RacingFrog attended my club's autox Sunday, and was kind enough to lend me his camera.

He did this real nice side-by-side analysis so I could see why he was beating me...in my own car!

 

Very cool, I was about to comment on being closer to the cones when it popped up in the video! LOL

 

Nice tutorial for when I can keep my car together long enought to autox again.

 

Nice video Brian. It's all in the gloves.

 

Very cool! That is a fantastic coaching tool.

 

Notice his hands never left the wheel and were at 10&2 the whole time!

 

Wow, nice way to compare and learn. I know I took an auto-x school earlier this summer and it helped so much. I too need to learn to slalom better, its better than it was but can still be better. I found you have to turn in WAY earlier than you THINK you need to. I made it a goal to almost hit the cones with the front of car in a slalom just to get myself to turn in earlier.

Cool Video at lot to like there.

What separates good drivers from great ones is details. A few inches here a couple there. Picking up the throttle sooner, being smooth, looking ahead, the devil is in the details. So much fun.

 

cool vid

 

I did notice he does alot less correcting with the steering wheel then you do, not as much back and forth... But , what do I know.....Cool video, never seen one done like this before for a comparision........WW

 

A couple of comments on the steering. My hands should be at 9-15 all the time but the stock steering wheel is so big and I am used to my smaller Sparco wheel in my C4 so my hands end-up higher than they should be. For the best accuracy (and best torque on the steering wheel) keep your hands at 9-15. A good picture to keep in mind is the valve wheel (like http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...e_wheel_01.jpg). Where would you put your hands to move the wheel?

You can see an onboard in my car at http://youtu.be/rHHJmnEcb68
You will notice that my left hand always stays at 9 but I move my right hand up for the right turns. That should not be necessary for autoX and I should keep my right hand at 15. This is something I need to fix (but this is my 1st year autocrossing and only my 5th event so far, so I still have to learn a lot!).
In road racing (unless you have a quick steering) you always want to move up the hand for the next turn so that your hands end-up at 9-15 during the turn giving you much more accuracy to correct if needed.

As it was my first time driving Brian's car, I struggled with the throttle application (he has more than twice the power than I have) and the grip level of the slicks (I was running on street tires on my car that day). As you can see on the last part of the video, overdriving a powerful car makes you lose time compared to a smooth run in a less powerful car. So work on clean lines and remember that it is much more efficient to be slightly under the limit than slightly over!

 

15? What are you using military time? Lol

 

So much truth there.

Its easy to overdrive a stock HP C4 on street tires and you lose tons of time doing so. This is something I've had to learn. If your sliding, skidding, too much tire squeal, counter steering a lot, your going slow.

I agree smoothness is key, find the limit and stay there but don't go over it. Its a fine line you have to walk (drive) to be fast.

A little tire squeal is ok, it lets you know you are close to the limit. Too much and your just wasting time.

 

I don't know how you do it in the US, but in Europe the left hand is hours and the right hand is minutes! So on the video, I would say that Brian has his hands at 10-10.

 

Photo time!

 

If I understand right your advocating a 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock or 9 and 15 hand position? Right? That is the one I use anyhow but for clarification sake.

 

Yes, this is correct.
If you look at this run in my 69, I do a better job at keeping my hands at the right place: http://youtu.be/XOaXXRRHrhw. Ideally, you want your hands to end up at 9-3 (or 9-15) during the turn for maximum accuracy and available amplitude for correction. Especially when you have a car that moves a lot around like a C3!