[JimMueller]

With the exception of the 3-4 Evolution schools I've taken, I've only raced my car at an autocross. Since my car is down, I have been given the opportunity to co-drive a 400rwhp C5 with an automatic tranny. The car has received FTD at the first three events of the season. The guy who typically got FTD last year has been without his Z06, and when he drove this car he had difficulty getting used to the automatic tranny. I think he's got 315 V710's on all corners, and something like -2.5 camber. Recent changes made at the suggestion of Danny Popp.

This event will sorta be a mini-road race. When we run the course as an increasing radius sweeper, stock Z06's reached about 115mph on the back stretch. We'll be going the opposite way this event, however.

So, anything in particular I should know if I take him up on his offer? Let the car shift itself? How do I prevent it from shifting in the middle of a corner? What else?

[KeithO]

Since it's not your car, you are going to have to get permission to manually downshift to CYA. A few years ago, I autocrossed and open tracked an 88 IROC with the 700R4 and I destroyed the transmission doing manual downshifts. Make sure this guy is OK with this.

During cornering, the only way to avoid a downshift is to get a feel for how hard you can get on it without having the tranny shft. In my old IROC, I had the 2.77 rear end so since the gearing was tall, the downshift wasn't a big deal since I was acceleration limited (more grip than power) in most cases.

I played around alot with the IROC's tranny and settled on starting in 2nd and doing 2-3 and 3-2 manually as necessary. Sometimes the start would dictate starting in 1st (short straight then tight turn) but my "default" starting point was startin in 2nd.

I hope this helps.