I gave auto-x another chance last weekend. It bonked pretty hard, and I’ve been reflecting all week as to why I had such a terrible time. Oddly enough, the best part was actually the drive up and back and spending time with people who I don’t see very often. Auto-x itself was terrible. It may have been the course, and it may have been the car. Either way, I came home thinking about ditching the WRX… disappointing, because I was totally in love with it prior.
The course was horrendously tight, and had a rhythm that seemed to accentuate the economy sedan nature of my car: slow steering, soft suspension and a non-responsive drivetrain. I think higher speeds go a long ways to mask these characteristics. I could blame the course and it’s multiple first gear slaloms and turn-arounds, but others driving ZN6’s or AP1’s seemed to be having a lot of fun. I on the other hand, thought more about going home… or to the Toyota dealership.
Not that September the time of year to move into a RWD coupe…
I must commend you for putting the Go Pro in an exciting place, at least. Everyone else seems to put it in a boring ass place.
You’ve pretty much gone the _opposite_ of conventional wisdom for setting up an autox Subaru, so should it be a surprise that it’s not great to autox?
If you’ve built a fun daily driver, or backroad attack machine shouldn’t it be enough that it does well at that?
I didn’t enjoy that course; I couldn’t find any rythm, and I was between gears all over the place. I am not sure that the course was a good one for evaluating your car (or any car).
It’s enough. I tested a ZN6 yet again, and in many ways enjoyed the drive there and home more with the WRX. Torque really makes street tooling fun, and the cabin of the ZN6 feels more uncomfortable… but that steering… and that gear box… and the placement of that break pedal…
I’ll probably do some tweaking on the GD, and carry on.