So I'm gonna post this just so another rookie can read my mistakes and avoid them. I'm sure this has been said before, but let me just make a thread that is current. If you have advice to add from your experiences PLEASE do!!

Number one: if you pass a yellow and a crash slow down, but once you pass the crash and the yellow if there is no flag at the next station then IMMEDIATELY go back to racing speed until you see another flag.

Number two: If the pace car is waving at you then pass and hurry to the back of the line.

Number three: Nice guys finish last. Let faster cars pass, but do the minimum necessary to make room and make your intentions clear. Don't over slow or go too crazy off line. Just give "racing room".

Number four: When you start to get good, every corner will be a near crash and many drivers will start to anticipate the corners and lean in or rather early apex. It's a common issue. Don't be discouraged. Learn to wait, wait wait before turning.

 

Glad to see you on track and with you could have hung around Sunday. Number three can be encapsulated as - be selfish on track. Take every last cookie on the plate.

Number four - not sure what you are trying to say there. As you get better every corner should feel boring and repetitious. When you can bang out the same lap time lap after lap that is when you know you are doing something right.

Perhaps you are talking about "creeping" which causes you to apex early?

 

Unless he is waving you by and you happen to be in first place overall..... then it causes a mess. Yes, I did that, at TBolt!

 

Here's a common one: when following the pace car, anticipating a single file restart, do not hang back from the car immediately in front. It's a lot easier to move up some spots on a restart when you are 10' behind rather than 1000'

Another: watch your tach at the start so you know when to upshift. It will be so loud, you want be able to hear your engine...and you'll get passed en masse if you run into the rev limiter

 

 

Maybe just gotten lucky but I've seen a lot less of that this year in PCA races. Maybe they have been belaboring that point in the orientation meetings lately. Unfortunately, not seeing and / or obeying flags seems to be on the upswing.

 

Reminds me of rookie describing what he was thinking on his first start: "Don't forget to shift!, Don't forget to shift!, Don't forget to shift!"

-Mike

 

"Creeping". You always have the best way of describing things.

Yeah, I was starting to get down on myself 'cuz in practice at the DE when I reviewed my video I could see my biggest problem was constantly "creeping" so I asked Spence while in the trailer what to do, and pretty much everyone sitting there said they do the same. Spence said he teaches his students to think "wait, wait, wait" once they reach the point their corner speeds are reaching max. It's not a problem on turns when I was doing 70, but it was the exact mistake I made that ended my race at WGI going into the esses at 104 and "creep" made me early apex and lose it, and I found I was doing the same thing at turn 3 at Thunderbolt which is another 90 plus mph turn. Just couldn't help myself from leaning in early just a tiny bit. I actually was happy to learn that I'm not alone with that problem, but more importantly once I started thinking "wait, wait, wait" I chopped 3 seconds off my lap time and the car didn't feel scary anymore

 

Impatience -- sometimes I'm the worst!

 

 

I'm glad you clarified. I was confused by the first post. I would make a distinction between early apexing a fast corner that you have to "roll" into -vs- early apexing because you are throwing the car in, rotating it ealy early and scrubbing some speed before apex. The first one is bad. The second good. As people gain confidence in the car, the number of corners where #2 will work increases.

 

+1
Plus, the second type becomes almost regular in close battles as prevention from dive attempts by the car behind.