This article was written in April of 1997 and sent off to be published in the National Saab Club newsletter NINES, issue #238.
Lot of Cones
The His-tory
For most of my life I have been a motorsports fan and an automobile enthusiast. My enthusiasm for the speed and glory I saw in motorsports was due in no small part to my adolescent dreams. Those dreams in turn were in no small way a product of the environment in which I was brought up, that of a SAAB family. I remember being armed with a wire brush and all my childhood gumption, lifted up, seated upon the rusted floorpan of an upside down Sonett chassis and being instructed to move that brush repeatedly in a reciprocating manner until my arm fell off. Today, 13 years later, I am doing something I have wanted to do ever since I became my father’s greasy go-fer. I am racing!
Almost as if there is justice in this crazy world, the car I race is the very Sonett that I helped to restore with the small donation of my right arm. Father has very generously allowed his car-crazy, speed-happy, go-juice-for-blood son to take said father’s first restoration project onto the race course. The car is a one of a kind as far as I know, a ‘68 SAAB Sonett V4 with the roof cut off to make it a roadster. The new bodystyle is set off by a coat of bright yellow paint and minilite style wheels from the ‘80 SAAB 96. Extensive warming of the engine has produced a guestimated 130 hp from the 1500 cc V4. [Ed: today I think I was being rather optimitstic, 110hp is more likely.] Before my first race, mother thought about all the time, effort, and love that went into building my father’s pride and toy, and was prompted to ask him the one question I had been too afraid to ask, "What if he wrecks it?" My father replied simply, "If he wrecks it, he’ll fix it."
La jouissance
The joy of racing is something very difficult to describe. I have raced BMX and mountain bikes with moderate success. I played soccer passionately for most of my childhood. The rush of competition is something incredible. I can be completely calm, just sitting down minding my own business and all of a sudden the idea of competition accosts me! As I write this there is a tension forming in my neck muscles and my fingers are moving faster and with increased rigidity. I can feel my heartbeat speeding up. I must physically try and shake it off before I can relax. If I am unlucky enough to think about this much before bedtime, I have trouble getting to sleep! I can re-feel the feeling of sitting on the starting line of a mountain bike race with 40 other racers and going over strategy in my head: "OK, it’s an uphill start, get off the bike just before they let you go and when they do, RUN! Jump on the bike after the first twenty yards and you’ll have a 4 bike length lead on the rest of the field at the first turn!" I think about a missile of black and white stitched leather launched from my left fullback position. There is a wonderful feeling of counterattack as it flies over the heads of the opposition and lands halfway into enemy territory right in front of the already running forwards. The feeling of jouissance as I rev the engine in anticipation of the starter’s "all set" signal at the seasons first autocross. VVVVRRZRRZZZOZOOOMM!!!! In a rising concert of spinning Yokohama rubber I’m gone! Heading east I try to slow the earth’s rotation with my 1500 cc’s of V4 power ; ) The Sonett picks up it’s nose in eager acceleration! It dives and twists as I left-foot brake into the first turn! The noise is intoxicating inside my helmet! Everything floods into perspective: it ‘s me, the car, the tarmac, the cones, and the timer. Nothing else dares intrude my senses at this point. Concentration is vital! Concentration is brutal! Flash by the finishing gate and SMILE ‡ ) Eyewitness’ report that a serious smile can regularly be seen filling the visor of my helmet as I tool back through the pits. Each run only lasts about 65 seconds on average. It takes most of the day to manage 4 minutes of track time and you are trying desperately to make your time on the track as short as possible. Why am I so afflicted with perma-grin?
The Info
Autocross (or Solo II in SCCA speak) has an extremely low risk of damage to one’s car or person. The initial investment to participate is practically nil, compared to most forms of motorsport. Entry fees range from $15 to $25 per event and there ends your major race expense! Apart from your factory seatbelt, a helmet is the only safety item they require and most clubs have loaners available. A tech inspector will go over your car to ensure that nothing will fall off during the race and possibly injure the pavement. You must have a valid driver’s license and understand that the right pedal is the "go-pedal." It would be handy if you could read a course map so that you can navigate your race route through the lot of cones.
Notice I mentioned nothing of a superlicence, sponsorship, roll cage/bar, blueprinted engines, or even race tires! Moreover, some of the closest competition occurs in the stock classes where the cars are what the name implies, dead stock. Essentially the only modifications allowed to a stock class car are safety improvements such as a roll bar or race type seatbelts. You can throw on autocross special tires but they must be road legal, no slicks (look for the DOT number on the sidewall). Lowered suspensions and reprogrammed engine management systems are no-no’s in the stock classes. You can however, have the sides of your car plastered with as many go-fast stickers as you like. In fact, some companies, like tire manufacturers, offer incentive programs that reward you with cash and stuff, but you must use their product and run their stickers on your car.
If you get frustrated with the low speed and limited handling of your stock setup and start to make modifications you enter the world of "Street Prepared" competition. I was forced to start my career in Street Prepared because the Sonett already had the modifications to catapult me well out of the boundaries of the stock class. My class was CSP, where the rules place all sedans over 1.5L and under 3.0L and sports cars under 2.0L unless otherwise classified.
