Mary Pozzi Autocross tips

[bret]

Ty Hauer from Air Ride Technologies had a chance to ride with 11 TIME SCCA AUTOCROSS CHAMPION Mary Pozzi in her Camaro at the Del Mar Goodguys show last weekend. She offers some SERIOUSLY good insight on how to improve driving skills. This is worth a look...

http://www.ridetechtv.com/video/8590 (http://www.ridetechtv.com/video/8590)

[buickfunnycar.com]

Can I still just drop by or do I need to talk to your agent Mary..?

Cool deal Mary...congrats!

[JEFFTATE]

I love you Mary !!............

[Steve1968LS2]

Here was my lesson from Mary:


Go fast and don't crash...


lol

Actually what I learned from her and David made me a much better driver.

[David Pozzi]

Mary had a great time making that video with Ty and it shows, very relaxed talk while having loads of fun!
David

[David Sloan]

Thanks Ty, Mary an Bret
That was great.

[1969CamaroRS]

Cool video, interesting to watch.

[critter]

I was disappointed. Not one "turn you POS!!!" in the whole video. :)

My wife and I autocrossed in her turbo Solstice last year. It was a first for both of us. It won't be the last.

[Payton King]

Not to get off track, but Critter I see you are from Little Rock. I am from North Little Rock. Do not see Arkansas folks too often.

[Martin71RS]

nice and interesting movie, and what Mary said complies what I've learned long time ago with motorbike driving training.....look where you are going.
thanks! (and of course a cool 2nd gen in action :1st: )

[critter]

Payton, I PM'd you.

[68Formula]

My favorite lines:

"I get inquires ... about folks that want to upgrade their car... a lot of them say... 'how many coils should I cut, I wanna achieve the perfect stance' and I say 'do you want to look at it or do you want to drive it?'" - Mary Pozzi

[bret]

My favorite lines:

"I get inquires ... about folks that want to upgrade their car... a lot of them say... 'how many coils should I cut, I wanna achieve the perfect stance' and I say 'do you want to look at it or do you want to drive it?'" - Mary Pozzi

[Insert shameless self promotion here]
This is one of the main advantages of an air suspension...not only can you fine tune the handling characteristics of the vehicle to accommodate track or road conditions, you can also choose to radically alter the ride height when cruising or parked.

[shortrack]

Great vid.....!

Although one thing she doesn't talk about is how on your first day other competitors from your class may (or hopefully may not) come up and start talking smack in an effort to see what tricks you have in your car and psych you out......Ive seen some people get turned off by this and not want to return.....

I cant help but think that especially being a woman Mary must have experienced this sort of thing at some point....

unfortunately this type of thing is a reality where you get a bunch of guys together in anything remotely resembling a competition.

hopefully it doesn't happen but be ready for it......

[mpozzi]

Great vid.....!

Although one thing she doesn't talk about is how on your first day other competitors from your class may (or hopefully may not) come up and start talking smack in an effort to see what tricks you have in your car and psych you out......Ive seen some people get turned off by this and not want to return.....

I cant help but think that especially being a woman Mary must have experienced this sort of thing at some point....

unfortunately this type of thing is a reality where you get a bunch of guys together in anything remotely resembling a competition.

hopefully it doesn't happen but be ready for it......

Great advice and it's one of many things I didn't talk about. The absolutely worst thing a newbie can do is talk smack their first day out. We had a guy do this and the experienced folks still haven't forgotten it. You can't make a second "first" impression so let that initial contact be a good one. As for the reverse where it's intentional and done for intimidation, just go with it and figure out how to beat them by driving better. It's part of the game and motorsports in general.

And as for smack talk in general, yes and it's a fun disease to have. We all do it but the one's that do it best keep it lighthearted and fun. We know to shut the hell up when someone isn't doing well or their car broke, or at a Nationals-type event where everything's on the line ... and they're .5 behind. And we keep the respect intact ... especially for the newcomers to Solo. Can't speak for every club but if any of the SCCA-SFR or local club people started giving someone new a hard time, the outcome for the offender wouldn't be pretty.

