I have to say, that until recently, I never really realized just what a difference tire pressure makes. I know, it’s pretty sad that I only recently had that revelation… But better late than never, right? Besides, my “racing career” is very young at this point, and I’m definitely in the lots of learning stage. While you can always learn and improve, I’m learning and improving by leaps and bounds. Eventually it’ll slow down, but that day feels very far away.
Better late than never.
To get my feet wet, I started autocrossing in December of 2008. She’s been relatively unchanged since that first autocross, since I felt too weird wanting to race a stock car. People do it all the time, but I didn’t feel so serious without having something done, plus I was worried about looking funny.
Well, I still look funny, but I’ve since realized that nobody’s bothered by it. Most people are way too supportive and encouraging to notice that I’m the slowest. (Or usually the second slowest… I tend to beat one person, but only one.) Actually, it’s fairly nice. I get advice dispensed all the time… Once I start catching up, I’m sure it’ll be harder to come by!
Who, not always what, you know.
Yes, what you know is important. I knew that tire pressure was key to autocrossing, but I didn’t really know what I should do. Thankfully, the people I know more than make up for this lack of knowledge.
I knew that tire pressures could help the car handle better. I know that you can adjust them based on how the car’s driving. In my case, I was faced with massive understeer. Understeer to the point of it not being fun… It’s never fun though, I guess. The point is, it was horrible that my RWD car was refusing to turn, nearly at all, and it cost me dearly. Autocrosses are measured in seconds, so each fraction of one counts!
Solution? Adjust tire pressures, of course! Typically, cars do better with a slightly higher pressure in the front. Instead, I made the call to raise the pressure in the back. This was confirmed, since the raised back pressure should counter the understeer, but if I added too much I’d be facing oversteer. No way to be sure until I drove the car again.
In the end, I decided to go with 30 PSI front, 35 PSI rear. Bit high, but I figured if she was feeling really squirrely it’s much, much easier to let air out than get it in, and I could adjust it in grid if this was the case. Instead, it made her a tad bit tail happy. While drifting isn’t the fastest way to corner, it’s a rush to slide the car!
While adjusting, it was obvious why she didn’t want to handle quite right: My front tire pressures didn’t match, one was a bit higher than 30 and the other a bit lower than 30. The rears were sitting at roughly 27 each. I’m pretty sure I could have been a tad bit faster had I decided to bleed some air from the rears and adjust pressure to 32 or so, but I was enjoying the bit of sliding we were doing. It was all well controlled, and as I said before, it’s a rush!
Practice, practice, practice…
I’ve been told I should start a logbook for my Miata, but I’m still not entirely convinced. Logbooks are normally for the “real” race cars, the ones with the full cages, fire extinguishers, gutted interiors and kill switches, not for my street car turned weekend racer. However, it might do me some good.
While practice is the only way to improvement, it would be good to document my learning along the way. I could see myself drawing tiny course maps in a notebook, to make sure I don’t get any DNF’s. (Did not finish, what you get when you get lost on course.) Typical logbooks record: Time and day, track, temperature & weather conditions, any other misc. driver’s notes and the car’s readings, anything from tire pressure to gas to oil, oil pressure, air:fuel mix, boost, etc.
Like I said, it seems a bit overkill for us at the moment. I don’t plan on being nationally competitive in autocross, it takes quite a bit more than I think I’m willing to give… Especially when I can take the money and spend it on a high performance driving event on a track. And end up with more seat time. For now, autocross is my introduction to the world of racing… Even though I’m not fast, I still have fun. Solo is about competing against myself and the clock, nobody else.
Eventually, though, I can see a logbook doing us some good. When the Miata’s a bit more modified, when I’m a much better driver, when we’re looking to be a bit more competitive. For now, the most I care about is improving my times, working on finding the limit of my car and having fun.
However, I won’t ignore the easy things that help me improve my times. Tire pressures, I won’t forget about you again!
Who knows, next it might be removing the spare for me… Something else I’m convinced won’t impact my times. There’s always next month, I suppose…!
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