Not a problem, it was fun having someone else beat the crap out of it for once! We will have to meet up sometime this summer when the "good parts" are back on the car so it will actually STICK to the pavement.
Great time and learned alot from Chong,and the Mark's. Great to meet alot of passionate car nuts. Impressed by how fast everybody looked on the course. Definately positive experience I plan on building from. Thinking autocross this summer. Need to pratice soft (2) hands on the steering wheel and feel response of the car. Might have to slap my own hand to stop this bad habit. Remember must have (2) grasshopper. Driving smooth is another part I learned as well. Gently squezzing the oranges making juice, not a pulpy mess, refering to the throttle and gas per the great advice from Idget which is a really good anology. The guy sitting next to me used the squezzing kittens analogy which I found very odd but hey whatever works. This is just the beginning for me so have alot of learning and praticing to work on. Glad I was not the only one who put it in the snow,CC. Thanks Again MNSOC crew! Appreciate all the effort put towards this great event.
Big props to Sheen for getting this thing done and off without a hitch. It was his baby, and I'm incredibly proud to be part of the officers board with this sort of stuff paving the way for the future of MNSOC. Sorry I had to leave early, but I'm glad I got to come out and help out. It was a blast!
And here ya go. These are all web based, so the quality has been cut down a bit. And the instructors doing what they do best.... Russ
and some more..... Matt, you probably want the high res of this one. Thanks again to all the instructors, and for the Mark's for being so animated in doing your job. It makes my job that much easier to get good images. Here is a link to the whole gallery. I will post up some of the others are that poster worthy a bit later when I have some time. http://subiewrx.smugmug.com/gallery/7310377_da2cg#470162283_wpKdk Russ
DORI DORI! Lots of fun watching you pilot that little rocket on the course. Nice shots, Russ. It's nice to see so many smiling faces!
Thanks for taking the great pics Russ. If we want the original, high quality ones of our cars, can we PM you for those?
I think I should put the sway bars back in the car . Thanks again Sheen for all you effort to put this together!
I was going to ask you about that.....your car had about as much body roll as the caravan you drove:biggrin:
Some things never change! This supports Mark U. point about letting Instructors loose on the track. LOL I did enjoy the ride.... 4 sure!
Well, shooting this is very different compared to a rally/rallyx. Not much dirt/snow/ice flying to get the sense of speed. Little bit of dust from the track and Joel dropping a tire and not much more. So it was time to change up the strategy and try and get the instructors instructing and the drivers driving. Worked out well. Too bad there wasn't more snow.:roll: Yep, shoot me a PM. There will be a small charge for the full high res pictures, but it will be fairly cheap. Sorry. After last year having someone selling my images, it is time to protect myself a bit better. Russ
This is me putting the Big Bossman to good use. Great demo of the two strap and some. Where's Shibb's? Good job Joel, I had no doubts we're going to make it. You may want to invest in some plastic seat covers. LOL I also wanted to say it was nice to see what our talent pool is like and to have worked with them was even better. Students, volunteers, Instructors and Photographers, very dynamic group of people.
Thanks for the pics Russ. Yeah, sorry about that slalom run Choung, it got a little out of hand, but I didn't realize how sideways I really was until I saw the pics. It was a good lesson though.
Very true. This event went so smoothly - I was really impressed by that and how everybody seemed to have a great fun time. I know I did! And thanks again for running a couple laps with me; I definitely picked at least a little up getting the feel from the passenger seat.
I want to say I was going too fast around the last cone, but I think I was within the car's capabilities (obviously not mine). I knew I wanted to slow down for the upcoming left corner, and I think I lifted off the throttle too early and the weight transfer to the front caused the oversteer. I countersteered to try to correct the oversteer, I know I didn't hit the brakes during the skid, but I don't remember trying to use the throttle to transfer weight to the back until I was back into a straight line. I think I should have come around the last cone with the throttle steady until the car was neutral again, then brake for the corner. Choung might be able to provide another perspective and what happened.