Speedier Sonett
I would like to explain the two major things that helped me go faster, a better setup and better driving. Except for the general dynamics of handling most of what I say will only apply to front wheel drive cars. You may have heard people talk about left-foot-braking. If you want to go fast in a SAAB, do it! It takes practice. It feels weird at first but it is the fast way around in a front wheel drive car. I first heard of left foot braking when I read an article reprinted from the 1978 March issue of Car and Driver. I read about Stig Blomqvist. I had heard of him. I knew he was fast...in a SAAB! In the article he stated something that I had already found out for myself, "The main problem with front-wheel-drive cars is understeering," (no kidding!) "Most of the weight and all of the power go through the front tires. If you have understeering and you put the throttle on more, you have more understeering." Understeering is the cars tendency to push, or go straight when the wheels are turned. One technique used to combat understeering the "handbrake turn." The idea is to actuate the rear brakes with the handbrake and toss the back of the car around a turn while the front continues to spin freely and grip. Left foot braking produces the same effect only more accurately, and you have both hands on the wheel. To do it you basically come into the turn and mash both feet to the floor. DOWHAT? Relax, I’ll explain the dynamics of the situation: Tires have less grip when they are sliding and tires slide because they are asked to do more than they are capable of. A balanced car will slide both the front and rear tires at the same time and at the same rate. The balanced car is fictional for all intents and purposes. A car will almost always have a preference for one end to slide first. All Saabs slide the front first. A balanced car with mediocre grip will be faster around a race course than a car with tons of grip at one end and little at the other. Left foot braking allows the driver to control the balance of adhesion between the front and rear tires.
Here’s my best shot at explaining this by example: at the last event there was a fairly fast left hander with another tighter left hander immediately following it. This is the dreaded reduced radius turn or "sucker turn." Because of a short straight-away leading in, I am going faster than physics or the gremlins of adhesion will permit me to negotiate the turn so, I let up on the gas and squeeze on the brake with my left foot. Speed having been sufficiently diminished, I re-apply almost full throttle. The left foot is still fairly hard on the brake. This sets up the car for the turn by settling the front suspension down and keeping it down. The brakes are acting to the same degree on all four wheels just as they were designed except (here’s the clue) I am counteracting them at the front by giving the throttle "full welly." Now the rear wheels are being asked to slow their rotation AND carrying the back of the car around the turn. The rears cannot handle both tasks and so they slide (as I had intended). Because I am applying (approximately) equal forces of braking and power at the front wheels, their job consists mainly of steering the car around the turn. They can handle this and if I am doing all this right...Viola! A SAAB with oversteer! The great part of this song and dance is I can control the balance of the car accurately and quickly. The only thing better than a balanced car is one in which you can control the balance according to your need. As I let up on the brake slightly the car will begin to return to its normal understeering preference and I can accelerate out of the turn without having to transfer the right foot from the brake pedal. More pressure applied to the brake pedal will turn me more into the turn. If I should happen to overcook the turn all I need do is let up slightly on the gas and press more on the brake and it will slow me rapidly while retaining steering control. One interesting feature of this technique is that if I do it right there is very little turning of the steering wheel. I do not need to correct for the slide, in fact I continue to steer into the turn and control the direction with the throttle and brake pedal. This technique was developed on loose surfaces such as gravel but translates nicely for autocrossing purposes. No single improvement in the car or in my driving has taken more time off my runs than left foot braking! The key is practice. Eventually your left foot will get used to moderating a pedal instead of just throwing in the clutch.
*Note: All that being said, when you go to your first autocross, do what is comfortable for you. If you are uncomfortable with left foot braking, you will be faster without it. Some people will tell you that it makes little difference if you do it or not, it is slightly controversial and it is hard on the brakes.
Now that you have the information to become a front wheel drive master, you will want to know what to do to your car to make it a more suitable mount. Get new sneakers! Not for you silly, for the car! It has been suggested that a good set of autocross tires will take two seconds off any time you can manage on street tires! I use Yokohama 008 RSII’s. They sell for about $130 a piece. The most effective change I made to the car was the tire setup. The problem was getting enough grip at the front of the car so that I could apply more power through the turns. I currently run 225 50 15’s on the front and 205 50 15’s on the rear. Notice that the front tires are significantly wider than the rears. This alone helps to balance the car quite nicely. Second, notice that the tires are 50 series tires. That is the only way they will fit on the car. They fit very nicely on the rear and do not rub at all. In fact the 195 60’s that were on the car previously did rub, where these do not. The front tires JUST fit. They have plenty of room at the fenders and don’t rub when the steering is turned to full lock, unless the tire is unweighted. In that situation I get just a slight rubbing of the inside sidewall on the coil spring. The situation is under review and I plan to have a remedy for next season. I refuse to go to a smaller set of tires! I just bought new fronts and I love the grip! Besides, it would ruin my balance!
Cool Down
Finally, have a great time! It is my enjoyment of the competition and the people that prompt me to write this stuff. I’d like to share the fun so come out and join us! I’d relish the opportunity to compete against another CSP Sonett!!
-STEFAN Vapaa