Controversial??

[betegh9]

Chris,
Thanks for the defense. The older I get, the easier I shrug things like that off my shoulders. It would take LOTS more to hurt my feelings.
Anyways, I am gladto see more and more people on the forum, the more, the merrier. If we could just get about half the club members a little mad and therefore excited, we would have more interactions.

[Marty Kocse]

In Steve's defense, his comments were back in Sept and I think he's coming around, especially now that he's on the exec board.  I know him pretty well and I'm sure he was simply having a little fun.  He would never truly want to disrespect anyone and/or hurt anyone's feelings.  Not that it was ok, but let's try not get too hung up on it.  As you said, Chris, let's start the new year out right and move forward from here.

[betegh9]

Wellard!
I'm glad you share some of your common sense.
I realized early on, that a good autocrosser can learn a track and be quite respectable. While I have found many DE people getting lost, not being able to react qwickly enough, not having the FULL understanding of oversteer and understeer and what to do about it. "I can't do this because my car is set up for track". Ha! well, that supose to be perfect then! The reality is that the turns in AX come up at a much faster interval than any track. Even Shumy can take a nap between turns at any given F-1 race. In AX you have to memorize the course by walking, and only a few laps to get the fastest lap. In DE one can practice all day, and after the tires are nicely warmed up to their sweet range, you can get a fast lap.
So, after all this, AX is important for the development of good drivers, and it is the ONLY competitive moving event at the Porsche Parade. AX was the cornerstone on which RTR was built on.

IF AX WERE ANY EASYER........IT WOULD BE CALLED "ROAD RACING"

[Wally]

What's with all this autocross trash talk.  Any driver with an ounce of

intelligence knows axer's suffer from the automotive equivalent of ADHD.

After all, you are only on the course for 30 to 60 seconds.  You could say

that autocross is to drivers ed. what Cliff Notes are to literature.

[Brian Minkin]

Wally wrote:

What's with all this autocross trash talk. Any driver with an ounce of

intelligence knows axer's suffer from the automotive equivalent of ADHD.

After all, you are only on the course for 30 to 60 seconds. You could say

that autocross is to drivers ed. what Cliff Notes are to literature.

Wally,

Them is fighting words. May the driving gods be with you.

[Wally]

Hi Brian,

I'm not worried, as I said, their attention span is 30 to 60 seconds.

[Brian Minkin]

Wally wrote:

Hi Brian,

I'm not worried, as I said, their attention span is 30 to 60 seconds.

I think we have met a few with an attention span of 2 to 3 seconds. When they miss the first or second gate. OFF COURSE! :dude:

[Wally]

I guess they want to blame it on the DE guys who designed the course.

[Wellardmac]

Look, anyone can go around an oval (before you say anything, yes I know not all tracks are oval, but really, this is not F1 we're talking about) at high speed, that doesn't even take concentration. It amazes me what people see in NASCAR yawn! Ooh, a car going round and round chashing it's tail in an oval, that's soooooo exciting! NOT!

Negotiating a complex course and handling the dynamics of your car with fast reaction times requires skill and more importantly requires skills that are directly transferrable to driving on the road under real world conditions.

One would think that it would be a prerequisite of track driving that a new driver should have basic car control skills. I know if I were a DE instructor I'd hate to get into the car with a newbie without any assessment of their skills and without them having shown their capabilities in a situation like AX. It's basic common sense. Hmm... wasn't it recently that we lost a driver off the track on a corner at high speed? hmm? doesn't that prove my point about car control skills and knowing your car?

Please, don't come to me with the DE "more pious than thou attitiude", that just shows lack of thought and is trolling at it's worst. There's a place for DE and a place for AX and the two are totally compatible. In an ideal world they would be integrated and enrich each other. Hold on, to me that sounds like it should be a founding principle of the PCA... providing an environment where we can be educated to drive our cars with more skill. Wow. I'll have to remember to write that down, because obviously I have a concentration span of only 2 seconds. Amazing I ever got my Ph.D.

[Marty Kocse]

Obviously, you have never driven at a DE event...

Why don't you try it sometime, then tell us what you think.