Can somebody explain PAX to me? (newbie)

[FifStreet]

I'm a newbie to autocross. I've searched on the SCCA website, but I can only find very very brief explanations of what PAX time is. I understand that there are classes for the cars. The stock CTR is D-street. When I drive my laps, there is a raw time. That time has some "Factor?" applied to it. For example on the results sheet for my last event my fastest lap was 68.346. To rank me against other drivers it is adjusted and my final number is 54.676.

Is that my "PAX" time?
Is the factor the same for all of D-street or is it car specific?
When results are calculated only your fastest lap is used?
How do they determine these factors?

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[Forcino]

PAX is a multiplier that makes all cars able to compete agains one another. Essentially its a handicap, with more power sports cars or fully prepped cars being more handicapped than me in my FWD family sedan so that I can be competitive against other cars when we are competing using PAX times.
In the attached image, I am competing in a PAX class at my local club, so by getting a pretty good time, and having a great PAX multiplier, I can beat prepped miatas and factory five roadsters that may have had a better time than me. The "factor" is the PAX number that the time is multiplied by to get the PAX time. If you look at my co-driver's time (38.7), her PAX time after the multiplier is 30.5
The PAX is class specific, so it is the same for all in DS, not for specific cars. Cars are classed based on where they would have a comparative multiplier based on times at nationals.
Typically it is the fastest time of the day that is used (as was the case in the times in the pic).

 

[destoups]

Yes, it's your paxed time. It's class specific. For final results only your fastest results would be used.
Factors are determined by one volunteer, Rick Ruth, who pulls local and Tour results and crunches a lot of numbers. At best it is a highly educated guess that allows a lot of classes to play together.

 

[RacingManiac]

@burglar http://strcarrera.blogspot.com/2013/04/pax-handicap-for-cars.html

FWIW, when you run nationally, PAX doesn't really matter since you only really race against people in your class and they award trophies and contingencies as such. It usually means a lot more locally as not all the classes are populated and it allows them to compile results relative to everyone.

Now its also a good way to sort of gauge improvement of your performance. You might know someone locally or nationally who is a consistent performer, and you can compare your time against that person on a PAX adjusted basis to see if the gap changes(especially if you end up running different cars or something).

 

[burglar]

I need to take down that blog.

 

[RacingManiac]

But why, so useful

 

[Neps18Si]

i always sucked in math

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