my friend stuart paxed #1 at least once in his AWD talon. i rode with him
several times, and typical rules apply (go slow in slow parts and fast in
fast parts), but if he got into trouble he would straighten the wheel and
floor it.
i drove my brother's 1995 WRX (in new zealand and RHD!), and found it had so
much more traction than power i had to drive pretty wild, even upsetting the
suspension on purpose to get it loose enough so i could steer it. that car
has a spool in the rear! that one has the single large turbo, and required
left foot braking and mashing the throttle before you stopped braking and
long before an apex. great car though.
HTH,
-james "slip angle" creasy
PS stuart, incidently, even though he has access to cars like the E42 M3,
bentley arnage, V12 mercedes coupes, prefers to drive a 2002 WRX (or his
miata) we did a little stop light derby in it and polished off a porsche
911, and 300xz turbo and i forget what else. feels faster than 227 hp,
thats for sure.
----- Original Message -----
From: J C <veloimpreza@yahoo.com>
To: <ba-autox@autox.team.net>
Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2002 10:47 PM
Subject: The beauty of all wheel drive??? (long)
> I've been autocrossing for less than 2 years, I have
> 10 events under my belt so I'm a real newbie. I
> started out with a Lexus SC300 (manual) which was my
> first car with a stick (for 10 years I'd driven autos
> until I was "educated" by my friend and his 3rd gen
> RX-7). (I think) The Lex was a great car to get
> started with. Sure it was porky but for what it was,
> it was fairly neutral and it didn't bite you too bad
> when ya screwed up.
>
> I sold the Lex and bought a WRX in June (hey, I
> figured it wouldn't be long before I needed to renew
> my SCCA membership) as it's a lot more practical for a
> cycling, skiing, autocrosser!!! The Lex was a RWD car
> and the "standard" rules seemed to apply. Be smooth,
> blah blah blah, tire screeching means your scrubbing
> speed in the corners, etc. I always found that the
> slowest feeling run always ended up being my fastest.
> The same was true with the WRX on Sundays round, my
> fastest time (55.901) felt the slowest. Here's where
> I'm getting a little confused, the driving styles
> between the two cars seems to be completely opposite
> and the "rules" that people were teaching me don't
> seem to apply anymore. If you're smooth with the WRX
> it seems like you'll never get a good run. The car
> likes reward what in the Lex would have been very
> sloppy driving such as abrupt steering input in
> slaloms and wide open throttle through sweepers (the
> Lex would have gone in circles). The WRX on the other
> hand seems to LOVE this. My slowest run on Sunday
> (56.969) was smooth, no tire screeching (like I would
> have driven the Lex). On my fastest run I went with
> some suggestions from other Subaru drivers, put the
> car sideways on the sweepers and opened the throttle
> up all the way. I was actually embarrassed by all the
> tire screeching I was doing but it was my fastest run
> of the day (and like a good run in the Lex it felt the
> slowest... although the grin factor was MUCH higher
> :-D ).
>
> Obviously I'm comparing two VERY different animals
> here. I'm a little worried that I might start
> devoloping bad habits with this car that my be faster
> now, but ultimately slower in the long run. I wish I
> had some good specific questions to ask but I don't.
> So, I'd love to hear from people (especially the old
> timers and those who have some flavor of AWD car)
> about strategies for driving this car. It's a blast to
> drive and it clearly has TONS of potential with a good
> driver behind the wheel. If it matters my goals are to
> get a podium spot in DS-N this year and move on to DS
> in the slush series (so I can get my posterior handed
> to me). I'm not planning on any mods aside from race
> rubber when I get out of novice (there's plenty of
> good competition in stock and... cycling and skiing
> are already big enough money pits). Stock should be
> plenty entertaining for me. If I've learned anything
> so far about autocross it's that it's 90% driver and
> 10% car.
>
> Okay, thanks for reading, Joe
> And... see ya at autocross shcool (if my check makes
> it in time).
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