Sevens are perfect for USA autocrossing. Why no posts here for years?

[pethier]

I'll restart:

 

Took the Super Sprint for its first USA autocross last Saturday.  Eau Claire Wisconsin, on the parking lot of a drag-strip.  Great fun!  Finished 17th out of 48 drivers.  Slightly hampered by inexperience shifting left-handed.

 

Any doubt about the car having a plate-type limited-slip was dispelled by the sidestep at the launch.

 

At one point, the car did something that has never before happened to me in a rear-drive car:  It tore the steering wheel out of my hands.  Some combination of trying to shift left-handed and the LSD, I think.  Ruined a perfectly-good run.  I will be on the lookout for this in the future.

 

The DeDion seemed to behave itself better than the live-axle I used to have.  

[Croc]

 

They are perfect for autocrossing.  There are some committed autocrossers on here so not sure why no one has commented?   For myself, I have always preferred race tracks as you get a longer time behind the wheel.   Pros and cons for each way I suppose.  

[pethier]

Find an autocross club with open practice days!  For essentially autocross fees you can be driving for hours.  Worst bang-for-buck with most bragging rights:  SCCA National Championships.  Three runs on each of two days.

[wemtd]

Auto-X?    Here???

 

I think yellowS7 also started out AutoX ‘ing (as well as many other folks here have).

I’ve been AutoX’ing for 6 years now. I do okay with the group I drive with & the car handles well. In this time my driving skill and ability have greatly improved. By comparison the one time I tried driving the Mini it handled like a brick.

 

So yes! Se7en are brilliant AutoX cars. As a generalization I think we’re too busy having fun driving to post about it online. 

Edited September 22, 2024 by wemtd

[Croc]

@yellowss7

[pethier]

2 hours ago, Croc said:

@yellowss7

?

[yellowss7]

Yes I did AutoX for 8 years. And yes our cars are made for it.  But I got tired of the work part.  As chief of Grid I had to be there early to set up then be standing all day for my 3-4 50-60 second runs.  The seat time wasn’t worth the effort IMO and after doing my first Track day I was done with it.  No comparison. 
It does improve your driving skills and teaches you lat apexing but it’s your choice. Definitely cheaper than track day’s though. 
Tom

[Anaximander]

yellowss7, I fully agree with your observations about the autocross "juice" not necessarily being worth the "squeeze". For several years and in different cars including se7esque cars, I went to autox events. However, just like yourself, the expenditure of time, effort and the investment in autox specific cars just was not worth the effort for me when I looked back at the totality of the limited amount of driving I was able to do. It did significantly improve some of my driving skills and the camaraderie was very pleasant. However, autox involved too much investment in everything to be worth 4-6 runs of 35-60 seconds. OTOH, some autox'ers have suggested that track driving is like having sex and autox is like having an orgasm during sex. In other words, autox is short lived but very intense which does make some reasonable sense. Another argument reportedly made by a seasoned track enthusiast was that autox which he was relatively inexperienced in was in many ways much more demanding of precision driving than his track time. I have seen Sevens doing very well in autox and agree that if it captures your fancy, the car can definitely be a muli-purpose vehicle that can be used on the street, race track or autocross course with equal aplomb.

Edited September 22, 2024 by Anaximander

[pethier]

The real payoff is finding an autocross practice day.  Like how does 50 runs sound?

[Anaximander]

7 hours ago, pethier said:

The real payoff is finding an autocross practice day.  Like how does 50 runs sound?

That might be a bit much but say 10-15 in a day would be incredible. 

[pethier]

1 hour ago, Anaximander said:

That might be a bit much but say 10-15 in a day would be incredible. 

15 in a day would be very-light.  People who were not trying to get a lot of runs would get that.
 
When my club runs a practice day we run cars for 6 hours. Entrants under 70 years old are required to work for two one-hours shifts. Entrants 70 and older are not required to work shifts. There are no run groups.  There are no classes.  There are no breaks for changeovers; cars run continuously.  Usually we are at a community college with a police/trucking training area. At that site we run two courses.  In the morning you sign up for two shifts, perhaps 11 to noon and 2 to 3, for a particular station.  You are expected to be on-time.  Some jobs need doing outside the running hours and signing up for one of those can count for one of your two hours.  You can skip out on work altogether if you bring with you a qualified non-entrant to work your shifts.  And of course if you have been on this planet for 7 decades you need not work at all.

 

During your non-work shifts you can do whatever you want (well, you can't drink alcohol).  Drive your car.  Drive the three cars you arranged to have onsite.  Drive someone else's car with their permission.  Go into town and get lunch.  Ride in a car.  (You don't have to be an entrant to ride.  Anyone 18 or over, or 16 and over with a permission form signed by a parent/guardian can ride in cars and/or work the course.)

 

At these two-course events,  you just get in line to run either course you like.  When you complete the course you can look at your time on the display box and get in line for either course you like or drive back to the paddock.  If something happens that would normally trigger a rerun, we don't care.  You will get lots of runs and there is no need to keep track of how many you get.  Workers don't call in cone hits.  The radios are for safety issues.  If a driver goes 4 wheels off the pavement, that is called in and the driver gets a warning from an official.  If it happens again, they are passenger-only for the rest of the day and they still must work their shifts.

 

Timers are set up on each course.  If one of the timers gets out of sync, we don't stop running.  Somebody will fix it.  Meantime, you get to choose whether it is worth it to you to wait in a longer line to see a working clock.  The temporarily clock-less course will likely have no waiting at all.

 

Our next practice event will be at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds.  I expect we will have one course.  I believe we will still be able to autocross our brains out.  I know that when I was at a one-course event like this at Miller Park I got all the runs I needed and also rode in my Elise while national-champion Adam Barber drove.

 
 

[Anthem]

4 hours ago, pethier said:

"Entrants under 70 years old are required to work for two one-hours shifts. Entrants 70 and older are not required to work shifts."

 
 

What! I retired at 58. Now I have to work again!