Solo II gafs, and how to work on my weaknesses?

This has been a long issue for me, and i could relate it back to other catagories of motorsports (RallyCross, or what atleast its called in the US) but its highlighted in Autocross more then others so i feel its worth asking about.  This has been a long time issue for me, i do decent but not amazing during official runs, always coming in 2nd, but then in fun runs cut massive amounts of time, to the point it makes me wonder how i didn't potentially win my class in autocross when said rival who beat me officially makes nearly no progress in during same fun-runs and i shaved 2-3 seconds in  same "Fun Runs" and if i could of pulled off such times in official runs would of trounced them, what is my issues?  So far as i can tell i have very poor understanding of proper lines, but decent car control, this would make sense but if its more then that i'd want to know others thoughts.  

I came from a backround of doing silly stunts with beaters on slippery roads rather then racing carts or anything similar, so i'd imagine incompetence for finding proper lines quicker is the problem but if what i mention is relatable i'd love to hear more things that i could be doing better. 

That sounds to me like performance anxiety. Like you hold back on the for-credit runs because you don't want to step over the line, but are more aggressive during fun runs because you know it doesn't count if you screw it up.

I'm that way. I don't autocross often enough to know where the limit of my car is, and I tend to underestimate what I can get away with. My car is non-competitive anyway, which makes it easier for me to not overthink and just go have fun trying to find the limit.

In most of the teaching I do, and most of the driving I do for that matter, the gains don't come from lines, but from understanding where the fast parts of the course are. Most people go too fast on the slow parts and too slow on the fast parts. Even very experienced drivers. To compound the issue, once you figure out where you can go fast, that affects your speed into the next corner/section so you have to adjust again. It's fairly usual on our 6-8 run days to have the fast guys set their fast time by run four while the mid/slow set a fast run at 7-8. Do you have any sort of data acquisition that you can run to record speeds on course? Or more riding with a national champion level driver and ask them how they approach the first few runs? 

One of the more valuable things you can do is have a better driver than you drive your car with data running and compare that to your runs. Find out why and where they are faster and see if you can incorporate that into your driving. Often you can take two people with very similar times and see that they have different speeds in different areas. They both learn from each other and both get faster. 

Seat time. Even the best autocrossers out there will usually go faster given an infinite number of runs on a certain course. Part of the challenge is getting it done in three runs (or four or five or however many you get at your local events).

Tight and tidy is often overlooked.  When we’re measuring performance to the thousandth of a second, every foot travelled is time.   And every foot you swing wide in a corner is a foot you have to travel back.  So (generally) the fastest line is the shortest line.   

Slower in and faster out also comes in to play here, if you are more controlled and able to roll onto the throttle earlier than if you have to recover from overdriving the last corner.

Never coast.  If you aren’t doing something (accelerating, braking, or turning) you’re wrong.  Never coast.

I’ll add to that- some turns (plural) can be made into “one big turn”. I learned that this season. We have a double overlapping “r” that went uphill. Most would take them as two right hand turns. 

I shaved one second just taking a different line so that the double r’s were one turn. 

On a long radius turn (sweeper) you can have TWO Apexes! 

Finally, think ahead two turns. Don’t just LOOK ahead. THINK ahead. 

Sounds a lot like me. I am not cured, but I am getting better. Here is what I have learned and am trying to put into practice. 

1. You're probably overdriving. 

Trying to go faster often means that you overshoot corners, adding distance and time. Or you are sawing away at the wheel and jamming the brakes rather than smooth inputs. The reason you are faster at during fun runs is that you stopped trying desperately to shave time and just relaxed.

2. You probably don't have a plan.  

If you come off course and you are 1.5 seconds slower than the next person in class, what are you going to do to shave time? When I started, I simply tried to go faster everywhere, MORE GAS! SLAM BRAKES! CRANK WHEEL! (see above)  Now, I walk the course and I have a plan on where to brake, where to look, where to position the car, how to get on boost, etc. If I need to shave time, I think about my run and try to find sections where I was off plan, or my plan was wrong and needs adjustment.  Was the car lagging coming out of a corner? Maybe I need to brake earlier so I can get on the gas sooner. Did I have any issues in the slalom? Maybe I can increase speed a bit there. Was I coasting anywhere? Stop that. Etc. 

3. You're probably going to fast

Sounds odd, but sometimes you have to slow down to go fast. Coming in too hot means you slide past your brake point, adding distance, killing momentum, and throwing off your line. This might be because you are braking too late, or not hard enough, or because you improved in the last section and now are entering that corner with an extra 10 mph. Coming into a slalom too hot means braking in the middle and trying not to spin. Slow down a bit and you'll shoot right through. 

