Just wanted to know from everyone where and how they learned how to race. (off the line and/or track)

Some people have told me to just practice, but I don't even know where to start. Do any of you have suggestions on where I can learn the basics so I don't get my *** handed to me by cars that should be put to shame by our FD's.

I tried searching the site, but just came up with thousands of pages with info that I wasn't looking for.

So, any suggestions would be appreciated, I'd like to post kill sometime soon.
Thanks

 

Well I might not be an FD owner but I learned to race by of course practicing. There's 2 1/8th mile tracks 30 minutes away and a 1/4 mile track and hour away from where I am at so there was plenty of time to practice. Then there's also frequent auto crosses about 20 minutes away from here in a high school football stadium parking lot which is where i learned how to road race. Hope that helps ya out.

 

Late at night at just about any stop sign is where I learned! Just go out to some vacant place at night and try it....Almost anywhere will do with some running room..

 

I learned from watching Dom in the fast and furious. I just put one hand on top of the steering wheel to look cool. If the guy I'm racing looks like hes gunna past me I just push my hazard button and hope my make believe NOS kicks in.

But all jokes aside, you can try your luck at the legal races over at Qualcomm. I raced there for the first time in my FD, and its was horrible, major major major wheel hop through 1-2 gears and constant missing on 3rd gear. Our local rotary shopmechs (but your're in SD, you know who I'm talking about) brought out their 1g-3rd gen powered RX-7 and werent getting good results as well. Traction...


But dont worry, cool thing is it dont matter if you loose, people still think your car is cool as ****!

 

For racing (not that lame dragging stuff ), I'd say start with a crappy car. Don't try it with an FD; the limits are just too high. Get a nice beater and flog it. Practice getting out of control and recovering. After MUCH practice with a beater car, you can move up to an FD

B

 

Go to an autocross. You will have to pay your dues just like everyone else. You will get your *** kicked. But, you will learn. You will improve. And eventually, unless you really suck, you will be doing the *** kicking.

An autocross is a great, safe, legal, fun place to learn to drive your car fast. Don't take a beater. Take the FD. It will be a blast, and it will make you a better driver.

Adam

 

Yeah I need to check out an autocross, good idea. I would rather go to a race well equipped with some knowledge before I go kill my car. I mean the little details like what rpm should I release the clutch, when should I shift, whats the optimum shifting for the turbos to kick in at the best time, I've heard about "feathering " the clutch, I don't even know what the hell that is. I just want to be prepared as possible.

 

Go to the autocross. Have some fun. Talk to the people there. They will help you.

 

SoCalLove: BTW, I really am ignorant to racing, I don't really know what missing 3rd gear or wheel hop is, but I pretend I do. I saw the little blue guy on Sat (1st G car, 3rd gen motor) but forgot to ask how it did. But yeah you're right, FD's are the best lookin Mo Fo's around.

Wargasm: I would use my daily beater, but its a truck, so I don't think I can sqeeze much performance out of it to prepare myself for my FD.

 

Sign up for a high speed drivers education event at a Cali track near you. You folks have it made on the left coast. Track driving all year long!

I'd start with BMW CCA. They take all marque cars. PCA only allows Porsche owners. There are also many California car clubs, and NASA HPDE (High Performance Drivers Education) events.

If drag's your thing, you just have to go and practice at the local strip. You don't need a formal instructor for that.

 

Auto-x is the best way to learn how to push your car to the limit without any serious consequences. You rarely get out of second gear and, generally speaking, it's done in a safe environment where you're very unlikely to hit a wall/tree/fence/building .... unless you're trying to be a hero and power your way out of a spin. In that case, it's your own damn fault. I've only just started time trialing/road racing and I love it .... but I would not start there first. IMO, it's hard to visualize some driving techniques and the lines you take without previous auto-x or track experience. Anyways, my $0.02 ....

SleepR1, is PCA truly restricted to only Porsche owners in your area? Anyone who passes tech can run down here in Texas. We ran with an Izuzu Vehicross last time! (And you thought the M-Coupe was ugly ... )

 

like people have been saying on the track is the best way to go to learn. I just practice occasionally with an open road ahead of me and a willing opponent

 

The track and Gran Turismo 1, 2 and 3.

 

Like someone said, just go hit stopsigns and lights where there are no cars. Once you're up to about 80 (granted, I don't know where you shift on an RX-7, as I don't have one yet), just stop speeding.

When I was practicing in my Mustang, I'd gun it till I had to take to 3rd gear (75-80 miles an hour), and I know full well that my car will never have to go to 4th gear in a quarter mile, so once you shift into third, just stop.

Repeat over and over.

Lots of practicing makes perfect, I can shift flawless every time, right when I need to.