Overall, it's a very friendly atmosphere compared to other forms of motorsports. I've seen very few instances where someone that needed help didn't get it.

On behalf of Hotchkis and Ridetech, I really enjoyed spending time with these guys and doing the interviews. Glad they turned out well and hopefully we'll get more people wanting to have fun at Good Guys autocrosses in the future.

Cheers,
Mary Pozzi

[Steve1968LS2]

At the Marina auto-x I found everyone to be very friendly.. even the folks in the CP class that must of been wondering where the new car came from.

Of course it helped that I was with Mary... lol

[critter]

Talk smack? We were still trying to figure out what class we were in and how to number our car with painters tape. LOL. Who had time for trash talking?

Our local club was very friendly and many came by after the fact to talk about how much they enjoyed seeing the classic cars on the course. We had a 77 Trans Am and a 65 GTO that ran that day. Almost every person working or standing around ran for their cameras when they hit the course. They weren't the fastest but they were certainly the most photographed. :)

I'm looking forward to finding some free time and going back with my old pig of a 1974 TA and my wife's Solstice again. She'll own me on that tight course (small parking lot) but I've given her year's of grief about our drag strip matchups so it's time for her to have some bragging rights.

[novanutcase]

That sounds just like the advice a ski instructor gave me to ski moguls.

"Don't look at what's immediatley in front of you. Look at whats coming! Let your peripheral vision work for you!"

John

[mpozzi]

That sounds just like the advice a ski instructor gave me to ski moguls.

"Don't look at what's immediatley in front of you. Look at whats coming! Let your peripheral vision work for you!"

John

Skiing???? OMG! Dave is still sporting a fine bruise over twenty years later as he tried to kill me a year or so after we started dating. When you go skiing with someone and they ask you to "Come on up and see the view" ... uh, don't. Especially when it's at the top of a very tall and large snowpacked mountain and there are few safe ways down. Having only been skiing twice (this was the second time and the first was when I was ten), I crashed getting out of the chairlift. Disentangled skis, poles, and me, got up, shook off about 50# of snow, looked up at Dave while giving a thumbs-up, and promptly got creamed by the next chair's occupants. Stood up again and got the hell out of there all the while Dave is just falling all over his bad self laughing like hell. After taking one short look off of the biggest cliff imaginable, I told him to "view this" and held out a single digit before starting back down the mountain. By the time I got down to the lodge, I think I actually learned how to ski ... sort of.

I'm a lot better now ...

Cheers,
Mary Pozzi

[JEFFTATE]

Thats a funny story about skiing Mary .

The autocross video is top quality .
I watched it again last night.
Very,very good .

I especially liked the advise on "compliance" in the suspension.
I think I have my car to low and to stiff.
I need to do some tuning and development on my suspension.

Thanks !

[mpozzi]

Thats a funny story about skiing Mary .

The autocross video is top quality .
I watched it again last night.
Very,very good .

I especially liked the advise on "compliance" in the suspension.
I think I have my car to low and to stiff.
I need to do some tuning and development on my suspension.

Thanks !

It's a common affliction and is conjoined with "stance." Compliance is required no matter what kind of driving events your car is used for.

The first thing to do is to figure out what's not right and then trace it to the "root" cause. The cool thing about our cars is that you can effect a change by replacing just one or two parts. It comes down to knowing those four corners of what you're sitting in and what they're doing at any given time.

And as for the skiing, I haven't forgotten nor forgiven ...

Cheers,
Mary Pozzi

[JEFFTATE]

And as for the skiing, I haven't forgotten nor forgiven ...

Cheers,
Mary Pozzi

Funny !...

[MrAngry]

Great vid... thanks for posting it. :)

[jb@ridetech]

this is a great video, i cant wait to try these tips myself.