Going to first autocross

[DickR]

I'm a long time autocrosser who in my younger days won a couple of SCCA national championships. My advice regarding tire pressures for a brand new autocrosser is to set your pressures at around 35 psi front and rear for the start of each run. This will protect the edges of the tread and really will make very little difference in performance that even an expert would detect, let alone a rookie. As a brand new driver you NEED to focus on learning how to drive in an autocross, especially with a car as big and powerful as a 2015 GT PP.

Seriously, at this point you need to focus all your attention on the "nut behind the wheel".

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[2015GTSTORMTROOPER]

Well I'm officially hooked! met some cool people, learned about the car and my driving and had a great time. A lot of people were asking about the new mustang and were impressed by it. The event organizer rode with me on my first 2 runs, he said I had good car control and was impressed by the car in its stock configuration. By PAX I finished 10th of 35 on the first session and 9th of 35 on the second session. I will post some GoPro footage soon, it was a really fun, fast course. Ended up pulling 1.04 and 1.08 g's left and right, tires set at 35psi with a lot of scrub on the edges. Cant wait for next month!

 

[ABQautoxer]

Welcome to the addiction.

 

[gov cheese]

1. clean all the lose stuff out of the car, including the trunk the tech guys will appreciate it. Plus you don't need stuff flying around in the car.
2. Walk the course multiple times as if you were in the car.
3. chalk the tires and adjust the pressure as needed. Bleed off psi that was gained during the run.
4. flip the review mirror up improves forward view and move the side mirrors so you can't see behind you. [ame]
5. If you lose control of the car use the two foot rule, clutch and brake to the floor. Keep an eye out for course workers and stop if you see a RED flag, stay where you are until you get the ok to move again.
6. Ask nicely for a ride along you will be grabbing the Oh chit handle.

BTW - if you want to find out what your car is really capable of let one of the hot shoes drive your car. Autocross is mostly about the driver.

Must haves: portable air compressor, tire pressure gauge with bleed off and if you are going keep going to events your own helmet is nice.

 

[2015GTSTORMTROOPER]

Sorry for not editing the video down, and I forgot to cover the mic with tape so the sound sucks..but here was my first run of the second session, The fastest of the day. [ame]
enjoy!

 

[ABQautoxer]

Looked really good. Great job!

 

[Chameleon]

Sorry for not editing the video down, and I forgot to cover the mic with tape so the sound sucks..but here was my first run of the second session, The fastest of the day. [

Perfect camera point of view. Looks like fun!

 

[Finally]

Super job!

 

[Brice80]

Sorry for not editing the video down, and I forgot to cover the mic with tape so the sound sucks..but here was my first run of the second session, The fastest of the day.
enjoy!

Looks like a blast, seems like you did incredibly well on your first time! I'm going to my first autocross this weekend, and I'm wondering what your thoughts were AFTER you had run the course.
Did you realize that you wish you had done something else or changed the psi etc.. It looks like you did everything right!

 

[2015GTSTORMTROOPER]

Hey Brice, sorry I didn't see your message till today. I think the biggest thing for me that I took away was to be smoother on the throttle through the slalom, and brake later and harder to really move the weight to the front for more traction and use that power that we have to rotate the car. As far as tires I run the fronts at 37psi and the rears at 35psi I have had good repeatable times with those pressures and just bleed them between runs. I have ran softer, but it felt to loose to me, and I had a lot of front side wall scrub. My goal is to make 1 modification in-between races. In Sep I added a rear Steeda sway bar, and the race I have this weekend I'm getting a performance alignment front and rear. I hope to do tires or shocks next month and that will pretty much be it to finish this season in FS. I will probably start next year in FS and hopefully move to STU or CAM mid season.

 

[Norm Peterson]

Nice.

For a couple of reasons I always ran the front tires 2-4 psi higher than the rears in most any front engine/RWD car, and typically about the same as what you noted above (I'm talking hot pressures here). But it means a lot more that Sam Strano also ran about the same amount of pressure stagger back when he was running an S197 Mustang.


Norm

 

[ABQautoxer]

Pressures are usually based on weight primarily and camber secondary, then fine tune. Once you have done the camber mod legal for FS and proper tires, I run 32f/29r. Sam would not recommend higher pressures in the rear of the S550 in FS.

Also for the OP, consider the new STP class. It's much more favorable classing than STU and new for 2016. There is another thread in this subforum about it.

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