Au Contraire Randy; Autocrosser Don't Always Make Better Road Racers.

Like many folks on this forum I am thrilled that Randy Pobst now has a column in GRM.

With that said I must take exception to his June column and point out a glaring omission.

As an autocrossser and road race  who instructs at both; I must point out that autocrossers make the same basic fundamental errors as road racers. Most new drivers come off the brake pedal to abruptly and to early. 

With that said good autocrossers do make better road racers; as Randy rightly pointed out autocrossers have to learn a new course at every event and so have to be quick learners.

Of course that is still not the major reason why; if you autocross you have the ability to drive 100% on cold tires.

If you are a road racer and you're not auto crossing from time to time you're giving up a major adavantge.

I believe that there is a large step to go from being a good driver to being a good race car driver.  While ultimate lap time is important, managing traffic, setting up passes, or defending are all critical, and all the pylons in the world won't teach you that.

Yeah his premise may not be true in all cases, but his observations generally match up with mine. I've also found it's waaaay easier to take a competent autocrosser and turn them into a competent road racer than it is to take a competent road racer and turn them into a competitive autocrosser. Of course, both can be done, but the car control skills developed in autocrossing scale really well while the general calmness of road racing inputs don't always translate well to autocrossing where you really have to force the issue on weight transfer from time to time.

In reply to JG Pasterjak :

Yup, much like dirt track drivers good autocross drivers tend to have excellent car control skills. 

I came to autocross from road racing motorcycles and had to unlearn what I thought would be fast lines. Autocrossing requires a more specialized approach; I liken it to motorcycle trials competition. 

My take is that it's purely a case of the autocross skill set translates better to road racing then the other way round.

With all that said  my experiance has been that average autorossers are way to rough with the car, especially in the all important area of brake pedal release. I suspect if I rode with them at autocross I'd have the exact same observation.

I once coached a friend who autocrossed and their brake pedal release was a rough as it gets. After working on that wouldn't you know it they started winning their class. My point being good drivers learn what works regardless of the from of racing.

EDIT: Pandantic note......Randy did say "always".