Regular visitors to The Garage know that our own Will Faules has been helping some Spec E30 crews sort out their new race cars, while he preps his own car for next season. Will isn’t the only one around here that has been smitten by the Spec E30 bug however. Regular commenter Adam Lazur races in the class and has a blog where he gives regular race reports. Fortunately for us, Adam also has an HD camera along for the ride and has posed some great in car footage.
The following is from race 2 at Infineon Raceway early in November. If I have my details right, I believe Will was actually race director that weekend, so he wasn’t behind the wheel giving everyone a schooling! After you watch this great vid in full screen HD, be sure to visit Adam’s blog, The Science of Slow to see more from the season.
NASA Norcal @ Infineon 2008-11-09 Race #2 from Adam Lazur on Vimeo.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
It’s easy to see why I love that track so much. So many great places to pass! The only mistakes Adam is making are typical rookie mistakes. First of all Adam, forget what in the hell AJ is doing and pass the dude! Be concerned about what YOU are doing. Learn to stay off the brakes and more on the gas. I noticed your car seems to be a lot faster in the long sections which is a huge advantage in that class. You used the word “Kamikaze” but good racers don’t consider it a reckless move but instead a controlled overtake. You missed a lot of great chances early on to brake late and dive inside at T4, T7 and T11. You MUST learn ho to do that. Once you get inside, even though you will be slower out, the car you dive inside off will be forced to slow down because you have taken away the preferred line. Last but not least… DO NOT DO ANYTHING DIFFERENT IN A RACE THAN YOU DO IN PRACTICE!!! One time you left foot braked, the next you didn’t, then you hit the clutch and so on. The time to try new things are in practice not during a race. If you want to left foot brake learn to do it on a practice day and then stay with it until you are so damn good at it you don’t have to think about it. THEN use it during a race. As long as you try to beat a bench marker you will never be any better than a bench marker. You appear to be confident in your car, learn to trust that it will stick and GO! Have Will take you out for a few laps.
PS: Fix your damn tach before it falls off.
Oh man…I thought the tach was sorta like a Hula Girl!
I know you west coasters like those things
Yep, Will wasn’t racing that weekend. He should be out running with us next year. Hopefully I’ll learn something when he takes us to school
Thanks for the tips GaryF
The after race video is tough for me to watch sometimes. There are so many things to work on.
It’s my first season of racing, so I’m still building up the confidence that I can keep it together under braking and not push out into the other car when under pressure. My foot knows how to make it work, it’s my brain that doesn’t want to let me do it. Very clearly I still end up driving another car’s line.
It’ll get better next season
The tach is one of the bits that came with the car when I bought it (already race prepped). I was going to remove it, but it serves as a poor man’s G meter in the video, so I left it
Good attitude. Let me try to give you some advice using another sport as an example of something I think you should work on. I used to shoot a fair amount of skeet and some people say I was pretty good. One of the methods of practice I was taught was to go to the particular stations that I was having trouble with and just practice that specific shot… Over and over and over and forgetting entirely about all the others. This way the brain (subconscious) can learn what works and what doesn’t. When I was shooting 25 different positions with many different angles the brain (subconscious) becomes confused and gets them all mixed up which means I spent a whole day learning NOTHING.
The same thing is true when trying to learn how to attack a specific road course. So many turn in points and exit points and braking and back on the gas, turn here and so on. Once you learn a specific corner and then others eventually the subconscious will begin to say, “Ahhh, I know how to handle this corner. It’s just like that other one.”
And remember, DON’T WATCH ANYONE THAT ISN’T IN FIRST PLACE. Why learn from anyone but the best? Don’t worry about HIS line, make him worry about YOURS and then pass him. Scare the hell out of him, make him watch you in his rearview mirror. Whie he’s doing it dive in on him and pass him.
The best bang for your buck if you want to go to the front before you go bald is to get a good coach. There are some awesome coaches who for very little money will teach you more in one day than you can learn in a whole year. The bottom line is it will save you HUNDREDS of dollars in tires, cars and costly mistakes and the best part of all, you won’t be back there any more.
With all that savings you can afford a bigger tach with a bracket. LOL.