AX in the rain, a learning experience Options

[Dave-O]

I had a fun weekend autocrossing! On saturday I did the Milwaukee region SCCA drivers school and got a lot of good seat time and some great instruction by Pat Washburn, who has a host of SCCA National trophies and used to be a 914 guy.

My new set up has the same stock torsions and 22mm sway bar set 2" from full soft. I put adjustable coilovers on the rear with 150lb springs and a stock sway bar. In the dry the car was a blast to drive. It may have been a little too stiff in the rear but the car would rotate controllably with very little effort. I also was really able to put the power down while unwinding from the sweepers.

The rain came on Saturday Night and it proceeded to rain all day long for the event on Sunday. The stiff rear end is absolutly not the set up to run in the rain! The car was a handfull, it felt like I was driving on glass as anything that would upset the chassis sent the back end around. Since I didn't feel like crawling under the car in the pouring rain to change anything I just adjusted my driving style a bit. I had to comply to the old "brake-steer-gas" mentality as there was no way I could position the car with lifting or gas.

It was a good experience, but rain really takes a lot of the fun out of autocrossing. However, an experienced rain driver can rain terror on a field of unexperienced people in these conditions...I'll just have to put my time in.

Here is a video of my fastest run...

http://media.putfile.com/Milwaukee-43006-run-5