Np I enjoyed it. Remember I'm the guy who decided to be conservative and drove the Prius to a Subaru event. LOL The only thing you didn't do was pull the handbrake as if you needed any assistance with inducing the rear. LOL Sure: From my race seat I didn't feel the speed is what did it, I still felt there was some traction left under us otherwise the results may of been a little different. The wagon with the red steel wheels was within its threshold from my view and could of even gone a tad faster. IMO what caused this sensational experience for Russ to have captured it was simply too much abrupt steering input at this rate of speed. Because we were going up hill and the cones where getting farther apart, meaning we were gaining more speed as we reach the top. IMO you'll find yourself with more steering input at the begining and less as you get near the end. The trick is to maximize traction on all four, only when your able to balance the load on all four and with smooth steering input and steady throttle, increasing as you go up the hill and quick visual technique will keep you out of trouble. A simple analogy would be like football players running thru a bunch of tires side by side. The faster guys are going to keep their body centered and let their feet do all the juggling, even weight distrubution and allowing maximum traction on all sides. Minimize/Finase the weight transfer from side to side avoiding too much and too quick of a transition keeping it centered. As suggested lighten up the hand grip and looking quicker from your current position and your target should allow some precision and consistant driving, at least this has been the case with me. I am always looking for ways to reduce steering when ever and where ever possible.
^^Kim gets home and says...you know, lets not sell the RS, can we rally it somehow? thanks alot chong
Looking at the photos, that seems fairly accurate. It also looks like you did a good job of getting the countersteer in to point the wheels where you wanted to go (although the wheels don't turn to 90 degrees . . .), and did a really good job of dialing the counter back out quickly when the car straightened (rather than get behind and overcorrect the other way). Speaking in general (not specifically about you Joel) Looking at the photos of the slalom, all I can say (and qstarin and soupboy will tell you I spent all day saying it yesterday) is turn in early, and keep ahead of the turns. I see a lot of people in those pictures who clearly didn't start theur rotation until they were at the cone. Also, not picking on any one person, but look at the pictures where someone is about to run over a cone, and look at where they're looking . . .
It was a sort of odd sensation, felt too early. It took constant conscious effort to do and it was easy to forget and turn late, but it was also easy to see how much easier it was to hold speed through the slalom when getting turned back in before passing the next cone. lol. Is he trying to look at the cone under his tire? I think I did that a couple times too.
Kim was a riot to work with, my most memoriable moment was, well actually there were quite few, but my favorite was when we got to the skidpad. I purposely picked the easiest exercises first and worked our way to the hardest. But when we got the the middle tier. Kim says "well when the heck will I ever be driving on something like this, choppy snow and inconsistant surface." Well guess what after a kind request for more throttle and it was totally a different story, it was off to over steer right, over steer left. After a while she forgot about using the brakes and thats when the fun really began. Grin from cheeck to cheeck, her right foot never left the paddle and never hit any snow banks. I asked her if she had a camera to capture this moment so we could share it with you Rick, but no avail. I knew she was getting it because after all that fun she even remember Jason, who was seated in the back and even offered to let him give it a try. Overall I don't think I showed her anything she didn't already now. LOL **I wish we would have taken a group picture of our first event.**
Try visualizing it as trying to get the back tire as close to the cone as possible. Also, by reacting as you approach the next cone, you are making a turn-straighten-pause-turn the other way motion rather than a smooth continuous motion. All that jerkiness upsets the car as its not able to transfer all the abrupt input (from steering wheel to tire) quickly enough.
hey finally had a minute to sit down on the forums. I wanted to thanks you guys for setting this up. I had a lot of fun and learned a lot. The best thing was just getting in the car with someone to point out some of my bad habits so i can try and break them and become a better driver. Chong thanks for all your help you were a blast to ride with. I dont know bout turning down the boost though ;-) Russ great pics! PS dear cones... I'm sorry
I had an absolute blast. The weather didn't cooperate entirely but it didn't seem to affect anyone having a really fun day and still getting to see what their car is like on ice and snow. Thanks to all the instructors and volunteers and Sheen for pulling this off!
FYI, looks like Sheen's missing one of the FRS radios I left with him when I left at noon. It's a yellow Motorola FRS, and had my cell number labeled on the back. Both Sheen and I would appreciate it returned, if anyone has it. Thanks.
