten into submission to work. Unfortunately I am having a hard time stopping that behavior. One thing I noticed is that I have to conduct my walk of the course differently now. Before I'd just pick a few sections of the course that were either confusing or required a bit more thought and I just drove the rest by the seat of my pants. Now this car does everything so much better and faster that I need to almost visualize the entire course because I don't have time to think at all while on course. This is a good problem to have because it means I have a fast car that reacts quickly, I just need to concentrate on this a bit more than I used to.

Paul R.

I found a program online that allowed me to do a PIP of me and my friend's runs in our C5Z's. Here's our best runs played over one another. I found this very informative as I can see the different lines we took and the resulting time difference as a result. I plan to use this for all of my future events. Now that I have this I can try different lines and afterwards lay them on top of one another to see what could have resulted in the quickest time. If nothing else it will be entertaining to see.

http://youtu.be/6xiFLhR0ye4?hd=1