NER held its Autocross School again this year on May 4th. The event was sponsored once again by Conway Autoworks in Hanover, MA. (Thank you, Kenny!)
This year’s event attracted 28 students all eager to see what Autocross is all about and to learn more about what they can do with their cars. 18 of our veteran autocrossers came out to instruct and help out with the event.
We held an abbreviated chalk talk at the beginning of the event, highlighting some of the basics on car dynamics and safety. Students had been advised (prior to the event) to watch the 3-part NER Autocross Video produced by Richard Viard to get some background for the day. Most of the students complied so they had some prep under their belts to start.
We pre-assigned students and instructors again this year. The morning exercises included a slalom exercise, and offset clamshell exercise, both with a couple of added elements, with one instructor assigned to a pair of students for both exercises to provide increased instruction and feedback on the students’ driving.
The students were assigned to two different run groups with one group driving while the other worked shagging cones along the exercises. By the time we completed the exercises and broke for lunch, everyone was ready to try out their new skills on an actual timed course.
Following a Pizza lunch provided by the Club, we held a brief driver’s meeting before running an actual autocross event for the afternoon.
Students were driven around the course in their own cars by their instructor at a moderate pace to get familiarized with the course and a driving approach. Then, each student was given a chance to do 4 timed runs with their instructor riding along. After the fourth timed student run, we opened things up allowing instructors to drive students’ cars on the course or taking them for rides in their own cars. This opened the students’ eyes as to what they and their cars could be expected to do.
A look at the posted times for the day shows most of the students managing to improve their times considerably over the course of their four runs showing that they learned something during the day’s activities. Full results can be seen by going to NER’s Live Timing site at https://porschenet.com/ax, scrolling down to the date of the Autocross School (May 4, 2024), then selecting “Results”.
