DG's Autocross Setup Secrets

Autocross to Win

V1.2 Nov 22 2006

This is a work in progress, and it has been a very long time coming. I intend on working on it for the next little while, dumping as much of my brain and hard-earned knowledge into the public record. It is, however, NOT public domain; I reserve the copyright for myself. You may NOT duplicate this elsewhere without my express permission - and this is the age of Google, folks, I WILL find you if you post it elsewhere. Otherwise, read and enjoy, and put this all to good use. Go fast!. DG

Acknowledgements

The list of people I have to thank is a mile long. I'm tempted to trot out the old cliche about "standing on the shoulders of giants" but the triteness does these folks a disservice. Simply put, I positively could not have learned all I did and had the successes I did without the direct assistance of the following people:

• Claude Rouelle, whose datalogging and engineering seminars opened up an entire new way of looking at car development. You can attend too
• Bill Mitchell, whose suspension kinematics software proved its worth many times over, and whose patience with an enthusiastic user (and bug finder), and whose willingness to expand the software to cover the obscure double-lower-ball joint front suspension used in my Talon, defined what software customer support should be. See it here
• Warren Rowley, whose book An Introduction to Race Car Engineering provided many, many ideas, and proved that there's no problem that can't be solved by making little representative models. Now if only we'd get the next 4 books in the series!
• Bill Hindorff at Bilstein Shock Absorbers, who patiently held my hand through my shock rebuilding and revalving learning curve.
• Joe Cheng, Jim McKamey, and John Carriere, all of whom proved to be fascinating discussion partners and great people to bounce ideas off of.
• A small legion of fellow autocrossers who were willing to try my ideas on their cars, provide feedback, and in many cases, let me drive their cars as well so I could get the experience too. I'd love to thank them all by name, but I don't feel I have the right to out them. It's probably bad enough that I'm giving away all my secrets and spoiling a competitive advantage without adding the extra validation by naming names.... Thanks guys, and I hope you understand why I'm writing this.
• Finally, the man who got me started. In late 1992, a young drag racer picked up a copy of Tune to Win in a local speedshop and his life changed forever. I owe my entire racing career to Carroll Smith, as he was the inspiration that there was more to motorsports than just driving in a straight line. To meet him later on in my career was an incredible thrill; for him to spend time with me actually developing my car... I'm at a loss for words for how cool that was and for how grateful I am to have had the opportunity. We miss you Carroll. (And thanks to Hoosier Tom for arranging the meeting!)