I just finished the Evolution phase 1 school yesterday. It rained all day (and now its sunny for phase 2, go fig) so it was a bit of a challenge. The 8 turned into the Ultimate Drift Machine. Very difficult to keep the car from sliding. It was interesting to watch the instructors (both multi-time nat'l solo2 champs) adapt to the car. They were both pointing the car at cones, and then using the throttle to step out sideways and just slide past them. Intense.

When the secondaries open around 6k, the power boost can catch you off guard. My car is totally stock, stock alignment, pressures were 42 front, 40 rear. They wanted us to run as we normally would for an auto-x and not change any settings during the day. In the first session the car was more behaved and had a bit of understeer. In the second session the understeer decreased, and the car got, as one instructor described 'crazy mega loose.' I managed to pull off some sick drifts, and also killed a good number of cones. Only 2 spins!

The school is pretty good, biggest benefit is the one on one time with the instructors, getting to see them drive your car, then having them ride with you.

 

How much experience should you have before taking the phase 1 school?

I've heard that it is also best to take the phase 1 school and then do a bunch of autocrosses and get some seat time before doing the phase 2 school. Would you agree?

I'm doing a 2 day SCCA school this weekend which is geared towards people with less than one year experience (i have only done 4 autoxes) but someday I'd like to do an Evolution school.

 

I'd probably agree with that. Actually I think it would be better to do an autox or two first, because you should at least have a very basic of idea of performance driving, ie the line, braking straight. If not, probably won't really matter.

Phase 1 gets you alot of things to think about. For me, I'm worried I'm going to have to relearn alot of the way I currently drive. I'm thinking so much more about things like left-foot braking, weight-transfer slides, and trail-braking and trying to recall how my instructors drove versus my style.

Its so weird because both guys had a style that initially looks fast and jerky, until you realize that its actually smooth, but exteremely fast. I think its going to take alot of autocrosses to really internalize these ideas, although seat time, whether is at schools or autox's is always good. Now I'd like my own private autocross for like the whole day!

 

So do they force you do to left foot braking in the Evolution school? I can't ever seeing myself wanting to learn that. I'd be afraid that I'd accidentally slip into that while on the street...

I like to think that autox makes me a better street driver...

 

No, they don't force anything. My instructors both did it, but they didn't mention it until I asked. They were both honest and said that they felt that it was an important technique to their driving, but that there are other people who are just as quick who do not use it. One of the instructors told me that when he first tried it, he spun like 10 times and didn't try it again for 5 years. Its definetly a hard technique.

That being said, if you can do it well, I'm sure its actually a good technique on the street. If you ride motorcycles, you'll know that most riders suggest keeping two fingers on the brakes at all times, for faster reaction. The same thing applies to your feet in a panic situation. On a track obviously the last thing you want is a panic situation, instead it lets you alternate throttle and brake in quick sucession.

But its probably not something even important until you are contending for nat'l champion, which I'm certainly not. I just figure it will be easier to get used to now, if I personally feel it will be useful.

The biggest focuses are on being smooth, and looking ahead. They offer individualized instructions per car. They teach a certain style that they feel is the fastest on that car, and the benefit of two instructors is that you can see two styles and start to understand that there is more than one way to be quick.

Both of the instructors I had put alot of emphasis on weight transfer, smooth lateral transfer, throttle balancing, and controlled understeer and oversteer. Some of this depends on how much you take in of their driving, especially if you notice how they differ from you. Part of the school is to have you run some baseline runs without any instruction to get a feel for the course and get into how you run. I find this the best way to learn, whereas while all of their dialog and instruction is good, sometimes its just better to see and feel a thing than to try to understand it verbally.

For me, this comparison left me with alot of ideas on how a differ, and places that I might be loosing time. I think alot of times its not obvious to us how much time we are loosing where we know we run bad, and how much are we loosing in places where we feel good? When you see someone else at a autox pull off a FTD that humbles you, you wonder where that person got that time from. Getting to see champ drivers tackling a course in your own car gave me a lot of things to try this season.

 

Did they give you any specific tips or techniques related to driving the RX-8? What did they think about its ability as an autox car?

 

They seemed to really like the car, but they said they thought it was very hard to drive in the rain. One of the instructors in known in our region as 'Digital Danny' because he tends to be all throttle or all brake. Well he commented (after I had spun a couple times) that "this car is very very analog." As in it needs smooth, subtle inputs. Since the lot was so dirty and slippery, it was very very easy to break traction, so throttle control was essential, more so than the Corvettes.

