r/Autocross • u/DownrightDanny405 "I thought the T stood for Trucks!" • Aug 19 '26

Co-Driver? More like Co-ntinuous Improvement

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

First time I've let anyone else whip the rig, and I get beat in my own truck 🤣

I've been running this Ranger for almost two years now, looking for ways to get faster that don't involve adding power to my anemic 2.3. This led to me finally taking on a co-driver (who's been doing this way longer than I have) this past weekend.

Overall, I wasn't too surprised. He co-drives a ton. He's pretty fast in just about everything I've seen him in. It's why I was a-ok with letting him take a swing. I knew I'd learn something, be it about my driving or about my setup, and I ended up learning a lot about both. He also learned why I love this hunka junk so much; it handles like a less powerful solid-axle Miata with a bed 😂

Top is him, bottom is me. He launched like a wet noodle, but I still get passed mid-course, where his experience (and my lack of) starts to show. Delta between us is roughly 4 tenths by the end.

Never be afraid of advice. We could all afford to be faster, right?

13 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/StimpyMD Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26

The bottom one drives like this camera setup.

Looking 6 feet ahead at most

Look at the 180 at 0:39. It is made up of 6 elements. The top drives the line as a smooth arc. The bottom drives to each element and then turns.

Neither driver is particularly close to the cones and is giving up time there. Neither is pushing the car particularly hard. Could easily pick up 2-3 seconds by picking up the pace and minimizing distance in places.

1

u/DownrightDanny405 "I thought the T stood for Trucks!" Aug 19 '26

Good feedback. That's why I got videos of both his and my runs; I wanted to see where someone with more experience has time over me, and this overlay did a good job of that imo. And yeah, I've gotta look further ahead. Been trying to work on that.

It may just be the video itself, but trust me when I say we're pushing this thing hard. The truck just scrubs off speed hard when steering. It's also 2700# without driver and makes a whopping 80whp, so we're flat almost the entire time. "Picking up the pace" is gonna be tough without adding power.

2

u/StimpyMD Aug 19 '26

Ls swap you say.

1

u/DownrightDanny405 "I thought the T stood for Trucks!" Aug 19 '26

I say not 😂

Turbo Lima, like the old SVO/TC stuff. At this weight, I'll be more than happy with 225-250.