4. You're probably overthinking it

What are your tire pressures? Are the shocks too stiff? I didn't see that guys brake lights on the back half the course, how'd he do that?  The Corvette guys are taking a different line, what if I tried that? Maybe I need Firestone Indy 500s? Its easy to get a lot of stuff swirling around, especially if people are adding advice on top of it: "keep your elbows in, keep your head down, don't lift your back foot, swing your hips, keep that elbow straight, loosen your grip, twist your shoulders, keep your knees bent" I HATE GOLF!!!!! THIS IS A STUPID SPORT!!!!  Oh, sorry, flashback. But you get the point. Having a plan allows you to focus on what you want to do and tune out distractions. You know your car, you know yourself, trust your gut and work your plan. 

I realize this isn't your specific problem. Something I read that helped me a lot: "Don't drive to the line, end up on it." I would watch/follow a fast car and try to hit it's exact line. If I was slower it would have me driving out to the curbing. Because I'm slower I should have finished the turn sooner. 

It's really nice if you can have somebody faster/better drive your car. We had a pro driver do a few laps at RA. He said he wasn't braking somewhere that we were. We weren't ballsy enough to try it and he was. Now we're all a few seconds quicker there, although still nowhere near as fast as him. 

One other bit of psychology, make your autocross day a relaxing day. Go to bed early the night before. Wake up early day of. Have plenty of time to walk the course. Change tires, etc  

Pack a lunch so you don’t have to worry about what to eat. Make it a simple lunch. If you food coma yourself, and you’re running in the afternoon, it’s the worst. Drink plenty of water and Gatorade go to the bathroom (both #1&2!). I was on grid once and had to piss so bad that I forgot to do my stecond lap!

Finally, don’t invite family to come watch. I made this mistake. Guess what I ended up doing on lunch break, instead of focusing? Babysitting family members that complain about 1) it’s too hot 2)where am I suppose to park? 3) how long is this going to take? 4) are there only portapotties?!?! 5) that guy looked at me. 

The psychology plays a larger role in your performance than you would think. You need to do EVERYTHING possible to make yourself feel comfortable and relaxed. 

Some people will tell you not to drink caffeine before the event, because it “gives them the jitters”. That’s fine if that’s what works for them. In my case, I drink a red bull a day. This is my daily norm. I feel weird NOT drinking red bull. So I drink red bull before autocross, and my mind is on pace. 

Ride with the fastest guys/gals in your area who will let you.

Watch what they do. Offer co drives to them for free. This is some of where my largest gains came from. 

I would also recommend getting a car thats easy to drive and you can afford lots of consumables for. Seat time is key. 

Work with any instructors who can give pointed feedback. Work to fix one problem at a time in your driving. 

Pay for real instruction. Even if you're learning a lot with your local instructors. Spend the money and attend an Evo school. I did an evo advantage school in 2017 before a national tour event, and it was the lightbulb moment for me on slalom timing. I took a full day Evo Phase 1 a few months later and it was also great. You drive a skidpad circle there among other exercises. The Evo Autocross schools are the absolute best instructors in the country. 

I've been lucky to have Mazdeuce as an instructor for nearly 5 years now to work on the basics and now the finer points of my driving. 

Putting a fast driver in your car may also help find any issues with your car. 

I've done everything I've mentioned here. Putting fast people in my car was big at first. You learn the level of aggression and what a fast run feels like. 

The 2 biggest things for me have always been seat time and having faster people codrive with me. 

With autocross seat time usually means attending more events. I find the more events I attend the better. the first couple events of a season I usually feel "off" or take all day before I can make a run I'm happy with. During the really busy part of the season where I'm lucky enough to do an event every weekend for 4-5 weeks in a row I can sometimes click off my fastest run of the day on the 1st or second run. Just spending more time in the car practicing the discipline of autocross helps a lot! 

Having a faster person co-drive is always a great way to learn to go faster. And it's nearly free aside from a bit of extra tire/consumable wear from having 2 drivers. This can be helpful just riding along/observing what they do relative to you, but it's even more helpful if you have a gopro or some sort of data to look at to really see what they're doing differently. I spend a lot of time on youtube doubler comparing my runs side by side with faster people in my car. 

You didn't mention if you have an action camera or not but if you don't I'd suggest even an older gopro which you can find cheap on ebay or local marketplaces would be helpful. Another option would be a secure phone mount like RAAM mount and then buying the harrys laptimer app. This will use your phone video camera and overlay data on top of it. Phone GPS is a bit slow so you may want to upgrade to an external GPS down the road but this might be another option to consider.

While we've all been focusing our advice on how to make you faster, you yourself already know how to go faster. You just have to figure out how to do so in the competition runs. Just recording yourself in the competition runs and then the fun runs would likely give you some great ideas of what you did differently to net a 1.5-2 second gain. 

I really think to give the best advice we need better info from you. If you can somewhat pinpoint what you do in fun runs that is so much faster, lots of quick autox folks on this board can help you get to that pace during runs. But we're mostly stuck offering all the autox advice we know without more detailed info on what you need to fix the most.