Management Of The Traction Circle

Pre-grid at Aloha Stadium.

I think I may finally be learning a little more about this autocrossing business.

For me, the most important points are looking far far ahead, so you never get behind the course, and, managing the traction circle and understanding how to best use it to maximize the strong and minimize the weak points of your car.

100% Lateral Acceleration!!! (Picture from Erin and Jon)

This past Sunday it started to finally gel a little better for me as I probably drove the best I ever have! It didn't hurt either, that the track was tailor made for the strong points of BMW's.

Although my car is completely stock and on all-seasons, I ran in the modified DSP class since I wanted to watch the Superbowl in the afternoon. This class has a very high PAX of 0.829, however, if I applied my regular PAX of 0.798 of D-Stock or 0.797 of STS, I would have ended up in 27th out of over 100 drivers in overall PAX. That would have placed me the highest I've ever been in PAX!!!


Evidence left on the pavement of the prior nights huge Drift Session.

Autocross Hawaii - Jan 28th

One problem w/ stock suspensions - riding on the bump stops!!! (Above and below pics by Jon and Erin, for the pics: http://www.tomo-dachi.net/sccapics/)

Small kine oversteer and rear wiper action on my first run...could be cold tires...but I put more air in the rears just to make sure. Didn't happen on any other runs.

Both me and my brother decided to run our wagons in SCCA's STS Class, instead of the Stock Classes that we usually run in. The reason being, for our cars, STS provides for a much more competitive and level playing field. For instance, in STS, all cars need to comply with the following:

• 3.1 L max displacement (Mine is 2.5)


• 7.5" max rim width (Mine is 7")


• 225 max tire width (Mine is 205)


• 140 min tire wear (Mine is 400)


• No limited slip differentials allowed


• Most turbo cars not allowed

In the Stock Class:

• R-Compounds Allowed


• and Anything Goes so long as it comes stock

This meant that in D-Stock I had to compete against cars that had MUCH higher hp to weight ratios, WAY wider tires, Turbos, AWD's, R-Compounds, etc. etc.

Man...even though our cars are bone arse stock, we feel much more competitive...STS is where its at!!!

Here's my best run...good for 3rd place in the STS class:



My brother's run in his stocker Mazuda 6 on all seasons too:



Here's the times: http://sccahawaii.org/1-28-07.pdf