anyone in the central pennsylvania area into autocross? i’m 17 and would like to go see some events and get involved. any positive advice would be great too.
I am not from PA but I autocross. The most important thing about learning to autocross is seat time. Also apex’s and learning them is helpful. I could go on for hours. Learn your car, how it handles and reacts to corners and etc. Have a instructor or more experienced driver take you for a ride or drive your car to so you some of the flaws and advantages of your car . They can tell you if your car has a lot of over or understeer, how to correct camber,toe, and caster. The main thing that I cant express enough is seat time. It pays to practice. Don’t skip out on course walks,setup or anything. This helps you learn that course for the event (IE: surface level changes, salmons, Chicago box’s and etc.)
I will layout a even for you:
- Before the event: Before the event, you must have prepared your car and yourself. Your car should be well-maintained. This means that it should be serviced no less often than indicated by the owners manual. The Oil should be changed on schedule or more often. A car being pushed hard should not have to go much beyond 3,000 miles without a oil change. no matter what!
The bakes,tires,wheel bearings, throttle return springs, belts, and such should be in good working order. The belts should be tensioned correctly; watch for loose belts. The brake fluid should be at a reasonable level. All tune-up specs should be correct.
Check the tightness of the front wheel bearings. On the lighter cars you can do this by simply pushing and pulling firmly on the top of the front tire. Heavier cars may require you to jack the front end up off the ground to see how much play there is in the bearings. Other suspension components should not have excessive play.
The battery needs to be securely mounted, so it doesn’t become loose and either create dangerous sparks or spill battery acid. If you can’t move it very much by hand, it is good. If it moves around much, find a way to secure it. Otherwise you will fail tech.
Gas: You don’t want a full tank of gas in the car when you are making your run. extra weight is a disadvantage. at least a 3/4 tank of gas is applicable.
Make sure you take everything out of your car! Take out stuff you would normally carry in your car out and leave it at home. Any loose items can become lodged under the brake pedal esp when you need them.
Check the classes to see what one your car fits in according to your modifications. I run SM( Street Modified).
Registration: When you first arrive, you must register. You will pay a small fee, sign an insurance release form ( which holds the club and landowner blameless for anything that happens) and sign up to work. You will probably get some literature about other events being sponsored by the club that is putting on the event. You may get a little badge to put on your dash. You may get a map of the course.
You will be given a registration card with your car number for the day, The registration form usually will have a technical inspection form on back. Fill out the front of the card and tuck it under your windshield wiper or lay it on the dash inside the left front window. The card will be completed when your car has been inspected, and then will be collected before the cars in your group make their first run.
Make sure to ready any rules books that may be available for the course for the day and ask plenty of question. No question is dumb. We all have been newbies at one time.
Final Preparation: Driving slowly, find a place to park, get the car unloaded and do your final preparations. There are lots of people around, often including little kids. Do not use even the remote sections of the pits for showing off or testing the acceleration or handling of your car. Once parked, take all loose items out of the car.
This is a good time to check your tire pressure and etc…You may want to pull the wiper fuse because as stupid as it sounds everyone hits the wipers during a run and it can cause problems in the run time. Also you may want to push your side mirrors in and your rear view mirror out sight so your not tempted to look back to see if you hit a plyon.
Technical Inspection (Tech): Tech consists of a safety inspection of your car. The person responsible for the condition of your car is you. After you have some experience autocrossing, you should KNOW that your car will pass tech because you checked everything. The people at tech are really only a back/enforcement system.
Coursewalk: After the car is teched, walk the course. This is a CRITICAL step, for it is the first time you can begin to assemble your plan of attack on the course. While you are learning, walk the course with an experienced driver. This is an excellent way to learn the specific course as well as learning what the experts look for. Examine the surface so you will know where there are rough spots,bumps,potholes, oil spots, water puddles, and etc. Analyze each part of the course to plan where you want your car to be and what you want to be doing with it. Know where your turn-in points are and what apexes you are going to use. Determine whether and where you will change gears. All this is provisional and may get changed a bit when you find out how to drive the course.
Ok I am done lol, if you got any more questions ask!
wow ^ i must say archivethis. to find something local try lookin up scca http://www.scca.com/home.aspx
No problem, if you want me 2 add more I can.
Very good write up. I agree heavily with the course walk. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Everyone out there is all for learning and teaching. First couple times out you should walk the course several times and remember to not push full on the first run. Get a feel of it and then work your way up to pushing the car.
I really stress the working part just because down here we are having a problem and people might get banned for running and not working. You have to work to play.
exactly. thanks for the comment.
thanks a lot, thats all really useful to me. i’ve really wanted to autocross since i was about 14 so i’m hoping this summer i’ll get some basic suspension mods done and get a bit of extra cash to go racing.
nice. I suggest joining a autocross club, a local one so you can get alot of information,advice and suggestions.
Yo moose, I’m in New Cumberland. We should meet up sometime. I’m just finishing up my suspension and engine swap and want to get into that as well. There HAS to be something in the area…it’s fuckin carlisle!!
so if you don’t have p/s u cant auto x ?
You can, you will just be in a more difficult class. Plus I would recomend having it for a novice.
if you want I will do a complete thread write up on autocross based on my experience but that could take a while.
www.phillyscca.com
www.scca-susq.com
www.nepa-scca.org
www.scca-cpr.org
Philly region, Susquehanna region, Northeast PA region, or Central PA region…PA is full of auto-x events. I live in Allentown and within an hour and a half drive, I could do an event every single weekend in summer 
As for power steering removal, it technically bumps you way up to SM, a heavily modified class, but it depends on the region - for example, my car is bone stock with P/S removed, and I am allowed to run in G-stock, the Integra’s standard class, because the event organizers in philly and nepa are aware that the pathetic ~5hp gain isn’t enough to let an Integra dominate a class containing MINI’s and RSX’s anyway :roll:. If you were to get the car competitive enough to start winning many events, someone would make you reinstall p/s or change classes.
Edit: screw the suspension mods. Go autoxing whetehr you have them by summer or not. It’ll teach you about the effects of the changes you made, and hey, why not start sooner than later? Trust me, a few more events worth of seat time will make more improvements to your times than a set of coilovers will.
Moose! Im coming to carlisle this weekend w00t actually mt holley opening day trout ya know… but anyways I would like to do some auto crossing this summer too, lets meet up at a few mid PA ones maybe even eastern PA billabongrob @ gmail com