Autocross the Volt?... Yeah!

[SharkVolt]

Ok, confession time. "My name is Jerry, and I am an Autocrosser."

I have been an Autocrosser for over forty years now, and while my driving skills have lessened as I aged, the fun of driving a car has never diminished. For those of you who may not be familiar with it, Autocross refers to a miniature road race course set up with pylon and chalk lines on a large parking lot, with only one car running at a time against the clock, with dozens of different classes covering every type and size of car, so you would be able to compete against cars of similar size, handling, and power.

Since, as I mentioned, my skills are somewhat diminished, I let a good friend drive the Volt for me. He has beaten me consistantly for many years now, and has experience in many many levels and types of cars. His current personal car is a well set up Nissan 350 Z. He was a little apprehensive about the fact that the traction control can't be turned off on the Volt, as the 350 Z traction control reduces power from the engine and hampers driver control and speed significantly in turns. But he agreed to "try it" anyway.

I showed him how to set the mode to sport and use Low for better de-acceleration and under threat of "a slow and painful death" if he put any pylon marks on the car, he went out for his first lap. Temperature was about 50 degrees and overcast. He came in from that lap with a big grin, and said "This thing is a hoot!" He was very surprised at how well the Volt corners, with only very minimal push, and said the acceleration was quite a bit better than he expected also. He ran four laps with it, and lap times continuously improved as he adapted to the Volt's capabilities. The course was about 1/2 mile in length. He started with about a 51.5, then 50.7, then 50.4, and finally a 49.4 as he got the "hang" of the Stabilitrack traction control. He mentioned that the Volt seems to limit speeds in corners in proportion to the amount you have the steering turned, and so when he made it a point to "unwind" the steering earlier in the corners, there was much better acceleration available to "get going".

I checked the condition of the front tires after this and was surprised to see virtually no scrub over on the outside edge of the tire tread, This is unusual for stock class cars, even with the exta ten pounds of pressure we had in them. The car was set at 35 all around from the dealer, and when I saw that the max pressure labelled on the tire sidewall was 51, I had set them at 45 front and 40 rear, (heavier front end doing most of the hard cornering work) typical settings for a stock class car. Apparently, Chevy has put a better than usual suspension on the Volt. It seemed to have a very stable look and feel, with very little body roll.

All in all, it was a very fun and pleasant experience, and the car received a lot of positive comments. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Might even do it again someday.

Jerry, #536

[Rusty]

So, out of curiosity, what lap times was he getting with his 350Z? Where any other lap turned in that day by a different stock compact?

That works out to be around 36 MPH avg, if I'm doing the quick math corrrectly. Right?

[SharkVolt]

Well, at this particular event, he didn't run his Z, and I haven't seen the posted results for the event yet, but a Mazda Miata that is always very quick, (and probably similar in performance to his Z) got down to a mid 46 I believe, and a quick Volkswagon GTI was at about the same time, and both of them were using racing D.O.T. tires, which would usually be at least a couple of seconds quicker than stock street tires on the same cars. Both of those cars also have high performance shocks and improved suspensions. (anti-sway bars, improved alignment, etc.) And all of them were WAY louder than the Volt. lol. So the Volt did very well for it's first event with little preparation or mods.

And yep, that sounds about right for the average speed of the course. Top speed on the longest straight was probably about 55.

As a footnote I think the default class for small sedans like the Volt would be H-Stock, Which would be all sedans, not sports cars. So the Volt just might be a possible class leader. And an added benefit to the autocross fun is that you gain a lot of experience at hard braking, cornering and driving at the limit in a very safe and fun environment, which could be very valuable the next time you have to avoid becoming an accident. I highly recommend it.

Jerry. #536

[Carl S]

Sounds like a lot of fun! Would be great to see a video of the Volt taking hot laps!

Was the Volt being driven in charge depleting or charge sustaining mode? I know the 0-60 time is slightly faster when in CS mode, so I wonder if that would help the lap times?

01/20/2011 - (3400) Order Broadcast (Internal Plant Paperwork Order Produced) Order is sent to various build & supplier areas to bring order together

[SharkVolt]

Oops, forgot to include that info. The car was in full EV mode, so the engine never came on. In fact, I had enough range left to make it within a few miles of home, so I did use about 0.10 gallons of gas for the trip.

Oh, and one other bit of info, after the runs were over, I checked the range and found we had used up 13 miles of range to go roughly two miles actual distance, so full sport mode acceleration uses at least 6 times as much energy as normal driving, even though we were using low gear for extra regeneration. As a side note, it probably put 100 miles of tire wear on the car also.

I forgot to bring my video camera, dang it. Maybe some other time.

Jerry, #536

[Fluke]

Looks to me like someone has been autocrossing something in the Hamtramck assemblyplant parking lot already...

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...,0.007902&z=18

[Rusty]

Looks to me like someone has been autocrossing something in the Hamtramck assemblyplant parking lot already...

That's as likely for the Caddies they build there as for the Volts (I'd think somewhat more likely).

[volt11]

This is in no way to discourage the fun, but use of the car on a track or in competition can be grounds for denying warranty claims. If you're going to do this, you may want to be more discrete about it!

[igotzzoom]

This is in no way to discourage the fun, but use of the car on a track or in competition can be grounds for denying warranty claims. If you're going to do this, you may want to be more discrete about it!

Technically-speaking, yes. But, considering the relatively low top speed in an autocross course, and the fact that the most damaging thing you're likely to run into is some traffic cones, the likelihood that you'll do any damage to the level of a potential warranty claim is pretty low. I'll tell you what got me thinking of this is watching Edmunds Inside Line video road test of the Volt watching the slalom footage. The car looked like it had very little body roll (thanks to the low CG by virtue of the battery pack).

The Volt is one of the few vehicles I can think of that exceeds almost everyone's expectations based on published, objective performance data. Published performance figures simply cannot capture the experience of actually getting behind the wheel of this car.

[JohnK]

Looks to me like someone has been autocrossing something in the Hamtramck assemblyplant parking lot already...

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...,0.007902&z=18

In looking at that, I'm certainly glad that was in the main parking lot, not area 51 -- I'd hate that the 25 miles on the Volt pre-delivery are from racing.