Autocross Instructing Question

I've been instructing autocross for almost a year now. First with the PCA, and with the SCCA for the past few months. When I started, I was trying to help people with WHERE they drive. The more I instruct, I think people really need help with HOW they drive and my instruction has shifted toward that. Things like proper hand position, brake and throttle application, and looking ahead.
I'm only a top half kind of guy in the results myself and I get mostly beginners and people with less than a year of experience. Both clubs have national level instructors for the fast people.
So my question for those of you who have instructed, or been instructed, is whether or not I'm on the right track with my teaching? What should I be focusing on teaching people at this stage?

In my experience as an "instructee", an at-event instructor's main job is to make sure the noob stays on course. Actual technique instruction is done at our region's Novice School, which is a 2-day course with day-1 being a classroom presentation to go over theory and day-2 being driving with instuctors doing various exercises.

First I make sure they know where they are going.

Then I see what they need. My most common things are telling people to smooth out their inputs and to concentrate more on corner exit than on corner entry because if you set the car up to leave the turn correctly, you usually entered it correctly if you did it quickly and smoothly.

You have the right thought process! Something to consider. With your experience you can quickly see the issues a newby has whether it is hand position, head rolling sideways into turns, only on/off throttle position, etc. Take what you observe and work on what you think will benefit them the most in the shortest period of time. They will show improvement for the day and will come back for more. Then you can impart more wisdom.

When I had a mentor way back in the day, he gave me one or two tips per week. Took me 2 years to finally beat him. Without cars mods.

Focus your instruction on the quickest benefit to your student!

You can leave them with tips to try on the street like shuffle steering or smooth weight transfer. Only mention 'safe' stuff for street practice.

Oh yes, as mentioned! They need to be on course! Sometimes that can be the most difficult unless you do the walk-through with them.

My complete newbie speech is "there are only two things to work on your first event, 1. Don't get lost, 2. Look ahead" if they can drive without a DNF then we talk about other things. I also try to only give them one thing at a time to think about at a time.
The only thing I ever tell people to work on on the street is hands and looking through a turn.
Please keep the suggestions coming. I have 8-12 new students a month and I would like to become competent at this. Apparently I'm already the 'nice' instructor, so at least I've got that going for me.

I'd say look more at what is needed student by student than for a magic universal formula. And for god sakes, quit worrying about where their hands are on the steering wheel.

If a student keeps over power the car, work on that. If another student can't pick a line worth a darn, work on that. If a student can't be consistent, work on that.

Work on what the student actually needs. Work on what will help that particular student the most.

Back when flying choppers, skiing slaloms, or racing bikes and cars I found the rules were always the same. If you're comfortable and things seem to be moving in slow motion, then you have done your planning in advance and you're going to be fast. If not, you're out of control and will never catch back up.

Look and plan way ahead! Look at a series of corners as a series, not a bunch of disconnected corners. The most important part to get correct of every corner is the set up for the one coming up next.

Start each new course off driving slowly and feel the rhythm and flow. The rhythm and flow shouldn't change as you speed up on later runs. If you have to play catch up, the mistake you are making isn't caused by where you are now, it was made at least a corner or series of corners before. Slow down again, get the rhythm back, then try to stay clean till the end of the run. If you try to make up "lost" time, you'll ruin the whole run and maybe end up with a broke ride or body.

After the run is over look out at the course and see where you first felt you were behind. Then look backwards to where you swung the tail too far, stomped on the brakes or gas, or whatever mistake you made & thought you had recovered from. Because you didn't recover at all. Next run, don't repeat that mistake.

It's always faster to drive smoothly rather than jerky. Jackie Stewart, who was fairly successful, always drove his F-1 car or his street car as if he were driving a limo and didn't want to spill the owner's tea. The less you impress the casual observer, the faster you are likely actually going to finish.

I like to ask students (once they get pretty good at eyes, hands, and feet) what they think they can improve. You can tell a lot about where they are and what they need help with next based on the response.

foxtrapper wrote: I'd say look more at what is needed student by student than for a magic universal formula. And for god sakes, quit worrying about where their hands are on the steering wheel. If a student keeps over power the car, work on that. If another student can't pick a line worth a darn, work on that. If a student can't be consistent, work on that. Work on what the student actually needs. Work on what will help that particular student the most.

I had a big long reply justifying my hands talk but I deleted it. The two cases where I was harping on hands this weekend were because the students weren't able to drive smoothly without fixing them. I was doing the "fix the biggest problem" thing.
That leads me to a philosophical thing. Is there a proper form? Every sport I've ever tried to get better at has a certain form for the activity. Whether skiing or hitting a ball or riding a motorcycle, there was always something I could do to improve my body position/movement and get faster/better. Autocross can't be so different than every other sport,can it?

I believe that there is a proper form for autocross, but I also think that some individuals are outliers, so don't beat them up if you happen to run across some of them. Some cars are also outliers, like old Honda Civics, for instance, at least with the smooth is fast technique.

There is absolutely a proper form for steering. (Just like you should push on the pedals with the balls of your feet and not your heels)

I think of it like this (In basically my order of importance):

1. Two hands are always better than one. (CAN you swing a golf club with one hand? Yes. Are you better at golf with two? Even if strength is not an issue, like putting?)
2. Fingertips are better than death squeeze
3. Steer in and steer out. No letting go of the wheel and 'catching' it as it self centers.
4. 9 and 3 > 10 and 2. 9 and 3 encourages you to drive with your elbows and wrists and fingers (detail muscles) while 10 and 2 encourages you to lock your upper body and attempt to steer with your shoulders and core (not detail muscles)
5. I don't really care if you shuffle or feed or hand over hand, but keep your knuckles on the outside of the wheel and you better not use the 'suicide' knob
6. I'm not picky about where you put your thumbs. Yes you can injure them in a crash (uh, just like you can injure anything else in a crash). I'd rather you steer around the crash. See #2 though.

mazdeuce wrote: I had a big long reply justifying my hands talk but I deleted it. The two cases where I was harping on hands this weekend were because the students weren't able to drive smoothly without fixing them. I was doing the "fix the biggest problem" thing. That leads me to a philosophical thing. Is there a proper form? Every sport I've ever tried to get better at has a certain form for the activity. Whether skiing or hitting a ball or riding a motorcycle, there was always something I could do to improve my body position/movement and get faster/better. Autocross can't be so different than every other sport,can it?

