Grass auto testing!!!!! WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

[anna]

First outing for our rust bucket for grass autotesting tonight.

Cheap and uber fun!!!!!!!
There were 3 courses (all very short) with 2 routes round each course which you had to complete in the quickest time poss.
Apart from the handbrake doing bu88er all for the handbrake turns, it was excellent fun I managed to get some really cool slides on and reverse flicks going - but I never quite managed to get a run wholly together at the same time - if you weren't careful, taking too much speed in ends up in understeering hell!
Alex is gloating cos he managed to come second in our class (RWD) which is very very good for a first timer.... and he even managed a fully 720 on the course (and carry on) instead of just a lowly 360 (there were no extra points for style though!)
I managed to not come last, but i'll kick his ass next time

Bring it on!!!!! (who needs front anti roll bars anyway? )


Oh - and our rust bucket was proposition on the way home by a clio in rugby..... revving away like a good'un - good grief Needless to say, we let them wheel spin away, and then carried on home..... would have been funny to give em a run for their money if there was still mud and crud to kick up from the tyres

[vashy]

fantastic!! go speedy!

you did take pics didn't you??

[Rhys-]

That sounds like excellent fun, where did you do it?

[anna]

fantastic!! go speedy!

you did take pics didn't you??

errr... this is the only one which actually doesn't give you much idea other than it's a grassy field!

Where did you do it?

In a grassy field near kimcote (out the back of Bruntingthorpe). It's an event run by mercia motorsport.
There were still cows in the field (cordoned off at one end of the field), looking rather unimpressed!

[Speedy]

Autograss testing

Was a good laugh. Anna and her engineer friend let some air out of the front tyres while I was in the queue to go, get into the first slide around a cone, and suddenly the front sticks where before it had pushed on - so I thought, stop the car and lose some momentum? or carry on spinning around - 720 it was (I even put my arm out the window as we went on round, echoed by the marshalls and the person waiting to go next!)

It's a shame there aren't any decent pictures, but I don't have a zoom on my phone, and I tried to take photos, but they looked like the car was miles away

In conclusion - mk1s are not bad at grass autotesting, nimble steering and revvy engine helps - as long as you can cope with the understeer - and you don't mind your car smelling of the countryside the following morning!

[Vindezal]

yeh Ive tried dohnuts in grass too one off laugh tho

[Speedy]

I thought it might be a bit like that as well - but it's more that just that, its about retaining some control of the car in a very low grip situation, using the weight of the car to give you traction (at different ends) and using the accelerator to help turn the car.

There were parts of the course where you have to turn around and reverse between cones, and then turn around again, slaloming between cones, and of course, a little bit of working out the course from the printed instructions

I spose it's a bit like a skid-pan session, but with no wear to the tyres

[Rogue_zero]

my first car was an escort mk2 auto. Was crap on the road but on grass with no gear changes it was lots of fun