The other most important thing is;

DO NOT LOOK AT YOUR TACH FOR INFO WHEN TO SHIFT.

Get to know your car, and the noise it makes, when it's time to shift.

 

just feel the cars reaction to as many conditions as possible...try to lose control in a controlled environment....and do it till you know whats gonna happen.....

 

After reading your posts, I'm confused why you selected an FD for your fun car. I know you've gotta start somewhere, but if you don't know know about the clutching, shifting, and sports car handling in general, then you could be well ahead of yourself. I'd conclude that you don't know anything about drifting/correcting overtorque-induced yaw, then you're not gonna wanna find out on a 3rd gen. There's two things that can happen from your position here. One is that you'll find out the hard way and it will cost you your car and perhaps more than you can afford. The 3rd gen's performance envelope is incredible compared to most cars on the street, so pushing it without extensive knowledge of what you're doing can get you in big **** real quick. If you are determined to keep the RX-7, then deffinitely take it easy and find another car that you can push and get into some driving schools. Learn about taking race line turns, controling drifts, shifting techniques (heel-toe, double clutching), and get used to where your car's limits are on the track so that you can avoid breaching them by accident on the street. Usually a school where you can take your own car would be a good idea, but since you seem pretty new to the dream of racing or sports driving (which ever you intend to do), I would deffinitely look into general racing education schools like Skip Barber, Panoz, etc. Learn the fundamentals of driving and then apply them to your own car later. Also read as much as you can on this forum. There are some bad *** guys on here who have been doing the stuff for many years. You can learn a lot from them. Knowledge is power. Learn to interpret the feelings that you get from driving your car and be able to respond to them without having to think about it. It may sound silly, but you can learn a good amount from playing Gran Turismo. It won't be as effective as racing school, but it does use realistic physics applications in the game and its probably the best way to go out and try something neat without risking your car. Little things like feeding your imagination always help to get you to understand cars more. For learning anymore than driving, I think GT is very limited though unless you know alot about adjusting things in the car in the first place. I had a game called Viper Racing, by Sierra Sports, that was pretty realistic. It was hard as hell and you wouldn't win until you had mastered each track to the ability of your car's performance. It also helped with learning how to adjust the suspension and gear ratios- really beneficial to understanding toe in/out, camber, caster, sway bar adjustments, bump, rebound, etc. You could also use a clutch function. I had a throttle swivel on my joystick so you could drop the clutch at 50% when you're starting off the line. Auto clutch features would cause you to lose the computer cars off the line because they would control it at an optimal level. Really hard to get used to, but again, that kinda stuff helps you learn without paying for gas or damage on your car. I guess I'm rambling now, but those are ideas. I think a lot of members on this forum kinda grew up around sports cars so they have mastery levels of the knowledge here. Take advantage of it and read as much as you can. Good luck and make sure you make a safe decision.
-Dave

 

Learn to drive with a video game??
A new driver shouldn't look at the tach to know when to shift??

This is some of the worst advice I have ever heard!!

 

In the Lounge.

Aside from being a dick I'd say the same thing as everybody else, somewhere where there isn't people and plenty of space. Don't go to the track, it sounds like you don't know the lingo and why make yourself look like a fool in front of people? That and it's easy to choke up if your new to dragging. Hope this helps. Also like others have said why an FD? I'd think something more like a DSM would be better for you, quick but yet very stable. Or if you don't mind FWD a Sentra SE-R or 200SX.

 

you might want to get used to driving a manual and getting to know the engine feel and the transmition before you go out racing. Its going to take a while to get used to if youre just learning to drive a manual. then once u get used to that, youll figure out how to shift fast adn stuff like that. You also might want to find an empty parking lot where its just rained with no curbs around and learn how your car reacts when you oversteer and when to back off in the rain (ie-when your tach slaps 4500) And like the others said, read as much as you can on the forum. Im a firm believer in the idea that if you know how something works, you can make use of it better. good luck and keep her in one piece. And chill out in bad weather. Thats all my preaching for tonight. merry christmas.

 

You already took the first step, you have the car. If you are really freaked and can't step on the gas, would say this.

Target 1/4 mile first, you will get used to the fast start and learn your shift points. You will also get used to 'feeling' your engine and how it runs.

As for getting to the track and running, just go on a muffler night, test-and-tune or something like that when the track is open for everyone. Get there early and watch some runs so you understand how things work. If you have any questions, go out to the cool-off area and just tell someone you are new and didn't understand something, you will be surprised at how helpful people are when you ask.

Be sure you understand before you go to the staging lanes!! Nothing worse then getting yelled at by the track staff because you don't understand what they want you to do. Each track has its own unique bullshit that they expect you to know from some race osmosis from tech inspection, which staging lanes to use, to the hand-and-arm signals the staff uses to keep everyone moving.