If hand position was what was holding them back, then definitely that was a thing to work on.

What I was referring to was the pedantic obsession with THE, singular, one and only, whatever. In this case, hand position on the steering wheel (which comes in an out of hysterical vogue). Yes, roughly 9 & 3 are good starting positions. But the world will not end if the hands are a little high or a little low. Same with shuffle steering vs crossing over, vs single handed crank. They actually all work, and if a person is good at steering, there's no need to insist it be changed.

I've damn near gone off course before because an instructor was absolutely ADAMANT, that only shuffle steering could be used. I don't shuffle steer usually. So trying to hustle through slaloms with this goofy (to me) steering technique had me doing anything but following a reasonable line or making reasonable lap times.

That is what I was talking about. If the student is controlling the wheel well, while having troubles elsewhere, let the way they hold their wheel go, and work on the more important problems.

And, of course, if the way they are handling the steering wheel is causing problems, fix it.

In reply to rcutclif:

That verbalizes a lot of stuff that I couldn't. I'm probably going to print that. Thanks.

Seating position important. It's cool to drive laid way back. Doesn't work well on the track.

In reply to foxtrapper:

Thank you. This gives me a lot to think about the next time I get in a car. One student I sent home to practice steering was grabbing inside the wheel. Even with that her turn in and mid corner was OK, but she had to release and catch the wheel on exit to get her hands back. So the car jerked and was unstable on corner exit which made her be late on power. The whole point of fixing her hands was so she could get on the power earlier, driving a FWD car. And the whole point of earlier power was to pick up a second so she can beat her husband.

On topic: I'd say, like many others have already, give them what they need most and what they can understand and use, which you do by riding with them and seeing how they drive. Slightly off topic: I wound up being an autocross instructor one time by accident. I had signed SWMBO up for an autocross class so she would be more comfortable autocrossing my car. Then I volunteered to help out with whatever was needed that day. To my surprise, I was made an instructor. I was a solidly bottom half of the PAX times guy and had been for a loooong time. Nonetheless I went along with this in spite of my "lack of winningness". It was a blast, it was easy to see what the student was doing wrong and give a few pointers to improve their skills. The biggest surprise for me -- how much I learned by doing this! The student did improve and my driving also improved as a result. It was a turning point in my autocross performance. I also had as much fun riding with the students as I did when I drive myself! Talk about a win-win.

The only instructor I ever had (I've never done the high level stuff like Evo) first made sure I knew my way around the course. On the second run he worked a little bit on proper lines by walking around the outside of the course between runs to point out one or two key points where I was taking the wrong lines. (He was smart enough to realize if he flyspecked the way I was running every element his input would become meaningless) The third run, he had me focus on proper technique on the slalom, having spent the time between runs standing with me by the slalom showing me examples of others that were doing it right and wrong. He told me not to worry about the elements before and after the slalom and be sure I set up and executed slalom properly, even if I clobbered every other cone in that section (I didn't) Fourth run he told me I could only use the brakes and gas when he told me (loudly) to do so. (He was basically drilling into my head that I could brake later than I thought and should/could get back into the gas earlier that I thought) The fifth run we asked to be considered a "fun run" and he took my car through the course to show me how it all fit together. Honestly, I thought he did a great job and gave me a great start in the sport. Some six or seven years later, I wish I could find the guy to thank him. He was just a club volunteer at a free noob school, but he helped me immeasurably.

The keys to me were as follows:

1. Small bites, especially for noobs. Advice on more than one topic per run (maybe even per event) is wasted.

2. Make use of the time between runs. Walk back out to the course if time allows. Calmly explaining things with the course in view is WAAAY more effective than trying to explain it in the pits, in a hot car something that happened during a run which was probably a blur to a newbie anyways.

3. If you can live with the "weight penalty" let them ride with you. He could have talked for hours without teaching me as much as 40 seconds with him at the wheel covered. Even better, drive their car if your club has "fun runs" at the end. (This has the added benefit of pointing out to newbies how much faster they can go without spending another cent on their car)

4. Teach overall "lines" during the pre-event course walk. Encourage your students to get down to their driving position eyeline as they walk through the various elements and memorize where those two or three key cones are that will get them through the congested parts of the course. Overcoming the "sea of cones" phenomenon is key for noobies. Telling them to look ahead is great, telling them what to look ahead for is better. It also teaches students to develop a plan and spend the event executing, testing and refining their plan.

5. Spend time on the slaloms. Lots of time. I'm a firm believer that the slaloms are usually the biggest time difference between the back markers and the fast guys.

Now could be a good time to spend an hour with Dick Turner and from there take a few points that may speak to you.

I would emphasis the course-walk.
Do you do a novice-walk?
A guided and instructed walk-through with all the novices and a seasoned pro. The pro should be speaking the entire time, explaining his thoughts and his intentions as to what he will be doing at that juncture.
Don't fail to explain what a pointer cone is actually pointing at. Said another way, why are some cones standing and some laying down.

Teach slaloms.
What is the proper side? (if optional)
Teach to pace off the slalom so to tell if it is "increasing distances" (accelerate) or "decreasing distances" (decelerate)