I think one of the tricks to driving the rx-8 in stock trim is to use a quick turn in to try to transfer the weight onto the suspension and get it to compress early. The car seems to get its max grip when its near the bumpstops. I'm sure stiffer springs would be great, but that's verboten in b-stock, so I might go with the Mazdaspeed shocks. I've got the RB front bar sitting at home; its going to get installed with a new alignment. At the last autox, I was about 2 seconds off of the class winner, a 350z on Hoosiers with an experienced driver. But it was cold that day, so anxious to see how far back I run on stock tires when he can get some heat in the Hoosiers.

I think the 8 is probably the best car in B-stock right now, although I've been beat by a 350z and a m3, both with experienced drivers on Hoosiers. I've managed to just barely beat a mr2-turbo and a MS Miata, also both on race tires. I feel like this car is probably faster than all of them, even on the stock tires; its my own skills that are holding it back. Which is why I haven't bothered to buy r-compounds yet; I figure it will be more beneficial to max out my skill on the stock tires rather than relying on the tires for an artificial boost. The PAX tells the real story; I typically end up mid-pack, so hopefully I start to suck less.

 

Thanks for sharing your experience with the school.

As for the rain, I have a fix for that.

I'll drive my wife's BMW 325 convertible with all-season tires and DSC on. It's pretty formidable in the rain. I obtained my first trophy (1st place in class) with the local BMW club in a monsoon last October. The BMW club uses their own class season so our BMW can be competitive if it rains (and especially if all the good drivers stay home ).

 

I tried one run with the DSC/TSC on, and one with the DSC off, TSC on. Both times they were pulling too much power I thought. It totally ruined what little smoothness I have when I was trying to balance the car on the edge.

Actually, I did those two runs by accident, forgot to fully disengage the systems when I started the car back up after lunch. I wish the systems had different levels like the new Corvette has. A TCS setting that was optimized for say launching and powering out of corners with just a little slip would be great.

 

Evo school rocks. If and when you do an EVO school...make sure to do it PRIOR to an autox season. I did my first one at the end of a season, and there were only two more autox's after the class...then stupid winter.

The course was timed in sections (salom, sweeper, skidpad, etc) so you could see your improvement in each particular section.

They started out by having everyone in the group do 3-4 runs and just watching how you drove. Then they got in the car with you for 2-3 runs, then they drove your car for 2-3 runs, then you drove the car with the instructor for 2-3 runs, then they watched you for 2-3 runs....then all that x2. Then a set of 5-6 fun runs at the end.

I completely obliterated my stock tires...they literarly melted. You couldn't even make heads or tails of the treadblocks by the end. (Crappy mich all-seasons).

Biggest lesson was looking ahead, second biggest was being "smooth". When you jerk the car around, the suspension hates you and does everything in its power to ruin your day. When your fast but "smooth" the suspension goes weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

I'm waiting to finish setting up my car, then I'll probably do phase 2. One of the phases they actually tape up your windshield, so its impossible to see the cones directly in front of your car.

Its a fun course with a laid back atmosphere and a good opportunity to meet many of your rivals in person during a day of fun.

 

Found this well-written and in-depth analysis of Evolution Autocross School Phase 1, broken down by runs. There are also images of course layout and time printout to get a true feel of the intensity of the instruction without actually participating in one. To say that I am looking forward to the school is a gross understatement at this moment. The review is linked here at: http://www.sccaforums.com/forums/41158/ShowPost.aspx. The school is at www.autocross.com/evolution.

 

My company has an autocross club which offered a two day High Performance Driving School focusing on autocross. I took my 8 and my 17 year old son took my hand-me-down 2nd generation RX-7. I had done a couple of autocrosses in the early 80's so I wasn't a complete rookie. Our instructors included numerous regional SCCA champs and a couple of national SCCA champs. In fact, one of the instructors was not at the class because he was teaching an Evolution class that weekend.

I was very impressed by my 8 as was my instuctor. He came up autocrossing domestic V-8 cars like Mustangs. After he drove it, he said "This thing flat out scoots!". He was impressed with the handling but thought the body roll was too much (I tend to agree).

At the end of the two days, the only cars faster than me were a couple of STI's, an M3 on racing tires and a highly modded Civic (both with an experienced drivers). The 8 and I were faster than several BMW's, numerous Miati, all the American muscle cars (Corvette, Firebird, several Mustangs), two Boxsters, an S2000, a third generation RX-7 (driven like a grandma) and numerous wannabe sports cars (200SX, Eclipse, etc).

Autocrossing the 8 is a blast. This is a very capable car. I came away appreciating more than ever. I even tried taking the entire course in 1st gear (gotta love that 9K red line).

Oh yeah, I smoked my son in the 7. Glad I did as I would never have lived that down. :D