Once you are confident that you understand the etiquet, just get your whinning *** out there and rip a few passes. I have yet to see anyone laugh or say bad things to someone that is honestly trying to learn and trust me, at big tracks, you won't be the only one.

I doubt very much that anyone just went out and did it perfectly the first time, we all looked like retards the first few passes. So just stay in your lane, staging means BOTH sets of yellow lights on the tree are lit, leave your parking lights on, and first across the line is first on the exit road at the end (if there is only one).

Check this site for some additional pointers-

Racing etiquet

So if you get out there and you get half way down the track and need to back out, then back out and who gives a ****?? You don't need to beat everyone your first few days and you also don't need to go full throttle on your passes.

I would give it about 4-5 passes before you are punching the **** out of your car anyhow. Then you can start working the road race tracks the same way but expect that to take much longer to get used to.

 

Man, I expected to read a bunch of abuse toward you for admitting you don't know everything, but I think that's the first step. There's SO MANY RX-7 drivers, and drivers in general, that think they know everything. You gotta admit you aren't god before you can really soak in all good info that people can give you. More times than not, racers will help newbies. If they won't, just move on cause they're probably not all that anyway with that attitude.

Now, as far as my advice on learning....
In retrospect, I should have gotten a Miata and learned to drive the hell out of it before getting a FD. Similar handling, but a lot easier to save. But I'm like you, I didn't. So now that you have the FD, I would HIGHLY recommend autocrossing. Lots of times it gets bad mouthed for being "parking lot racing" and all that crap, but you'll find the people saying that are mad because they get stomped out there. You'll be humbled, but you will learn a TON about the car's handling characteristics, you can develop some good save instincts, and it's about the safest and cheapest way to race ($15-$20/event). Once you're feeling good out there, then I'd recommend a high speed driving school. Mazda/Porsche/BMW does good track days around here for about the least amount of money (roughly $150/day), although the classroom instruction can be a bit basic. If you have the money, Skip Barber-style schools sound great. Although I've heard you can pick up even more from them if you've at least been on the track before.

I personally am not big on drag racing, but that's just me. I think of all the types of racing, drag racing is about the hardest on your car, at least if you're trying to squeeze out that last bit of performance. Bracket racing is probably different.

Finally, pick up "Going Faster," which is Skip Barber's book (about $20 at buy.com). It has a tremendous amount of detail on all the theories and tactics of racing, and will get you up to speed quickly. Yet it has plenty of advanced techniques that will keep you interested for years. I'm not a big book person, but that book is absolutely amazing.

But I urge you (from personal experience) not to try to do too much learning on the street. Sure, launches are fine, but pushing the limits of cornering will get you in trouble. The FD will do some quirky things that happen fast. They always happen right when you think you know what you're doing .

Best of luck, and I'm glad to see another FD being used for what it was intended...racing!!!

 

Believe it or not, ricers are probably the best to learn from. They're mad quick shifters, yo! LoL, seriously tho...someone explains you the concept, and you go out and try it. The hardest part about racing a 3rd gen is probably the 2-3 shift, but you get used to. It's like putting a hot knife through butter now.

 

Certainly is with Chicago Region, Mid Ohio Region, Ohio Valley Region. Central Indiana Region allows non-Porsches in its Putnam Park drivers eds, as do other regions.

It really depends on how popular the Porsche drivers ed eventss are with the respective PCA region. Chicago Region's Road America drivers ed event is usually full with Porsche owners, so non-Porsches must run with BMW CCA or some other club....

 

practicing in my dad's first gen. back when he had it!

 

You will all stand corrected after this next sentence... The "Best" way to learn all the techniques is to outrace a police vehicle. You will learn all about auto-x, drag racing, bracket racing, drifting you name it all in one rather inexpensive and easy to pay ticket. If you have your racing permit (insurance) and is registered under the PD racing registry (registration) you'll be set! You can race anywhere in the city and can go on for as long as you'd like (or till your gas runs out). Plus it all comes with complimentary T.V. coverage!! What a deal!!

Just kidding YO'.

Best way to learn is one step at a time and slowly. Take your time, get the feel of the car. Start by mastering the basics (shifting/clutch pedal), followed by the obvious (launching/wheel spin), etc,... You'll know because you start to build confidence. However, don't feel pressured to take your car to limits you haven't yet just because some other a-hole is reving his engine, or becuase you think that cute girl in your passenger's seat is impressed by Jeff Gordon DNA. Do your own pace. But most importantly, make sure you have good (I mean fn' good) tires and brakes. They can make all the difference in the world. Don't forget to have your vehicle in proper order (meaning it runs right). My best advice yet? USE COMMON SENSE!! <-- SHIET!!

-HeX